China's forest resources have been and continue to be threatened. The analysis of the various reported statistics, while often conflicting, does indicate significant challenges ahead for the forest to supply the material for industrial, non-industrial, fuelwood and conservation objectives. Given forecasted constraints on domestic fibre supply for at least two decades there could be a significant increase demand for logs and forest products from China's trading partners. Overall this paper indicates the challenge in reaching more specific conclusions since there are serious data discrepancies in all major statistical areas. These discrepancies must be addressed before a clear set of land and sustainable development policies can be created.

China's timber market system has undertaken reforms as China adopts market liberalisation. Timber production and distribution were monopolised by the government prior to the 1980s but a gradual transition from state allocation to market liberalisation occurred during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Currently timber producers are allowed to market their timber directly to different buyers, although timber harvest and transport remain under state supervision.

Both China's primary wood processing industry and wood consuming sectors have experienced rapid growth. Meanwhile, China's imports of forest products has been growing, driven by the combined forces of a strong demand for timber products by domestic industries (including construction, furniture and panel) together with limited domestic productive forest resources. The government's efforts in establishment of commercial timber resources by fast growing plantations aim to reduce the imports. However, the gap between domestic supply and demand will continue to be filled by imports in the near future.

This study analyzes trends in China's forest product imports between 1997 and 2003 by both product segment and ports of entry. The same information is provided for each of the main Asia-Pacific countries supplying China. A high growth was experienced in China's forest product imports between 1997 and 2003 in both timber products and pulp and paper. Logs, lumber, and pulp are the most rapidly growing import segments as China moves towards handling more of the processing of forest products itself. Forest-rich countries in the Asia-Pacific region are playing an increasingly important role in supplying China's expanding demand.

Ocean ports in the Shanghai-Jiangsu and South China regions have maintained their leading role in the forest product trade. These have been joined more recently, and in some cases surpassed, by inland ports in Northeast China, which have been catapulted to leading roles by the booming border trade with Russia.

Over 70% of China's timber product imports are supplied by countries in the Asia Pacific region, and China is the dominant forest product market for many of these countries. Unsustainable harvesting practices, illegal logging, and negative impacts on community livelihoods plague many of these supplying countries. The countries may be divided into those still harvesting and exporting timber from natural forests on a large scale and those which have gone past their highest levels of natural forest timber harvesting and are now more aggressively pursuing plantation development and processing. Apart from Russia, China's top Asia Pacific timber suppliers could at best maintain current supply, with natural forest resources being depleted in less than 20 years. Resource limits also constrain expansion and/or long-term continuation of processed product export to China. Greater attention and action on the part of governments, market leaders, and international organizations is needed to address negative impacts, shifting supply to a sustainable, legal, and equitable basis and to determine from where China's long-term supply will come.

This study summarizes recent trends in China's paper and paperboard sector and projects supply and demand for each of the major grades through 2010. Baseline projections suggest that China's aggregate demand will grow from 48.0 million tonnes in 2003 to 68.5 million tonnes per year in 2010. With domestic production projected to reach 62.4 million tonnes per year, China is expected to dominate global capacity expansion for most major grades. China's annual demand for fibre furnish across all grades is projected to rise from 40.2 million tonnes in 2003 to reach 59.6 million tonnes by 2010. Of this, approximately 58 % will come from recovered paper, 25 % from wood-based pulp, and 17 % from nonwood pulp. This rapid growth has far-reaching implications for forest sustainability and rural livelihoods both within China and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. It will place new strains on China's domestic wood supply and may exacerbate forest conversion and illegal logging in key supplier countries, in addition to providing both threats and potential income opportunities for smallholder tree growers.

The Chinese government is aggressively promoting development of a domestic wood pulp industry, integrated with a plantation-based fiber supply and downstream paper production. It is doing so by providing discounted loans from state banks, fiscal incentives, and capital subsidies for establishment of at least 5.8 million hectares of fast-growing pulpwood plantations. This article examines the development of bleached hardwood kraft pulp (BHKP) mills in South China, including the Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Jinhai mill in Hainan Province and the proposed Fuxing pulp mill project in Guangdong Province. Both mills face fiber shortfalls over the medium term, and significant new investments in plantation development will be needed to provide a sustainable fiber supply at the mills? projected capacity levels. However, there are few sites in southern coastal China where fiber can be grown at internationally competitive costs. In most instances, the cost of Chinese plantation pulpwood will be considerably higher than in countries like Indonesia and Brazil, raising important questions about the economic competitiveness of Chinese pulp producers even within their home market.

