Sustainable Forest Management in China: Achievements in the Past and Challenges Ahead

Abstract

China has made great strides in increasing its forested area and standing volume over the past two decades, largely attributed to sustainable forest management. Forest management in China has gone through two stages, i.e. timber-oriented forest management that once caused several problems such as depletion of forest resources, soil erosion and desertification before 1990s, and sustainable forest management after the 1990s. The practice of sustainable forest management in China mainly includes continuous efforts through government initiatives to restore degraded landscapes and encourage production orientated plantations through its six key forestry programs, providing policies, encouraging community-based forest management, and individualizing forest management in collective forest regions. In spite of the achievements made in sustainable forest management, China is still faced with challenges, including limited suitable areas for afforestation/reforestation, balancing the demands between economic requirements and ecological needs from forests, improving the quality of forests to improve its protective functions and ecosystem services. Therefore, innovations need to be explored for the country’s sustainable forest management in the future.

On November 17, 2009, State Forestry Administration of China (SFA) officially released the 7th (2004–2008) National Forest Inventory (NFI) data to the public in Beijing (SFA 2009a). The outcomes of NFI show that China’s forest area and forest stock volume (or the standing inventory of trees) has been increasing steadily since the forest area and stock volume increase of the 4th NFI (1989–1993). China’s sustainable forest management system has therefore made great contributions to the “dual increase” of both the forest area and forest stock volume.