Abstract
Behind the Chinese government’s ambition to increase its forest cover to 15 % by 2050 is the large-scale tree plantation that continues to threaten millions of hectares of grasslands in China’s arid and semiarid regions. Though the negative environmental impacts of this tree plantation in arid and semiarid regions have been identified by some studies, there has been little sign of policy change. In order to understand why, we must be aware of the political processes that have sustained China’s tree-centered conservation approach for the past decades, but these processes have been largely left unexamined in existing scholarly literature. This study examines these processes by identifying the interest groups involved in environmental conservation, and the ways they leverage scientific knowledge for specific political objectives. This study argues that improved scientific understanding of natural systems will be insufficient to bring about positive environmental changes unless institutional balance is adjusted correspondingly.
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Notes
Regarding afforestation, the Ministry of Water Resources has also played a relatively important role, but its focus is limited to the upper and central river basins of major national rivers such as the Yellow River (Bennett 2008).
For information on the local branches of MOA, see the official websites http://www.nmagri.gov.cn/zwq/tsdw/191.shtml#c and http://www.nmagri.gov.cn/zwq/tsdw/202.shtml#c, accessed on January 17, 2016. For information on the local branch of SFA, see the official website http://www.nmglyt.gov.cn/xxgk/czgk/bmysjs/201406/t20140626_70486.html, accessed on January 17, 2016.
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Acknowledgments
I thank “anonymous” reviewers for their critical comments. I am grateful to Professor John Freeman at The University of Tokyo for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. I also want to express my special appreciation and thanks to Annamarie Sasagawa at The University of Tokyo for her help with the final revision of the manuscript.
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Li, A. Forests or grasslands: conflicts over environmental conservation in arid and semiarid regions of China. Reg Environ Change 16, 1535–1539 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0954-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0954-y