China's Deforestation No Longer Driven Mainly By Poverty--Part I

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It was around 5:00 p.m. when I arrived in Xinan, a small town in Xiapu County in China’s southeastern Fujian Province. A handful of young people came up to greet me, saying they would accompany me to Fuzhu Village, 14 kilometers away, after dinner. It will still be light then, they said, and you’ll be able to see the hills where natural forests were cut down two years ago, as well as the sites where they replanted eucalyptus last year.

As our motorcycle fleet curved along the bay towards Fuzhu, I shared the ride with a young man who was a master at maneuvering the vehicle beneath us. After several kilometers, however, the paved road became broken, and the way ahead was rough. “These are the best road conditions we’ve had,” my driver told me, turning his head back to speak. He explained that a few younger villagers had once organized a 10-person team to rebuild the road, and had labored hard to persuade Lin Kaiji, the head of the village committee, to cover the expenses.

Fuzhu Village is a relatively wealthy area of Xinan town. But under the leadership of Lin Kaiji, few villagers know exactly how the money is being spent, and they haven’t seen any visible improvement in the public infrastructure. The poor road conditions mean that residents must pay more for goods that arrive from outside, and they earn less for the products they sell. They are envious of other villages that have gotten rich because of good infrastructure.

It was already dark when we arrived in Fuzhu. My companions decided to settle me down with a family along the coast, to “enjoy the bestow of the sea.” Traditionally, local villagers depended on the sea for their livelihood, and had little interest in the mountains. But not long ago, Lin Kaiji, and the village party secretary Zheng Tingqi, came to realize the “fortune” of the lush natural forests blanketing the nearby hills. Keeping villagers in the dark, they leased the forestry lands as “wastelands” to Fujian Fangte Company, a logging firm. The company began to systematically erase the exuberant natural forests, replacing them with widespread eucalyptus plantations. 

The destruction of China’s natural forests has taken on a new face in recent years. Tree clearing was once an outgrowth of poverty, as farmers gradually and sporadically encroached on nearby forests to gather fuel wood and “shake off poverty.” These days, however, profit is the primary motive between forest clearing, and commercial timber or plantation companies are intensifying their efforts to “enclose” the land for fast-growing and high-yielding plantations. Overstepping villagers’ rights and interests, they have been laying bare entire hillsides, a practice that will most likely exacerbate natural disasters and engender a new form of poverty. Their efforts, unfortunately, are often backed by the close cooperation of forestry authorities and village governing bodies.

Liu Qihua, Manager of Fujian Fangte Company, told me that his firm used to be an IT enterprise, and only recently broke into the plantation business. With the growth/logging cycle for eucalyptus lasting only six years, he explained, it is very profitable to “plant” forests in the same way you plant grass. The company has done well from its activities in Fujian Province, and Xiapu County alone now harbors several large “plantation fields.” Eucalyptus can be used for paper and mid-density fiberboard production, and there are several such factories in Fujian.

The forest coverage rate in the province is 62 percent, the highest in China, yet natural forest accounts for only about 10 percent. With no sizable wastelands left for forest plantations, loggers are turning to the remaining natural areas. “Any logging under the excuse of planting forests on ‘wasteland hills’ is unfounded,” contends Lin Peng, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Director of Xiamen University’s Institute of Ecology. However, if forests are left alone and given time, Lin argues, they will re-grow naturally on the hills with the help of Fujian’s favorable climate and high soil quality.

“I think that the biggest environmental problem in China at the moment is the irreversible trend to destroy natural forests,” says Lin. Although the government has adopted comprehensive measures to protect natural forests, this won’t stop people who are driven by profits from replacing these forests with monoculture plantations, he adds. “Their common excuse is to ‘rebuild wastelands’ or to ‘green’ the coastlines. Nowadays, eucalyptus plantations grow like crazy. This will probably portend a new round of ecological disasters.”

In recent years, the planting of eucalyptus has expanded in Fujian Province, and western Yong’an County has become “China’s southern center” for the high-yielding tree. With temperatures there a bit low and volatile for eucalyptus growth, however, large groves began dying in the cold weather. Failing to observe this, blind expansion of plantations brought huge losses to the business. The province’s eastern and southern regions, including Xiapu County, have similar climatic features, but have not yet learned these lessons; plantations there continue to spread.

