Study On Policies Of Natural Forest Conservation In The Upper Reaches Of The Yangtze River

This study concerns the policies about preservation of natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.The natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River have long been subjected to severe destruction, making the ecological environment fragile and accelerating its deterioration. Such a situation constitutes a great threat to the sustainable development of the middle and lower reaches as well as the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. That is why the preservation of natural forests in the upper reaches of the river is of far-reaching significance.In the present research, the theory of sustainable development, externality theory, institutional failure theory, the theory about social participation in forestry and the theories in ecological economics are employed to analyze the causes for the destruction of natural forests. Taking into account the impact of the program for protecting the forest resources in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the existing problems in this respect, the issue is examined in the background of the country's agriculture, national economy and the whole society. Comprehensive policy-making based on social and economic feasibility is advocated in which the theory and methods of social forestry should be adopted, the interests of the program implementers (forest farms, forestry industry enterprises and local farmers) should be taken into full consideration and their involvement and support should be rallied. It is attempted to define the goals for preservation of natural forests, design the relevant policies (compensation policies in natural forest preservation, input guarantee mechanisms and policies, the policies concerning the reposition of laborers, structural transformation offorestry management and the relevant policies, approaches and policies for restoring farmland to forests, the mechanisms and policies for public involvement) so as to make the best of the policies, perfect the institutional arrangement of preservation of natural forests, and realize both the permanent and temporary goals of a comprehensive management.The basic guideline and approach of the study is Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism. Based on investigations of farmer households and forestry enterprises and government behaviors and adopting the procedures of rural participatory assessment (PRA) in Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Yunnan, the author has studied the background for the program of protecting the natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, analyzed the causes for their destruction and the existing problems and obstacles in the conservation program and put forward the specific goals and measures of the forest preservation policies. The conclusions of the study are as follows.1. Destruction of the natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the causes for it.Analysis of the historical changes of the natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River reveals that their destruction has resulted from an over-felling of the trees over a long period of time. The most serious cases occurred in periods of 1912-1949, 1956-1966 and 1966-1976, and the early 1980's. There are a number of causes for this: (1) Population explosion led to destruction of forests for land reclamation and over-grazing. (2) Misguiding public policies, which manifest themselves in putting too much stress on "taking from the natural resources" and on timber-felling while neglecting "restoration to the natural resources" and re-afforestation, caused inadequate input of funds to afforestation due to the financial difficulties of the state. (3) The so-called "timber finance" practiced traditionally in the natural forest regions. (4) The defects in the management system of state-owned forests: the functions of government administration were confused with those of the enterprises; the enterprises were heavily burdened with various social duties and the government interfered too much in the management of the forestry enterprises while the...