over recent decades most countries around the world have been cutting
down their trees at alarming rates since the 1990s however china has booked this trend
achieving the most extensive reforestation of any country in the world in 2015 forest cover
reached 22.2 percent of china's fast territory up from 16.74 percent of the country in 1990. this
means that forests were rehabilitated for over 5.5 percent of china's enormous landmass of 511
807 square kilometers in 2018 china set a target to achieve forest cover of over 30
of its land by 2050. china's rapid transition to reforest vast swathes of depleted and deserted
territory represents the largest ecological restoration project the world has ever seen
the rehabilitation of forest land in china can largely be attributed to a series of six national
forestry programs which have been implemented since the late 1990s through which china has
planted more than four million hectares of forest every year between 1998 and 2014 investment across
the six programs is estimated to have reached united states dollars 100 billion and involved the
participation of 20 of china's rural population the effectiveness of the forestry programs has
varied across china's fast territory and has not been without controversy the programs have
been criticized for the top-down nature of their design and decision-making and environmentalists
have expressed concern that the program's increased monocultures of non-native trees
which has had negative impacts on biodiversity in the country however research is also showing
positive impacts across many fronts including improved environmental conditions greater
agricultural productivity and increased incomes for some of the poorest households in rural china
the rapid rehabilitation of forests and landscapes at a massive scale in china proves that ecological
restoration of large-scale complex ecosystems is possible and can be achieved by human hands the
chinese experience is highly significant for the future of degraded landscapes around the world
the global population boom in massive expansion of agriculture since the 1950s
means that soil degradation and desertification is a growing problem in most arid and semi-arid
landscapes of the global south which is likely to be worsened with the impacts of climate change
indeed the transferability of lessons from china's forestry programs has already been proven the
methods piloted in china to rehabilitate land that have been degraded over millennia have
since been replicated in sub-saharan africa with initial successes in rwanda and ethiopia
what is extraordinary about the transformation of china's depleted landscapes is that it was
achieved through the mass participation of tens of millions of chinese people the cornerstone of the
chinese government's restoration efforts was the crane for green program which directly compensated
farmers for restoring and protecting forests and natural vegetation where they had formerly planted
crops or herded livestock initially farmers were compensated for their labor in a massive
engineering project that extended across much of china's rural landscape ticking reservoirs at the
bottom of valleys and terraces into the hillsides to help the land retain water and resist erosion
farmers were mandated to keep their animals penned up to prevent damage to the newly restored land
through overgrazing of livestock on the reconstructed landscape they planted natural
vegetation in trees and designated areas and were also assigned plots to develop their own
crops farmers were granted land rights to the fields and terraces they maintained and control
over their produce as well as subsidies for protecting the newly planted forests with 32
million families receiving annual subsidies and 28 hectares of land restored grain for green is
considered by some to be the largest payment for environmental services scheme in the world and is
taken as evidence of the potential success of the financial compensation approach to conservation
china's six forestry programs targeted vast swathes of the chinese landscape reaching 97
percent of the country's counties and targeting 76 million hectares of land the key area to be
restored was the lowest plateau an area roughly the size of france which stretches across seven
chinese provinces in the central north of the country below this plateau was the cradle of
ancient chinese civilization which historic animals describe as being covered in lush forests
and rivers but thousands of years of farming that intensified during the cultural revolution
had to created the land and created one of the world's most extensive and inhospitable deserts
overgrazing by livestock meant that vegetation had grown sparse and rainfall drained off the surface
of the slow kill sites rather than training into the earth destroying the soil fertility
the paucity of the land meant that local communities lived in dire poverty surviving
through hand-to-mouth subsistence farming the impacts of the desertification extended far
beyond the lowest plateau as the erosion from the hull sites was swept down into the yellow river
leading to flooding and huge mud mattresses covering land downstream in the dry season the
soil from the lowest plateau was swept up by the winds causing the dust storms that played china's
major cities throughout last half of the 20th century chinese authorities had tried various
approaches to addressing the degradation of the country's force land shortly after the people's
republic of china was established in 1949 136 state-owned forest bureaus were set up around the
country charged with managing and protecting force these agencies lacked the autonomy and incentives