Collective forests form the majority of China's forested area and have proven to be critical in maintaining the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of rural inhabitants, supplying wood and other forest products for China's burgeoning demand, and providing critical environmental services. This paper describes the key policy and institutional dimensions of China's collective forests and how collective forest property rights are defined both in law and in practice. The national and provincial distributions of collective forests are presented. The paper assesses the impacts and implications of critical national policies, including the National Forest Protection Program (NFPP), the expansion of the public protected area system, the Forest Ecosystem Compensation Program (FECP), the system of taxes and fees, and the log-harvesting quota. It concludes with recommendations regarding policy reforms that would strengthen the collective forest sector and increase its contribution to poverty alleviation, rural development, and sustainable forest conservation.

Based on the papers contributed to this Special Issue and other studies an effort is made to identify the major policy issues facing the Chinese forest sector. The policy analysis is organized around the so-called ‘supply china’ (from stump to final products' markets). The discussion of policy issues and implications centers on the identified large and growing gap in the demand/supply balance of forest products. A major problem to carry out the policy analysis is the identified lack of consistent and transparent data for the different components of the ‘supply chain’. This is a situation which must be substantially improved in order to undertake relevant policy setting for the Chinese forest sector.

Forestry and poverty analyses in China show an ambiguous relationship. While the co-occurrence of forest rich areas and poor counties has been noted by some authors, others have stressed the role played by forestry in these areas where it is frequently one of the few options available. Our study indicates that the expansion of off-farm income is the fundamental development process taking place in many areas of rural China. Forestry can offer good income generating options to farmers, but as the local economy develops forestry tends to be displaced by more attractive alternatives. There are niche specialisation opportunities even for rich farmers, normally linked to a certain degree of vertical integration, enhanced by specific features of some forestry uses like bamboo.

With a budget of RMB 337 billion (over US$ 40 billion), the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) is one of China's most ambitious environmental initiatives, and is one of the world's largest land-conservation programs. Pending successful completion, it will have significant implications for China's forests and remaining natural ecosystems, representing an almost 10 % increase in current national forest area. However, we provide evidence that it is in danger of failing to reach its goals due to flaws in design and implementation. Four years into the program, this paper uses a 2003 data set of 358 households to examine SLCP implementation and to suggest improvements. Of central concern has been overly quick expansion over the past few years, which has served to exacerbate problems already revealed, but not adequately addressed, during the pilot phase of the program.

A range of afforestation models have been developed to combat desertification in China. These models stress the integration of tree planting with other land-uses to reduce risks and produce multiple benefits. This paper describes how cost-benefit analysis can be used to select and choose between these models, taking into account the different time periods between planting and harvesting of trees and other crops. It also describes how the costs of desertification can be included in the cost-benefit analysis. The results show that most of the agroforestry and productive plantation models are financially viable, but that the revegetation models are not financially viable. However, the revegetation models could be economically justified, depending on the rate of increase in desert area. If the rate of increase is high enough to justify revegetation, the financial results of the analysis can be used to indicate the incentive that would be required to make these models financially attractive.

China forestry taxation and charging system has been evolving from a planned to a market oriented system which in practice is complex, overburdened, inconsistent, and affected by high avoidance and low efficiency in collection. These are disincentives for forest management, and both household welfare and the environment are worse off because of them. Before 1985 government revenue came from controlling the price of timber and the market. After the market opened up, revenues came increasingly from taxes and additional charges on farmers. In the past 7 years, funds from the state fiscal account from forestry development have increased more than 20 times, but misuse of government funds either at collection, or in transfer from central fiscal accounts has resulted from overstaffing in the government sector and poor enforcement. Since 2002, the Chinese government has taken some measures to address these problems: it has eliminated Special Agriculture Product Taxation and illegal charges; decreased the rate of officially approval charges, and promised to eliminate the Agriculture Production Tax within 5 years from 2004. China's case shows that government institutions were the major constraints on reform of forestry taxes and charges reform, and also that full solution of the problems involved will need to go well beyond the forestry sector itself.

We analyse the collaboration between forestry research institutions and forestry departments in China based on a bibliometric study of four leading Chinese forestry journals. Multiple-authored papers are frequent, and there is a significant collaboration between research and implementing agencies. This collaboration centres on applied research, being less common on fundamental research and almost non-existent on policy research. Universities, National research institutes and National and Provincial level forest departments act as the key organisers of research, with specialised domains and types of collaboration. This helps explain the success of Chinese forestry experiences in recent years.