Study On The Collective Forest Property Rights Security

In recent years,the population growth and forest degradation have put an increasing pressure on forest resources.Therefore,how to obtain these resources in a safe,fair and steady way plays a vital role in eradicating poverty and hunger as well as improving the environment and sustainable economic development.The forest ownership governance is gaining more attention from various countries.Since the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949,collective forest areas in southern China have carried out multiple reforms over property rights.On June 25,2003,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council made the Decision on Accelerating Forestry Development,which called for further reforms in the system,mechanism and policy of the forestry.Among them,the general requirements for the reform of collective forest property right were put forward,that is,"the clearer the property right,the better its concrete subject,and the better the implementation of the right to its dispose." Currently,the collective reform has achieved some results in which some collective forest areas with early implementation of reforms have basically completed the "clear property right" work,initially forming a set of clear collective forest property right system with peasant households as the main property right.Although the collective forest property right system has undergone several reforms,it still has some problems,such as unclear property right,non-implementation of management subjects,inflexible management mechanism,unreasonable distribution of interests and so on.Property right remains one of the main obstacles restricting the development of collective forestry in China.According to the relevant literature worldwide,the former property right school mainly emphasized that the clear definition of property right is the premise of market-oriented transactions,which paid too much attention to the nature of its market transactions while ignored the importance of its security.However,the security of property right is the core issue in economics for development,and an important factor for the sustainable and effective management of the forest.The main cause of property right is the insecurity of ownership.Land property right security includes legal,de facto and perceived property right security.Legal and de facto property right security play a role in the behavior subject through the perceived one,which has a direct decisive role in economic decision-making for the land of peasant households.On the one hand,the security and stability of property right is not only beneficial to economic development and poverty reduction,but also is promotive to the investment behavior of the subject of rights to improve the management and production efficiency of the peasant households.On the other hand,the security of land property right will further affect the transfer of land through the formation of production,transaction price and transaction cost effect.Therefore,exploring the security of collective forest property right is essential to comprehensively and scientifically evaluate the performance of collective forest property right reform.By introducing the concept of three-dimensional land property right security,this paper systematically examines the inherent logical relationship among legal,de facto and perceived property right security,and establishes the theoretical analysis framework of "property right security index decomposition and measurement—collective forest property right security argumentation—governance mechanism design".Based on the survey data of 500 peasant households in 10 counties and cities of Fujian Province,it uses relevant econometric models to conduct empirical tests to provide important guidance for better realizing the expectations of forest reform in the future.For this reason,this paper firstly sorts out the changes of collective forest property rights system since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,and analyzes the characteristics and laws of collective forest property rights reform in different periods.It is found that since the founding of New China,the reform of collective forest property rights system in China has undergone six stages: land reform,cooperation,people’s commune,forestry "three definitions","four wastes" governance and collective forest property rights system reform.The change of collective forest property rights presents a continuous process of "integration" and "division".Collective forest property rights system changes more frequently,but the frequency and characteristics of the changes are not the same in different periods.Secondly,beginning with the basic powers and functions as well as interests of property right,this paper theoretically analyzes the property right structure as well as the basic powers and functions of the complete collective forest property right,and discusses the legal conflicts between the upper-level legislation such as the Constitution,the Land Management Law and the main policy systems of collective forest from the perspective of law and economics.The results show that the ownership of collective forest property right has been basically clear,the definition of the basic powers and functions as well as interests of property right has been basically complete in law,but there remains some shortcomings such as unclear property right subjects,fuzzy boundaries of powers and functions,flawed circulation market of usage right,imperfect income distribution system and restrictions on the right to dispose.Moreover,the forestry laws and regulations in China have been relatively under-developed,leading to some conflicts between laws and policies on collective forest ownership,transfer of forest land contractual management right,and compensation right for public welfare forest expropriation.Therefore,the transformation and innovation of forestry legal system has become one of the vital tasks to reform the collective forest ownership system.Again,by selecting some typical cases of the conflict between legal and de facto property right of collective forest,this paper analyzes the areas and links of the conflict,and evaluates its degree and causes.The result shows that there is a certain disparity between the legal norms and the actual implementation of collective forest property right.The formal reform of the state’s forest tenure system is different from the informal one inherited by the village community,causing a large number of forest tenure disputes.The deviation between the formulation and implementation of the collective forest ownership reform policy leads to the huge difference between the implementation of the current state empowerment policy and the actual property rights of the peasant households.Due to the existence of the state and restrictive public spheres,it is inevitable that the current laws of forest land expropriation and occupation do not fit in well with their practice,thereby greatly damaging the legitimate rights and interests of forest farmers in land expropriation.Finally,based on the perception of the peasant households,this paper systematically investigates the perception level of the peasant households and influencing factors of collective forest property right security,and gives an in-depth discussion to the influencing mechanism of their perception of property right security on forest land management behavior.The results show that:(1)the possession of forest property warrant of the peasant households provides legal protection for their property rights,and has a positive and significant effect on their perception of property right security.The estimating coefficients of the two variables,their educational level and their status as rural cadres,are both positive and significant in the model,which demonstrate that the higher their educational level and social status,the better their understanding and absorption of forestry policies,and the stronger their security of property right will be.The proportion of forestry income in household income has a notable positive effect on their perception of property right security but which greatly and negatively influenced by the forest areas.(2)the perception of the peasant households’ property right security has a positive and significant effect on the labor and investment of forest land,which shows that the stronger security of forest land property right of the peasant households will considerably stimulate their investment behavior.In addition,the study also demonstrates that the possibility of the peasant households as rural cadres,their training of related forestry knowledge,and the area of forest land and other variables have a remarkable effect on their labor and investment.(3)The perceived variable of property right security has a positive and significant effect on the possibility of forest land transfer and its area of the peasant households.However,the estimated coefficients of the possibility of the peasant households as rural cadres for the possibility of forest land transfer and its area are all negative,and this variable has a great and negative influence on the possibility of forest land transfer.In addition,the distance between villages and townships has a positive and significant effect on the possibility of forest land transfer and its area.Based on the above research conclusions,the following policy recommendations are put forward:(1)accelerate the revision and improvement of forestry laws and regulations to ensure the integrity of collective forest property right structure.(2)respect and absorb the local experience of collective forest areas to improve the credibility of formal property right system.(3)fully understand and value the management decisions of forest farmers’ to improve the perception level of peasant household’s property right security.(4)further stabilize the contract operation of collective forest land to promote the production and operation of the forest land.(5)deepen the reform of collective forest right system to promote the transfer of the forest land in a standardized and orderly way.