Micro-mechanism Of Forest Transition And Its Influencing Factors

In the fragile ecological environment, forest, as the dominant land ecosystem in the world, has the function to improve the environment and keep the balance of life system from local to global. At present, the total area of global forest has continued to decline, but forest transition, forest area are from shrinking to recovery growth, has appeared in many countries. Because of forest transition can bring more ecological environmental services (soil and water conservation, self-control water and so on), has been one of the focuses in relevant acadic circles. In the 1980s, forest transition appeared in China. At the beginning of forest transition, macro-mechanism (national policy) has played an important role. However, cultivated land resources of China are very scarce, so that cultivated land protection has close relations with our food safety. Therefore, the study of the micro-mechanism of China’s forest transition is very important.Chongqing city is located in the upper reaches of yangtze river, who assumes a great mission for the ecological security of three gorges area and the Middle-Lower reaches of the Yangtze river. Moreover, the ecological security of Chongqing city is very poor. After the big flood calamity occurred in 1988, the ecological environment construction in Chongqing got unprecedented attention, the government began to orderly implement return farmland to forests and grasslands, wildwood resource protection project, and forest engineering to protect wildwood resource. Since 2005, forest area of Chongqing city present net increase year by year. Forest coverage increased from 23.1% in 2000 to 42.1% in 2012, of which barren hills and wasteland contributed to 40%, afforestation of woodland is 28%, and other factors contributed to 32%. However, there is still a lack of systematic study about these other factors. This dissertation selects two-wing region of Chongqing, where the economic development is relatively poor and rural population is large, as a study. Around other pathes of forest transition and 1015 farmer questionnaires, this paper finds four micro-mechanisms which are firewood substitute, farmland abandoned, decrease in the number of livestock and fruit planting, respectively. At last, using the way of econometrics, this paper quantitative analysis the influenccing factor, in order to provide policy suggestion for speeding up forest vegetation restoration. The results show that:(1) Compared with 2003, farm household gradually increased the use of high quality energy and new energy, and reduce the firewood consumption in 2011. Although firewood consumption has a large degree of decline, but famer household didn’t give up using firewood. In 2011, firewood is still widely used energy type for farmer household, and the proportion of firewood consumption is still high. Tobit model shows that non-farm employment can significantly reduce firewood consumption by reducing the proprtion of agricultural labor force and improving the level of non-farm vage. In addition, control variables also have significantly effect on firewood consumption. Age of household head, cultivated land area and distance from market all have significantly positive effect on firewood consumption. Liquefied petroleum gas stoves, others income (government sudsidies and relatives support and so on), energy policy (such as marsh gas) and availability of alternative energy sources (such as liquefied peroleum gas and coal) all have significant negative effect on firewood consumption. However, Education of household head, household scale, household livestock number, number of household electrical appliances, roal and forest coverage all are not significant.(2)Because of the land are fragmentation, poor and slope in study area, the phenomenon of cultivated land abandonment is general. Among all the culivated land, famer household mainly abandoned the polt that has small area and is far from home. Due to local topography, dry land are more than paddy field. In addition, areas of cultivated land abandonment increase with time. Cultivated land abandonmet are affected by many factors. Probit model shows that non-farm employment can lead to cultivated land abondonment by reducing the proprtion of agricultural labor force and improving the level of non-farm vage. However, the proprtion of agricultural labor force are not significant due to land transfer. Among other influencing factors, micro tillage machine, crop income, area of land transfer-out, and two dummy variables (Wulong county and Wushan county), all have significant negative effect on the behavior of rural households’ abandonment. Other income and wild boar damage both have significant positive effect on the behavior of rural households’ abandonment. However, age of household head, education of household, household size, livestock breeding income, roal and distance from market all have on significant effect.(3)Most of farm household breed livestock in 2011. Among livestock, breeding pigs are general. In the past ten years, most of farm households have reduced the number of livestock breeding. Probit model shows that, farm household gave up breeding livestock are mainly affected by non-farm employment, which mainly embodies the decline of agricultural labor force and improvement of living standard. Farm household breeds livestock are also affected by other factors. Age of household head, household size, breeding livestock income all have significant positive effect on behavor of farmer household breeding livestock. Behavior of abandonment, crop income, other income and dummay variable Wulong county all have significant negative effect on the behavior of breeding livestock. Education of household head, distance from market, road and dummay variable Wushan county have no significant effect.Due to the dragging transportation facility and poor market economy, horticulture development is still at beginning, which mianly reflected in number of household, size, technology and investment of fruit planting. But with the support of government policy, and the improvenment of living standard and market awareness, horticulture gradually began to develop.