to prioritize forest protection and logging became the major source of revenue to cover
the high social costs that state agencies owed to their workers a booming population and expanding
agricultural production made further deforestation and depletion of lands inevitable according to
china's national forest surveys natural forests covered 98.2 million hectares in 1975 but declined
to 66.7 million ha by 1993 in the 1980s the chinese government attempted to restrain farming
on slopes through various regulations but these were under-resourced and ultimately ineffective
grain for green was a breakthrough in chinese forestry policy as it saw a shift from command
and control approaches to the use of financial incentives to farmers for forest restoration grain
for green was implemented in the lowest plateau from 1999 with extraordinary results by 2009 some
35 000 square kilometers of land had been restored the key catalyst for china's rapid transition to
restore forest land was a series of environmental crises caused by land degradation that struck the
nation towards the end of the 20th century soil erosion from the lowest plateau was a significant
contributor to the dust storms that swept through beijing during the 1980s and 1990s the first world
bank sponsored louis plateau project was launched just a year after a massive dust storm dubbed a
black wind hit beijing in 1993. in 1997 severe trout saw the lower reaches of the yellow river
dry up for 267 days putting it severe risks the availability of water around the northern plains
just a year later devastating flooding occurred along the yangtze river killing 4150 people
and causing 36 billion damage the impact of deforestation in the highlands and along the river
basin was considered to have been a significant contributing factor to both the trouts and the
flooding downstream with a view to averting further such catastrophes in the future in
1999 the chinese government launched the crane for green program key to the rapid rehabilitation of
forest and cropland in china was the introduction and enforcement of white reaching bands on logging
and strict limitations on grazing in harvests the targets for which were largely met in 1999 the
chinese government mandated a total ban on grazing in the areas designated for restoration resulting
in a 99 increase in vegetation in those zones at the same time the government also introduced bans
on commercial logging in the upper reaches of the yangtze and yellow rivers by the year 2000
resulting in timber removals decreasing from 87.53 million in 1997 to 26.50 million in 2000
with most of the remaining removals for local and non-commercial use it is perhaps difficult to
imagine the rapid success of such radical reforms in a less authoritarian context in this sense
another important factor in making this transition occur rapidly was the centralized and top-down
control of the chinese state over the design and implementation of its ambitious forestry programs
the extraordinary scale of rehabilitation would never have been possible without the
mass participation of the rural chinese population initially the participation was incentivized by
a cash stipend for restoration work an annual subsidy in green by 2004 the program began to
substitute the grain subsidy with cash payments participating households received their payments
directly to their bank accounts following the annual inspection of their forest plots by forest
officers it was a major change in chinese forest policy to move beyond bans and regulations to
incentivize land rehabilitation and protection through direct payments to communities the
centralized control of the chinese state also of course had a role in the success of this payment
for environmental services scheme participation of local communities was in some cases mandated
by the chinese government and the top-down nature of decision-making around the crane
for green and other forestry programs meant that even when farmers volunteered to participate they
had limited say in the designer implementation of the project reducing local ownership indeed
researchers found that in areas of the country with stronger local institutions with downward
accountability to communities the programs tended to have more positive outcomes finally the key
to the success of the mass scale restoration was extraordinary levels of funding estimates
suggests that the six forestry programs have to date involved in investment of u.s 100 billion
dollars below's plateau project alone had a budget of u.s 500 million dollars between 1994 and 2005
finance came directly from the chinese government and via world bank loans china increased forest
cover from 16.74 of its territory in 1990 to 22.5 in 2015 an increase of 511
807 square kilometers since the late 1990s china has planted more than four million hectares of
forest every year between 1998 and 2014 investment across the six forestry programs is estimated to
have reached united states dollars 100 billion and involved the participation of 20 of china's rural
population rural households involved in the lowest plateau restoration project saw their incomes grow
from about u.s 70 per year per person to about us 200. through agricultural productivity enhancement
and diversification surveys have shown over 90 satisfaction rate of farm households in five of
the seven counties involved in the sloping land conversion program the flow of sediment from the
lowest plateau into the yellow river has been reduced by more than 100 million tons each year
in 2018 china set a target to achieve forest cover of over 30 of its land by 2050.
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