Theoretical And Experiential Research On Social Impact Evaluation For Conversion Of Cropland Into Forestland Program

In the late 20th century, six key forestry programs have been implemented in China. All of them, conversion of cropland into forestland program (CCFP) is the vastest ecological construction project of area, scope, investment, policy. Meantime it involves the personal interests of farmers and is the most possibility of rebound. CCFP has the characteristics of long, scope, universality, complexity, and commonweal. CCFP was begun as experiment in 1999, and had been completely implemented in 2002. Soon after, the ecological impact and economic impact of CCFP had been widely recognized; meanwhile, its social impact was becoming a focus of attention by all fields of society. But up to now, theoretical and experiential research on social impact evaluation of CCFP lag relatively, which is becoming a problem that cumbering integrative benefits scale and sustainable development of CCFP. Under the theoretical direction of sociology, development economics and public policy science, in this paper, theory system and index system of social impact evaluation of CCFP was discussed; furthermore, by using tectonic evaluation index system and integrative evaluation model, three counties (Guyuan, Changping and Zhongmou) were chosen as cases, and the social impact of CCFP in different zone was analyzed. In this study, using theoretical and experiential research methods, we not only uncovered questions exist in CCFP, but also provided our suggestion, which would be very useful to afford consultation and reference for perfecting the policy of CCFP.CCFP is an important public investment project in China, and its social impact will exist for a long time. So it is a very important and realistic problem to analyze the social impact of CCFP from both theoretical and experiential perspectives, which is an urgent requirement to promoting theories and methods for social impact evaluation, and has vital significance in theory, practice and policy.Evaluating the social impact of CCFP needs many theories and methods of sociology, development economics and public policy science and so on, and is to analyze the contribution and effect of program since it started under the guide of sustainable development ideas. The types of evaluation can be divided into different levels and stages. The evaluation of different levels is to analyze the social contribution and effect in different arrangements. And the evaluation of different stages is to analyze the social contribution and effect in the different period of the program construction. The content of the evaluation can be divided into three levels in different arrangements, which are national, regional and communal (mainly countries). And it also can be divided in different characters, such as advantaged and disadvantaged, direct and indirect short-term and long-term and so on.Under the guide of relative theories and practices, the index systems of social impact evaluation of CCFP are built both in the type of describing index system and the type of exponential index system, by using induction principle and deductive theory. The former is mainly in describing analysis, including 1 overall index, 5 domanial indexes, 15 compound indexes and 40 material indexes. And the latter is mainly in integrative analysis, built based on the former, including 1 overall index, 5 domanial indexes and 15 compound indexes.After finish setting the weight of indexes and un-dimension of them, an integrative social impact evaluation model for CCFP is built by using the methods of linear weighting and function.The social impact of CCFP in selected counties, Guyuan county in Hebei province, Changping district in Beijing and Zhongmu county in Henan province, is evaluated and analyzed on the basis of theoretical study. There are many active effects to the social development of counties since CCFP started in these regions. It is beneficial to social structure adjustment and optimization, encourages local economic sustainable development, improves the rural population quality and life quality, and promotes the country's social progress. With deepening development of CCFP, the social impact of CCFP is increased more and more. The social impact in the bigger tasks and lagged in economics areas is greater than the smaller tasks and better economics areas.As the result of theoretical and experiential analysis, aiming at solving problem existed in CCFP, such as policy establishment and implement and relative match measures, the thesis put forward some suggestions, including adjusting correlative policies, making an overall handle on the related interests relationships, and ascertaining the match supporting measures and so on.