Forest Protection Program Research Articles

Maximizing conservation and in-kind cost share: Applying Goal Programming to forest protection

Abstract This research evaluates the potential gains in benefits from using Goal Programming to preserve forestland. Two- and three-dimensional Goal Programming models are developed and applied to data from applicants to the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Legacy Program, the largest forest protection program in the United States. Results suggest that not only do these model yield substantial increases in benefits, but by being able to account for both environmental benefits and in-kind partner cost share, Goal Programming may be flexible enough to facilitate adoption by program managers needing to account for both ecological and political factors.

Land use change and soil erosion in the Maotiao River watershed of Guizhou Province

Due to the extremely poor soil cover, a low soil-forming rate, and inappropriate intensive land use, soil erosion is a serious problem in Guizhou Province, which is located in the centre of the karst areas of Southwest China. In order to bring soil erosion under control and restore environment, the Chinese Government has initiated a serious of ecological rehabilitation projects such as the Grain-for-Green Programme and Natural Forest Protection Program and brought about tremendous influences on land-use change and soil erosion in Guizhou Province. This paper explored the relationship between land use and soil erosion in the Maotiao River watershed, a typical agricultural area with severe soil erosion in central Guizhou Province. In this study, we analyzed the spatio-temporal dynamic change of land-use type in Maotiao River watershed from 1973 to 2007 using Landsat MSS image in 1973, Landsat TM data in 1990 and 2007. Soil erosion change characteristics from 1973 to 2007, and soil loss among different land-use types were examined by integrating the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with a GIS environment. The results indicate that changes in land use within the watershed have significantly affected soil erosion. From 1973 to 1990, dry farmland and rocky desertified land significantly increased. In contrast, shrubby land, other forestland and grassland significantly decreased, which caused accelerated soil erosion in the study area. This trend was reversed from 1990 to 2007 with an increased area of land-use types for ecological use owing to the implementation of environmental protection programs. Soil erosion also significantly varied among land-use types. Erosion was most serious in dry farmland and the lightest in paddy field. Dry farmland with a gradient of 6°-25° was the major contributor to soil erosion, and conservation practices should be taken in these areas. The results of this study provide useful information for decision makers and planners to take sustainable land use management and soil conservation measures in the area.

Impact of Natural Forest Protection Program policies on forests in northeastern China

This study analyzes the effects of the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) on the restoration of forest resources in the northeastern forest region of China, an important region because of its ecological and geographical location and timber supply in China, by using panel data sets of 35 forest farms of state-owned forest enterprises. Panel data analysis results show that related policies under the NFPP have had positive effects on forest resources. Planting activity had a statistically significant effect on forest growth and could be reinforced continually by planting tree species suitable for a warming climate in temperate forests. Forest management and protection played a powerful role in increasing the growing stock of the forests. In NFPP areas timber harvests, after implementation of the NFPP, were a positive factor in increasing forest resources if the harvests combined effective tending and thinning under a carefully guided management plan.

When should households be compensated for land-use restrictions? A decision-making framework for Chinese forest policy

Competing uses of land mean that regulations aimed at environmental conservation often conflict with the land-use rights of rural households. Several reports suggest that this has occurred with the introduction of the Natural Forest Protection Programme (NFPP) in China, one of the world's largest logging ban programmes. This paper investigates whether households should be compensated for infringements on property rights, drawing on institutional economics literature on regulation. We distinguish between cases where regulation solves local collective action problems and increases the welfare of those affected, and those where regulation involves a redistribution of rights from one group to another. We apply this to the NFPP by estimating the net welfare impacts, using household level stated preference data with econometric techniques that explicitly account for zero and negative values of the dependent variable. We find that the ban on logging does not affect the net welfare of the affected forest communities. This indicates that the losses resulting from the restrictions on property rights are offset by the benefits from restrictions on other local households. We also find evidence that a partial reduction in logging would be welfare increasing, indicating that the NFPP is to some extent addressing local collective action problems in forest areas. Broader implications for the question of compensating for infringement of property rights as the result of regulatory interventions in contexts of institutional imperfections are also drawn.

