APO Homepage Forestry Institutions and Forestry Policies

Forestry Institutions

China's forestry institutions are set up at five levels, namely: the Ministry of Forestry in the central government; forestry (agricultural and forestry) departments of provinces/ autonomous regions/municipalities; forestry bureaux of prefectures/cities; forestry bureaux of counties/banners/cities; and forestry stations of townships/towns.

Forestry Policies
The Forest Law of the People's Republic of China was formally promulgated on September 20, 1984. By year 1994, China had formulated and promulgated 4 forestry laws, regulations and legal documents, 4 forestry administrative regulations, over 60 sectoral regulations and over 200 local forestry by-laws and governmental regulations.

(1) The Forest Law of the People's Republic of China

On September 20, 1984, the Seventh Meeting of the Sixth Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) held discussions, approved and formally promulgated the Forest Law of the People's Republic of China. With the approval of the State Council, the Ministry of Forestry promulgated the Regulations for Implementing the Forest Law of the People's Republic of China on May 10, 1986.

The Forest Law of the People's Republic of China has altogether 42 Articles in 7 Chapters including General Provisions, Forest Management, Forest Protection, Tree Planting and Afforestation, Forest Felling, Legal Responsibilities and Supplementary Articles, setting up a code of conduct for forestry administrative management agencies at different levels and forest owners, managers and utilizers.

The Forest Law of the People's Republic of China especially stipulates that the following protective measures should be implemented for forest resources:

?implement logging quotas on forests, encourage planting and afforestation, mountain closure, expand the area covered by forests;

?provide economic support or long-term loans for collective and individual afforestation and forest tending, in line with relevant regulations of the state and local people's governments;

?collect forest tending fee which is to be used especially for afforestation and forest tending;

?a certain amount of money will be collected from coal and paper making sectors according to the yield of their products to be especially used in the establishment of timber forests producing pit props and raw materials for paper making;

?establish a forestry fund system.

(2) Law of Water and Soil Conservation of the People's Republic of China

On June 29, 1991, the 20th Meeting of the 7th Standing Committee of the NPC approved and formally promulgated the Law of Water and Soil Conservation of PRC. With the approval of the State Council, the Ministry of Forestry issued the regulations for implementing this law in August, 1993.

The Law of Water and Soil Conservation of the PRC has altogether 42 Articles in 6 Chapters, which are General Provisions, Prevention, Treatment, Supervision, Legal Responsibilities and Supplementary Articles. As the highest level law of China's laws and regulations on soil and water conservation, it clearly stipulates the responsibility for China's soil and water conservation undertaking is with water resources administrative line agencies above the county level; cultivation on steep slopes is forbidden; tree felling should be appropriate with simultaneous formulation of soil and water conservation measures for the felling area; the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of economic construction projects should have a soil and water conservation plan approved by water resources administrative line agencies; encourage collective agricultural economic organizations and farmers in the areas suffering from soil and water erosion to carry out treatment of the land, implement supporting policies in the aspects of fund, energy, food and taxation, etc.; barren mountains, ditches, hills and shore land can be contracted by collective agricultural economic organizations (individual farmers or joint households) for treatment of areas suffering from soil and water erosion, with the state protecting the legal rights and benefits of people concerned.

(3) Regulations on the Protection of Terrestrial Wildlife

On February 12, 1992, the State Council approved this Regulation and instructed the Ministry of Forestry to promulgate and implement it. The "terrestrial wildlife" referred to in the Regulation includes legally protected precious, endangered, and beneficial terrestrial wildlife with important economic and scientific research value; "wildlife products" refers to any part or derivative of terrestrial wildlife. This Regulation includes 46 Articles of 7 Chapters: General Provisions, Wildlife Conservation, Management of Wildlife Hunting, Management of Wildlife Taming and Breeding, Management of Wildlife Utilization, Awards and Punishment and Supplementary Articles.

The Regulation stipulates that hunting and killing of key national protected wild animals are forbidden; a system of applying for special hunting permits and a taming and breeding permit system for key protected wild animals will be implemented; selling and buying of key national protected wild animals or their products on markets are forbidden.

(4) Provisional Regulations on Forest Management

This Regulations is a government decree formally promulgated by the Ministry of Forestry, and started to be implemented on August 13th, 1993. This Regulations includes 34 Articles of 6 Chapters which are General Rules, Management of Forest Land Ownership, Forest Protection and Utilization, Management of Occupying and Requiring Forest Land, Awards and Punishment, Supplementary Articles. The Regulations clearly stipulate that the major tasks of responsible forestry agencies and local forest land management and supervision agencies are implementing and executing relevant national and local laws, regulations and policies concerning forest land management:

?responsible for inventory and statistics on forest land, monitor consumption and growth of forests;

?responsible for formulation, supervision and implementation of plans for forest land conservation and utilization;

?responsible for registration and change of forest land ownership and for managing forest land records;

?review and approve matters relevant to the requiring of forest land, supervise and manage the collection and utilization of compensation fee for forest trees and forest land, settlement and subsidy fee and fee for rehabilitation of forest vegetation;

?supervise and inspect the situation of forest land conservation, management and utilization, help solve relevant problems;

?responsible for investigating administrative cases of illegal occupation and damage of forest land, illegal utilization of forest land, forbid illegal activities of damaging forest land.

