8 December 2010, China Green Times - Northeast State-owned Forest Region has not yet got rid of resource crisis and economic doom, but the experimental forest farms of Shanhe, Zhuanshan and Danqinghe directly under Harbin Forestry Bureau in Heilongjiang Province have explored a way to increase forest resources as well as forest farmers’ income through scientific forests management for 12 years.
In 1998, 38,000 ha of forests in the three experimental forest farms were designated as experimental area of forest management. During the 12 years, 16,000 ha of forests in the three experimental farms have been scientifically managed, which achieved remarkable results: the forest structure has been optimized, and forests and trees have grown much quickly; forest quality has significantly improved, and integrated benefits have been greatly enhanced; forest workers have an increasing income, and with greatly improved livelihood; investments in infrastructure have increased, and operation conditions improved markedly.
Changes in forest management philosophy
In the past, the following ideas had prevailed in the forest regions: people will be cared by the government when they become old; trees can be naturally regenerated after being cut; forests belong to the whole society and all people can cut freely.
Mr. Wu Keyi, Vice Director of Harbin Forestry Bureau said that, to revert resources crisis and economic doom, we must firstly change our ideas and give up the previous unsustainable development model stressing the mere pursuit of economic benefits. We should shift the focus of forest development from forest harvesting to forest tending, actively promoting the change from disordered forest management to orientation forest cultivation, the change from extensive forest management to intensive forest management, and the change from the forest management model of harvesting in one quarter with no tending practices in other three quarters to the forest management model of harvesting in one quarter with tending practices in all four quarters.
In accordance with advanced international management concepts and techniques such as “close to nature” forest management, Harbin Forestry Bureau carried out bold theoretical explorations and practice innovations in line with local conditions. The main forest management measure adopted in the above mentioned 3 experimental forest farms was "adjustment harvesting." Mr. Wu Keyi said that the traditional forest harvesting system put the focus on timber harvesting, while the "adjustment cutting" is focused on forest tending. The "adjustment cutting" does not exclude timber production. The difference between traditional forest harvesting and the “adjustment cutting” is that the traditional forest harvesting produces timber at the cost of forest damages, while the "adjustment cutting" produces timber through forest tending and thus realizes sustainable forest management.
Adjustment of forest management mechanism
Forests are the main terrestrial ecosystem, posing huge impact on national ecological security and timber security. Sharp decline in forest quality, significant decrease of harvestable resources and hard livelihood of forest workers presented a quite serious problem in the forest region. It was not easy to carry out the work in forest sector in there since the funds were in severe shortage, forest cutting quota was enough for practical use, and there were constraining regulations everywhere.
Harbin Forestry Bureau did not give up its efforts even with such difficulties. They put the issue of input mechanism and harvesting policy at the top of agenda. Firstly, they invested the money predominately in forest tending, reformed timber sales system and salary distribution system of management staff, developed diversified operations, and reduced administrative expenditure. In the past 12 years, Harbin Forestry Bureau has totally financed 60.6 million CNY to provide funds to forest management. Secondly, they squeezed out some harvest quotas to be used in forest tending. In the initial pilot project period, it was extremely difficult for the project area to carry out the pilot, and they had to squeeze out 20% to 25% of the forest harvest quota for forest tending. Only three years ago was the difficult problem worked out when the Provincial Forestry Department specially increased 450,000 cubic meters of harvest quota for the project area through redistribution.
Mr. Jia Zhibang, the Administrator of State Forestry Administration, stressed in National On-Site Meeting for Forest Tending and Management of this year, that the implementation of forest tending and management must not be affected by the limit of harvest quotas.
Implementation of forest management system
According to the needs of forest management, Harbin Forestry Bureau developed 8 management schemes including review and approval scheme for forest survey design, examination scheme for forest tending operations, inspection scheme for forest management quality, responsibilities investigation scheme for forest management quality and the other.
In practice, they strictly controlled the design, forest operation, undertaking of responsibility and supervision for implementing forest management system and ensuring forest management quality. They insisted that on-site inspection should be conducted according to design texts, and all of those that failed to meet requirements should not be approved. Workers were all trained before forest operations, and all substandard forest operations would have to be done over again. Responsibility undertaking system was established from the top-down to form the management model that leaders in charge took their own responsibilities in decision-making and deployment, while technician and section chiefs went to the field to supervise the quality of work, and establish the forest management responsibility system that everything had people to be responsible for. Supervision and inspection were implemented throughout the whole process of forest management, to ensure the implementation of forest management measures by vigorous rewarding and punishing in line of instituted standards.
Through forest management, the appreciation-stand/depreciation-stand ratio increased from 6:4 to 9:1; the average net growth rate of stand grew from 1.9% to 4.3%; average annual growth of forests increased from 2.3 cubic meters per hectare to 6.2 cubic meters per hectare; the average stocking volume per hectare was up from 96.6 m3 to 136.8 m3, which were higher than the world average. After the forest management of more than 10 years, per capita disposable income of forest workers increased from 4,916 CNY to 15,855 CNY with an annual increase of 11.4%; public infrastructures and worker’s housing were greatly improved, and the forest region presents a new look.