An attribute-based approach to contingent valuation of forest protection programs

Abstract The hemlock woolly adelgid is an invasive insect that is damaging hemlock forests in the eastern United States. Several control methods are available but forest managers are constrained by cost, availability, and environmental concerns. As a result forest managers must decide how to allocate limited conservation resources over heterogeneous landscapes. We develop an attribute-based contingent valuation approach that allows us to perform cost-benefit analysis on control programs and inform the distribution of mitigation effort over land units that provide different types of environmental services. We use this approach to examine conservation efforts on three land management units in the southern Appalachian Mountains: Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. Managers of these forests are focusing their efforts on specific conservation areas chosen for their importance to human-use or ecological services. The result is a network of sites that implicitly defines a tradeoff between ecological and human-use services. Our survey is designed to examine the public's perception of this tradeoff and estimate WTP for hemlock conservation programs. The estimated benefits of conserving hemlocks in the study area outweigh the cost of the mitigation programs by two orders of magnitude. We find that there is substantial support for protection of hemlock stands providing ecological services with very little human-use value. Further, we show that benefits from the current mitigation strategy could be increased by shifting effort to protect more ecological services at the expense of sites that generate primarily human-use value.

Study on China's Timber Resource Shortage and Import Structure: Natural Forest Protection Program Outlook, 1998 to 2008

The state of China's ecological environment has improved to some extent since the Chinese government initiated the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) in 1998. The logging prohibition and limitation policies adopted by the NFPP, however, have reduced domestic timber supply. Together with the thriving economy, decreasing domestic timer supply continues to widen the gap between supply and demand. Importation is considered to be the primary solution to this issue, making China the world's largest timber importer. China's major timber suppliers are Russia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, and Gabon, among which Russia accounts for more than 61 percent of China's total timber imports. The relatively cheaper conifers imported from Russia account for more than 60 percent of all imported timber, with volumes continually increasing because of the rapid pace at which China has been implementing its infrastructure projects. In addition, as living standards continue to improve, requirements for home decor and furniture also grow, further increasing the demand for tropical to temperate timber. In the long term, imports will remain the main solution to the insufficient domestic timber supply in China.

How will low-intensity burning after clear-felling affect mid-boreal insect assemblages?

Intensive forest management and fire protection programs have dramatically reduced the frequency of fires and this is believed to have negative effects on biodiversity. As a result, fire is used as a restoration tool to improve conditions for fire adapted/favoured species. The aim of our study was to determine how burning of clear-felled areas (i.e. those typical of real-world management in Fennoscandinavia) influenced beetle assemblages, and to identify taxonomic and functional groups and individual species that are favoured by burning as it is currently practiced. We studied five sites, each consisting of one burned and one unburned clear-cut. Beetles were collected in sixteen pitfall traps per site for three consecutive years. Regardless of whether beetles were divided into taxonomic or functional groups, abundance was generally higher on burned clear-cuts, with the exception of Staphylinidae which showed indications of an opposite response. The species assemblages differed significantly between burned and control clear-cuts in all years. The species contributing most to the difference included Corticaria ferruginea, Pterostichus adstrictus, Corticaria rubripes, Atomaria pulchra and Hylobius abietes (all more common on burned clear-cuts), and Drusilla canaliculata and Atomaria peltata (more common on controls). We also found a succession of species, i.e. Otiorhynchus nodosus and Anthicus ater became dominant species on burned clear-cuts the third year after burning whereas C. ferruginea and A. pulchra became scarce. In conclusion, clear-cut burning clearly changed the assemblage composition of beetles and seems to benefit at least some species associated with natural fires. Thus, although clear-cut burning cannot exactly emulate the effect of natural fires it could be used as a restoration tool for improving the quality of the matrix outside protected areas and in particular to create habitats for disturbance-associated species, including species associated with fire.

An Estimation of the Effects of China’s Priority Forestry Programs on Farmers’ Income

In the late 1990s, the Chinese government initiated some new programs and consolidated other existing ones of ecological restoration and resource development in its forest sector, and renamed them as "Priority Forestry Programs," or PFPs. They include the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP), the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), the Desertification Combating Program around Beijing and Tianjin (DCBT), the Shelterbelt Development Program (SBDP), and the Wildlife Conservation and Nature Reserve Development Program (WCNR). In addition to improving the environmental and resource conditions, a frequently reiterated goal of these PFPs is to increase rural households' income, therefore discussing why looking at rural household income impacts might be an important part of forest program evaluation. Thus, an interesting and important question is: How has implementing the PFPs affected the farmers' income and poverty status? This article addresses this question using a fixed-effects model and a panel dataset that covers 1968 households in four provinces for ten consecutive years (1995-2004). The empirical evidence indicates that their effects are mixed. The SLCP, the SBDP, and the NFPP have made positive impact and, by far, the SLCP has the largest effect. But the WCNR and the DCBT still have not had a pronounced overall effect due to their short time span of execution, even though they may have exerted certain influence at the margin. Notably, the impact of the WCNR, if any, is negative.

