Presentación de resultados y prueba de hipótesis

With a rapid growth of the economy, ecological degradation and environmental pollution have become bottlenecks for social and economic development in China. Facing serious ecological crises, the Chinese government pursues the establishment of an integrated ecological compensation mechanism to gradually amend and partly replace traditional administrative measurements solely relying on command-and-control, and to provide institutional support to the transition to a resource-conserving, environment-friendly society.

3.6.1 General background on China’s payment for ecological services

Since 2000, the Chinese government has set up a series of policies, laws and regulations and provided finances to support ecological compensation mechanisms. Financial compensation has been included into governmental agendas at all levels as an important element in fulfilling their tasks on environmental protection. In 2005, the State Council issued the Decision on Implementing

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Scientific Concept of Development and Strengthening Environmental Protection, which “requests the central and local governments to improve payment policies for environmental services and to establish eco-compensation mechanism as soon as possible, ask to take eco-compensation into account while the central government provides fiscal support for local governments, and encourage piloting eco-compensation schemes at national and local levels” (Chinese State Council, 2005).

In 2010, the State Council listed Regulation on Eco-Compensation within its legislation plan and the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC) led a drafting group with more than ten governmental departments, including the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), the Ministry of Agriculture, and the State Forestry Administration (SFA). Currently (November 2011), the legislation on the regulation is still in draft form. Although formal regulation is not in place, China has initially set up a framework on eco-compensation at different levels, covering various types of ecological services. Existing eco-compensation schemes include trans-regional schemes, payment schemes for ecosystem services (covering forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystem, wetland ecosystem, and nature reserves), payment schemes for important ecological functions (including water source conservation, biodiversity, windbreak and sand fixation, soil erosion prevention, and flood control), and payment schemes for exploiting natural resources.

3.6.2 China’s payment policies for forest ecological services

As an important part of China’s eco-compensation mechanism, payment policies in the forest sector started earlier than other sectors. With tremendous investment from the central government, the payment policies for forest ecological services have made great achievements and gained precious experiences for applying PES in other sectors. As early as 1992, the State Council issued Notice on Important Points of Economic System Reform in 1992, which specified that governments should

“establish forest pricing mechanism and forest eco-compensation institution to impose cost on forest ecological services” (Chinese State Council, 1992). Article 8.6 of the Forest Law (revised in 1998) stipulated that “the State establishes the forest ecological benefit compensation fund to be used for the planting, tending, protection and management of the forest resources and woods for shelter forests and special-purpose forests either of which generate ecological benefit” (NPC, 1998). Following the principle of PES promoted by the Forest Law and other official documents, the central government initiated a series of forestry ecological conservation programs, including NFPP and CCFGP. These programs included subsidies to encourage a change to sustainable forest use and ecological conservation practices, and as such replace traditional methods solely relying on command-and-control. Hence, a new institution is established to govern how forest resources should be used, and what forest owners can get for providing ecological services.

Furthermore, in 2001 the central government piloted a forest ecological benefit compensation fund. Three years later, it formally set up the fund and the MoF and the SFA issued Measure on Management of the Central Forest Ecological Benefit Compensation Fund (Ministry of Finance and State Forestry Administration, 2004). It meant that China established a formal forest eco-compensation institution and the principle of PES was gradually applied in the forest sector for ecological conservation. Recently, Chinese forest eco-compensation institution has been improved with respect to its coverage, investment and payment standards. Up till 2010, it has covered 70

million hectare of forests, accounting for 22.88% of the total forestland nationwide; the total annual payment has reached 10.18 billion RMB; and the payment standard for collective and private forests has been doubled from 75 RMB per ha to 150 RMB per ha per year (State Forestry Administration, 2011). In 2009, the SFA and the MoF together issued Measures on Demarcation of National Public Benefit Forest, which stipulated that new plantation of forests within the CCFGP, and the forests of new nature reserves and along new reservoirs can be covered by the compensation fund and receive subsidy from the central government for forest management. It also allowed private forests (transferred from the villages to individual farmer households during the forest tenure reform) to quit from the central payment scheme, as long as the forests have no major impact on the local environment (State Forestry Administration, 2010a). In addition, after 2010, CCFGP and NFPP entered into their second phase of implementation. There is a trend for including forests protected by NFPP and created by CCFGP into the central and provincial payment schemes for public benefit forest. In the process of China’s ecological modernization in the forest sector, conservation projects serves as a policy punch to change local forest use practices over a large area in a short period. The payment schemes for public benefit forest play a role in providing a stable mechanism to sustain efficient management on forests under these ecological conservation programs.

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