This decree also clearly forbids grazing, fuelwood collection, hunting and productive management activities other than forestry in afforested land and young forest land which have not formed forests, and mountain closure areas. Cultivation on forest land on steep slopes greater than 25 degrees for growing agricultural crops is forbidden and already cultivated land should be returned for forestry use within a limited period.

(5) Urban Greening Regulations

This Regulation was signed and issued to be implemented by Premier of the State Council on June 22, 1992. The Regulation includes 34 Articles of 5 Chapters which are General Rules, Planning and Construction, Conservation and Management, Punishment and Supplementary Articles.

The Regulation clearly stipulates that planning for urban greening should be incorporated into the overall urban planning; area of land for urban greening in proportion to the population and area of the city should be wisely arranged; planning indexes for per capita urban public green land and coverage of green land should be formulated. The Regulation also stipulates detailed punishment methods for actions of damaging urban trees, flowers and grass, arbitrary occupation of urban green land, units or individuals carrying out commercial activities on urban public green land without authorization.

(6) Regulations of the PRC on Nature Reserves

The State Council formally promulgated and implemented Regulations of the PRC on Nature Reserves on October 9, 1994. The Regulation includes 44 Articles of 5 Chapters which are General Rules, Development of Nature Reserves, Management of Nature Reserves, Legal Responsibilities and Supplementary Articles.

This Regulation clarifies that nature reserves refer to areas under special protection and management which are set aside from land, terrestrial water body or ocean according to law, with the location of protected objects such as representative natural eco-systems, natural concentration and distribution areas of precious and endangered wild fauna and flora species and natural relics with special significance etc..

The Regulation divides a nature reserve into core zone, buffer zone and experimental zone; activities such as felling, grazing, hunting, fishing, herb collection, cultivation, burning grass on waste land, mining, stone collection and sand digging etc. are forbidden. It is also forbidden for anyone to enter the core zone of the nature reserves. The Regulation also stipulates detailed punishment methods for agencies and individuals violating the above regulations.

(7) Regulations on Forest Park Management

On January 22, 1994, the Minister for Forestry signed and issued Regulations on Forest Park Management. The Regulations clarify that forest parks refer to places of a certain scale with beautiful forest landscape, concentrated natural landscapes and cultural landscapes, which can be used for tourism, rest or scientific, cultural and educational activities. The Regulations divides forest parks into three levels: national forest parks, provincial level forest parks, city and county level forest parks. This Regulations also stipulates that agencies and individuals harming forest and wild fauna and flora resources in forest parks will be penalised according to relevant laws and regulations.

(8) Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Plant Quarantine Regulations (Forestry Part)

The Minister for Forestry signed and issued this Regulation on July 26, 1994. The Rules stipulate: the system of Forest Plants Quarantine Staff Certificate and the system for the signing and issuance of Plant Quarantine Certificates will be implemented.

The Rules points out that forest plants and their products which should be quarantined include: forest tree seeds, seedlings and other propagation materials: arbour, shrub, bamboo, flower and other forest plants; timber, bamboo, medicinal herbs, fruits, bonsai and other forest products.

China carried out the third industrial inventory in 1996, which is completed by now. As far as the forestry industries are concerned, the statistics obtained from this inventory are closer to reality than published figures. Yet, due to some technical problems such as statistical methods, there are still some problems with it, and some errors have been detected already. Since statistics of year 1995 provided by this inventory are greatly different from previous statistics, and more confirmation and checking is necessary, so such figures are not cited in this article.

According to information from the national industrial inventory done in 1996, the production volume of China's major forestry products in 1995 is as follows: sawntimber - 41,837,800 m3; wood-based panels - 16,846,000 m3; (of which: plywood - 7,593,000 m3; fiberboard - 1,791,000 m3; including MDF - 537,000 m3; particle board - 4,350,000 m3; others - 2,738,000 m3).

Accompanying growth of forest industries has been machine manufacturing. The machinery and equipment manufacturing system has been established for the forest products industry which can produce not only different kinds of saws, planing machines, milling machines and sanding machines, but also complete production lines for making plywood, particleboard (OSB), fibreboard (MDF), and decorative materials for wood-based panels and pulp and paper making.

Note lack of growth in fuelwood consumption over 10 years (editor).

กก
(Source:http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/FORESTRY/APFSOS/14/apfsos03.htmP398_56955)