Assessing China’s Ecological Restoration Programs: What’s Been Done and What Remains to Be Done?

This article surveys the recent literature that has assessed China's ecological restoration programs, including the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP). Our presumption is that the performance of these programs should be determined by their effectiveness of implementation and significance of impact. Implementation effectiveness can be measured with such indicators as land area converted or conserved, and survival and stocking rates of restored vegetation, while impact significance can be gauged by the induced changes in ecosystem functionality and stability (erosion control, biodiversity protection, etc.) and socioeconomic conditions. Coupling this matrix with an exhaustive search of the publications, we find that: (1) the implementation effectiveness has not been examined as extensively as the impact significance; (2) efforts to assess the impact significance have concentrated on the SLCP, particularly its socioeconomic effects: growth of income, alternative industry, and employment, and likelihood of re-conversion; and (3) most of the socioeconomic studies are based on rural household surveys and discrete choice and difference in differences models. While much has been learned from previous studies, a lot more needs to be done in improving our understanding of the program execution and impacts. Future work should pay more attention to the NFPP and other programs, and the environmental impacts and the implementation effectiveness of all of them. To these ends, analysts must gather more field data regarding the evolving ecosystem conditions and socioeconomic information of higher aggregation, and conduct their research across scales and disciplines, with better application of geospatial technology and more effective modeling.

China’s Primary Programs of Terrestrial Ecosystem Restoration: Initiation, Implementation, and Challenges

China has undertaken several major programs of terrestrial ecosystem restoration (ERPs) in recent years, including the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP). There have been reports on the implementation of these programs, their preliminary impacts, and the problems encountered in carrying them out; a great deal has been learned from these studies. Nonetheless, China's ERPs are not limited to the NFPP and the SLCP. Because a complete documentation and a timely update of these major efforts are still missing from the literature, it is difficult to gauge the scope of these programs and the scale of their impacts. In addition, a more thorough and critical analysis of both the general ERP policy and the specific technical measures used in implementing the ERPs remains urgently needed. The purpose of this article is to tackle these tasks. Overall, with the huge government investments in the ERPs, tremendous progress has been made in implementing them. To complete them successfully and to fundamentally improve the targeted ecosystems, however, it is essential for China to have a more balanced and comprehensive approach to ecological restoration. This approach must include: adopting better planning and management practices; strengthening the governance of program implementation; emphasizing the active engagement of local people; establishing an independent, competent monitoring network; and conducting adequate assessments of program effectiveness and impact.

Evaluation of the Impact of the Natural Forest Protection Program on Rural Household Livelihoods

In this study, we estimated the impact on local household livelihoods of the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP), which is the largest logging-ban program in the world, which aims to protect watersheds and conserve natural forests. In doing so, we used a series of microeconometric policy-evaluation techniques to assess the impacts of the NFPP on two interrelated facets of household livelihoods: income and off-farm labor supply. We found that the NFPP has had a negative impact on incomes from timber harvesting but has actually had a positive impact on total household incomes from all sources. Furthermore, we found that off-farm labor supply outside the village has increased more rapidly in NFPP than in non-NFPP areas. Based on these results, policy implications for household livelihoods were drawn and are presented herein.

Potential Impact of Afforestation on Water Yield in the Subalpine Region of Southwestern China1

Abstract: To combat its growing ecological problems, China has implemented a large‐scale Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP). Under the umbrella of this program, the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) was established in 1999 to return cultivated land with slopes of 25° or more to perennial vegetation. However, the regional impacts on water resource management that are incurred by afforestation have not been carefully evaluated, especially in the subalpine region of southwestern China. The purpose of the present study was to provide reference values for the SLCP by evaluating the potential impact of afforestation on water yield under different climatic regimes. Accordingly, evapotranspiration (ET) in cropland (CL), shrubland, and general forest was calculated using a modification of Thornthwaite’s method, and in coniferous forest, broad‐leaved forest (BF), and mixed coniferous and broad‐leaved forest (MF) using the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) model. The results of both approaches showed that afforestation reduces water yield by 9.6‐24.3% depending on the types of conversion and climatic conditions. Water‐yield reduction is greatest (>143.4 mm, or 24.3%) when CL is converted to BF in dry climate conditions. Compared with the other forest types studied, coniferous plantations prevented water‐yield reduction by as much as 9.6% because of their relatively low levels of ET. It is expected that implementation of the SLCP, together with continuing climate change, will further pressure regional water resources. Thus, the effectiveness of afforestation must be evaluated in a broader context while taking into account its positive ecological aspects, such as soil‐erosion control, the preservation of biodiversity, and the significant carbon sequestration provided by forests.

