During the 11th five year plan period (2006-2010) China will carryout two reforms in forestry sector: to perfect reform of forest zoningsystem and to fully start reform of forest tenure” Jia Zhibang” theAdministrator of SFA” told a press conference held by the State CouncilInformation Office yesterday in Beijing. Forests are classified intotwo major categories: ecological forests and commercial/timber forests”according to their functions. For ecological forest” government will bethe main investor. Tenure reform will be carried out for commercialforests with three elements” i.e. tenure reform in collective forests”reform in state-owned forest farms and state owned forest regions.

The focuses and goals of the three reforms are as following:

Tenure reform in collective forest regions

Thisreform will adopt the measures of the Rural Household ContractResponsibility System as references” focusing on establishing ownershipof the previously collective owned forests and allocating propertyrights to every household and each person. It will also take steps toinvigorate forest management” reduce high fees and taxes as well asstandardize transfer of property rights” to ensure that farmers whomanage forests have their lands” rights and obligations” and legalsources for fair revenue. To date the experimental reforms ofcollective forest tenure have been implemented in some southernprovinces such as Fujian and Jiangxi. The full scaled nation-widereforms will be started this year.

Reform of State-owned forest Farms
Thesecond is to promote reforms of state-owned forest farms. In order tocarry out “the Opinions on Accelerating the Implementation of Reform inState-Owned Forest farms” promulgated by State Council” state ownedforest farms will be classified into two categories: commercial andpublic benefit forest farms based on established criteria. It is neededto fulfill the policy requirements of “public benefit” forest farms inverifying the personnel arrangement and incorporating the outlay intothe financial budget. It is also needed to well arrange the redundantpersonnel of “public benefit” forest farms and guarantee the pensionsfor employees.

Reform of State owned forest regions

Thethird reform is to actively explore the systematic reform of key stateowned forest regions in the Northeast and Inner Mongolia. According tothe principle of separating enterprises from administration” reforms ofkey state owned forest areas and forest resource management system willbe actively promoted” and state owned forest resource managementinstitutions will be established to fulfill the responsibilities ofinvestors on behalf of the state” and will manage the pilot projects oftenure reform in Yichun and reforms of forest resource managementscheme in 6 forest bureaus of key public forest regions. A completeplan on reform of key state owned forest regions and forest resourcemanagement system needs to be made with reference from reforms in thosepilot regions.

Translated from China Green Times by Sun Xiufang.