[List of Publications]

[Annual Report 97 :
Table of Contents]

With a market-driven economy becoming gradually more important in China, there is a clear awareness at all levels of State and provincial authorities of the need to adopt new forms of people’s participation. Degraded lands in mountainous and hilly areas account for over 60 per cent of China’s total land area and it is in these areas that the majority of very poor people live. Tree planting by small farmers can offer solutions to the problems of land degradation and increasing incomes. Research by the Chinese Academy of Forestry has produced several technological solutions but the question now being addressed is how to efficiently achieve the application of the technologies on a wide scale and integrate individual technologies into appropriate socioeconomic-technological packages for selected areas. The socioeconomic dimension of the problem is given high attention in this new research alongside technological development with test sites located in villages in the provinces of Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangxi and Yunnan.