Reforestation programs in Southwest China: Reported success, observed failure, and the reasons why

Ever since the disastrous floods of 1998, the Chinese government has used the Natural Forest Protection and Sloping Land Conversion Programs to promote afforestation and reforestation as means to reduce runoff, control erosion, and stabilize local livelihoods. These two ambitious programs have been reported as large-scale successes, contributing to an overall increase in China's forest cover and to the stated goals of environmental stabilization. A small-scale field study at the project level of the implementation of these two programs in Baiwu Township, Yanyuan County, Sichuan, casts doubt upon the accuracy and reliability of these claims of success; ground observations revealed utter failure in some sites and only marginal success in others. Reasons for this discrepancy are posited as involving ecological, economic, and bureaucratic factors. Further research is suggested to determine whether these discrepancies are merely local aberrations or represent larger-scale failures in reforestation programs.

Sustainability assessment for Yanbian forest region, Jilin Province, Northeast China, based on ecological footprint model

Ecological footprint (EF) is one of the most important indicators in assessing the status and capacity of sustainable development. In this paper, the EF of Yanbian forest region, Jilin Province, Northeast China, was calculated and analyzed by statistical yearbooks and forest yearbooks from 1996 to 2002. Results showed that the EF per capita decreased, ecological carrying capacity (ECC) per capita almost kept a static status, and ecological surplus per capita increased year after year. The EF per 10 thousand Yuan GDP per capita in Yanbian decreased from 1996 to 2002. This trend was similar to that in western China, and distinctly higher than that in eastern China. The forest EF per capita kept a steady status, while the forest production footprint (FPF) and forest export footprint (FEF) decreased. Comparing the two years before and after the implementation of Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) with the five years, the mean va1ue of FPF and FEF reduced by 0.341 (46.32%) and 0.327 hm2 per capita (54.94%), respectively. In conclusion, the regional and forest development in Yanbian was sustainable, and the implementation of NFPP was favorable to improving sustainable development of forest region. However, the sustainability capacity was still lower than those in forest developed countries. Therefore, it is very necessary to improve forest productivity, resource use efficiency and management of forest ecosystems scientifically.

Measuring the socioeconomic impacts of China's Natural Forest Protection Program

China has been implementing one of the world's largest ecological rehabilitation projects, the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP), to improve its fragile and precarious environmental conditions. This paper measures the socioeconomic impacts of the NFPP using input–output (I–O) models. We find that the NFPP will expand the annual output of the forest sectors by 5.8 billion Yuan and the whole economy by 8.9 billion Yuan by 2010. Employment will increase by 0.84 million in the forest sectors and by 0.93 million in the whole economy. Associated with the enormous expansion of forest protection and management are huge contributions to mitigating water runoff, soil erosion, flooding, and biodiversity loss. The investments and adjustments are thus worthwhile, if the program is properly implemented. The challenges are to transform loggers into tree planters and forest managers and to ensure that the financial and institutional commitments by the local and national governments will be materialized.

Evaluation of Soil Fertility Under Different Cupressus chengiana Forests Using Multivariate Approach

The distribution and growing conditions of Cupressus chengiana forests along with the physical and chemical properties of soils in Northwest Sichuan were studied in 2002 to investigate the conditions and characteristics of soil fertility of C. chengiana and to compare and investigate differences of soil fertility for six C. chengiana populations and their relationships with vegetation, climate and disturbance. The results of the study at 0-20 cm soil depth showed that 1) significant differences (P < 0.05) existed among populations for soil bulk density, soil total porosity, capillary porosity, maximum water-holding capacity, capillary water-holding capacity and topsoil natural water content; 2) chemical characteristics of soil organic matter, total N, total P, alkali-hydrolyzable N, available P, available K and cation exchange capacity were significantly different among the populations; and 3) based on the significant effect of soil fertility factors on forest growth, soil physical and chemical characteristics could be selected as an integrated fertility index (IFI) for evaluation of different C. chengiana populations. Principal component and cluster analyses showed significant differences probably due to the difference of vegetation conditions, management measurements, human-induced disturbances and environmental factors. In order to protect the soil ecological functions in fragile ecological regions, C. chengiana could be used in programs enclosing the hill for natural afforestation, natural forest protection programs, and programs replacing agriculture with afforestation measures.

