China’s Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program for Household Delivery of Ecosystem Services: How Important is a Local Implementation Regime to Survival Rate Outcomes?

Forests

Michael T. Bennett²  Chen Xie¹  Nicholas J. Hogarth⁴  Daoli Peng³ 

[1] China National Forestry Economics and Development Research Center (FEDRC), Beijing 100714, China; E-Mail:;College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; E-Mail:;Beijing Forestry University (BFU), Beijing 100080, China; E-Mail:;Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor 16115, Indonesia; E-Mail:

关键词: China;    CCFP;    sloping land conversion program;    grain for green;    payments for ecosystem services;    rural smallholders;    institutions;    afforestation;    forest restoration;    agriculture;    tree survival;   

DOI  :  10.3390/f5092345

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

China’s Conversion of Cropland to Forests Program (CCFP) is the world’s largest afforestation-based Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program, having retired and afforested over 24 million ha involving 32 million rural households. Prior research has primarily focused on the CCFP’s rural welfare impacts, with few studies on program-induced environmental improvements, particularly at the household level. In this study, data from a 2010 survey covering 2808 rural households from across China was analyzed using an interval regression model to explain household-reported survival rates of trees planted on program-enrolled cropland. In addition to household-level factors, we explore the influence of local conditions and institutional configurations by exploiting the wide diversity of contexts covered by the data set. We find that households with more available labor and more forestry experience manage trees better, but that higher opportunity costs for both land and labor have the opposite effect. We also find that the local implementation regime- e.g., the degree of prior consultation with participants and regular monitoring - has a strong positive effect on reported survivorship. We suggest that the level of subsidy support to participating households will be key to survivorship of trees in planted CCFP forests for some time to come.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.