According to Hong Shenghe, a forestry authority with Fujian’s Nanjing County, there are three major ways to replace natural forests: with tree plantations, with grain or vegetable production, or with profit-making fruit orchards. Before China’s forestry reform in the early 1980s, state-owned plantations grew mainly fir or pine trees. But with the decentralization of forest ownership and responsibilities, farmers gained more liberties and began converting their assigned forest lots to farmland. “Fujian is one of the pilot provinces that pushed forest reforms a step further,” says Hong. “It’s in a transition period of gradually loosening its forest ownership, and many commercial plantation companies have jumped at the chance to enclose land. This has spurred a heated new round of ecological replacement.”

Hong observes that fast-growing and high-yielding plantations have become very popular in southern Fujian, as lands that were once used to grow lychee, longan, and banana are converted to eucalyptus groves. “And in places where there are few vacant commercial plantation lots, investors have turned their sights to natural forests,” he adds.

Lin Jianren, publicity authority with Xiapu County, contends that the lands under dispute in Fuzhu Village “had no forests originally.” The ongoing “greening project,” according to Lin, is one of the county’s great achievements in attracting investment. “Fangte Company has already passed its bid by the forestry authorities, and all procedures are legally binding,” he says. Lin adds that the Forestry Department of Fujian Province recently launched an investigation, which concluded that a few young men in Fuzhu had instigated other villagers to seize ownership of the fast-growing hillside plantations.

The villagers tell a different story. Several Fuzhu residents explained to me that, “we are not asking for money, nor aiming to take possession of the company’s eucalyptus woods; we are fighting for ecology and our dignity.” Ever since the disputed logging activity was discovered, residents have been sending out reporting letters to government legal and disciplinary agencies and departments, and making follow-up calls. But their efforts have yielded few results. During this process, the local forestry bureau and Fangte Company even tried several times to pacify them with promises of compensation for their losses. “We turned them down,” the villagers said.

In a visit to Fuzhu Village in mid-July, I noticed that on the steep distant hills, more than 80 hectares of forest lots had been planted with eucalyptus. Yet forestry regulations allow only 20 hectares of monoculture plantations on slopes below 25 degrees, and only 5 hectares of them on slopes 25 degrees or higher. Villagers told me that some of the lots had once been home to natural broadleaf forests, while others held decades-old red cedars. They described trees so large that a person could not embrace them, and a deep, dark forest with steep slopes. “We dared not venture into it when we cut firewood in the past,” they said.

The villagers believe that the forest’s nutrient-rich humous soil was a key reason the land was cleared for eucalyptus plantations, as eucalyptus trees need large quantities of nutrients to grow. Their suspicion is correct: experience shows that eucalyptus trees grow better on lands that were originally natural forest lots.

Bordering a bay, Fuzhu Village exercises jurisdiction over three smaller villages that traditionally depend on fishery and aquaculture for livelihood. Villagers have been keen on preserving their forests, which to them have minimal economic value but huge ecological value. Little damage had been done to the forests until 2004, when authorities signed a 30-year contract with Fangte Company, leasing the hills for roughly US $15 a hectare. Villagers believe that in addition to the village committee head and the village party secretary, several local forestry authorities are involved in the deal for personal gain.

According to residents Lin Zhenxi and Li Jinzhao, village committee head Lin Kaiji purchased the logged timber and then resold it to businessmen in neighboring Zhejiang province. Covert observations revealed that the logged wood was loaded onto at least eight large barges, with all the proceedings pocketed by Lin Kaiji. In the meantime, Lin has been hired as “forest manager” by Fangte Company and receives a considerable monthly salary from the company. Village party secretary Zheng Tingqi, meanwhile, as the village’s “forest steward,” has failed in all means of carrying out his proper duties.

Yongfeng Feng is an award-winning journalist with Guangming Daily and author of the book Save Yunnan.

Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the author, and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.