Natural forest conservation hierarchical program with neural network

In this paper, the implementing steps of a natural forest protection program grading (NFPPG) with neural network (NN) were summarized and the concepts of program illustration, patch sign unification and regression, and inclining factor were set forth. Employing Arc/Info GIS, the tree species diversity and rarity, disturbance degree, protection of channel system, and classification management in the Maoershan National Forest Park were described, and used as the input factors of NN. The relationships between NFPPG and above factors were also analyzed. By artificially determining training samples, the NFPPG of Moershan National Forest Park was created. Tested with all patches in the park, the generalization of NFPPG was satisfied. NFPPG took both the classification management and the protection of forest community types into account, as well as the ecological environment. The excitation function of NFPPG was not seriously saturated, indicating the leading effect of the inclining factor on the network optimization.

Effects on the economy of a decrease in forest resources: An international comparison

Severe deforestation has prompted consensus among governments on the need to conserve and rehabilitate forest. As a consequence policy responses have been implemented to maintain and restore national forest stocks. However, forest protection programs and the political processes underlying them have initially given too limited attention to the related economic consequences. Conservationist policies often decrease the forest resources which means not only a decrease in the forest sector's output but also on the total economy. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate, through the consistency and flexibility of the Input–Output (I–O) approach, the potential contracting effect from a disruption of a supply of the forest resources on the rest of the economy. With this aim the I–O methodology is applied to several countries of the European Union (EU) where the forest sector takes on the most importance.

Post-Frontier Forest Change Adjacent to Braulio Carrillo National Park, Costa Rica

Effective biodiversity conservation in national parks depends to a large extent on adjacent forest cover. While deforestation and forest fragmentation as a result of colonization and agriculture have been widespread in neotropical countries over the past few decades, in some places agricultural intensification, wage labor, and rural to urban migration are becoming the most important emerging trends. Changes like this have resulted in forest recovery in other places, mostly in temperate zones, but there have been few studies of this phenomenon in the tropics. This paper presents a case study from a national park buffer zone in Costa Rica. An expansion of Braulio Carrillo National Park (BCNP) in 1986 forced the closing of a frontier that had been characterized by spontaneous colonization and widespread forest-to-pasture conversion. After that time, the Sarapiqui region surrounding the northern sector of BCNP underwent a dramatic social and economic transformation. Population more than doubled, new roads created easy access to a coastal port and the capital city (San Jose), industrial agriculture and ecotourism enterprises expanded, and population and urbanization along major highways increased. In spite of government reforestation and forest protection programs and changes in rural people's attitudes favoring forest conservation, we find that there has been only slight detectable forest recovery in satellite imagery and that forest fragmentation continued, even in remote rural areas near BCNP with stable or shrinking population. We attribute this to the consolidation of landholdings into large cattle ranches and smaller hobby ranches, driven by an inflow of capital from urban areas and developed countries. This pattern has important implications for the management of this and other national park buffer zones. We suggest that strategies focused only on sustainable land use inside buffer zones are unlikely to succeed when carried out in a context of certain macro-level changes. Conservation of endangered biological resources will only be possible if we broaden our thinking about national parks and adjacent lands in the tropics to address new land ownership and use patterns that are occurring as a result of globalization, urbanization, and expanding wage labor employment.

China's ecological rehabilitation: Unprecedented efforts, dramatic impacts, and requisite policies

China has undertaken two of the world's largest ecological rehabilitation projects—the Natural Forest Protection Program and the Sloping Land Conversion Program. This paper presents our historic perspective on the two projects, reports their preliminary impacts, and discusses the challenges in carrying them out, including the “top–down” administration, lack of interagency cooperation and long-term planning, and neglect of appropriate technical practices and market-based approaches. We argue that if properly implemented, these projects can contribute to China and the world in combating the pressing environmental problems of soil erosion, flooding, and desertification as well as climate change and loss of biodiversity. To implement the projects properly, however, major policy and technical changes must be made.