China's Development of a Plantation-Based Industry: Government Policies, Financial Incentives, and Investment Trends

Challenges in Mechanization Efforts of Small Diameter Eucalyptus Harvesting Operations with a Low Capacity Running Skyline Yarder in Southern China

“…In order to become less dependent on round wood imports, the central government has promoted the development of a forest plantation-based timber industry in selected key regions of Southern China [8,16]. In accordance with the SKFPs, this newly established plantation sector is expected to release utilization pressure from the remaining natural forests in the country's traditional timber regions of the northeast and eastern China.…”

“…The second type focuses on the yield of dimensional timber for a value added sawing industry through long rotations and single tree harvest, including periodic thinnings, consistent with multifunctional forest management and associated ecosystem services, which came up as a new management objective [17]. Although plantation areas have been successfully established in terms of area, yields have been below expectations so far and not competitive with outputs from plantation industries in other countries such as Brazil [16,18]. Reasons for the low productivity are numerous and ranging from silvicultural to operational deficits.…”

“…Due to the limited land availability in the southern provinces, timber plantations have been mainly allocated to hilly terrain. In conjunction with a poor operation infrastructure and almost non-existent mechanization of log extraction, volume outputs of these plantation operations are rather low [16,19]. Considering increasing wages among the Chinese forestry sector of 5% annually [8] and the enormous timber demand of the Chinese wood products industry, a shift from the currently labor intensive, daily rate-based manual harvesting operations towards professionalized operations with a higher degree of mechanization is inevitable.…”

Mitigating Biodiversity Concerns in Eucalyptus Plantations Located in South China

“…This program promotes the establishment of fast-growing and high-yield timber (FGHY) plantations in selected regions by subsidizing plantation establishment with loan interest subsidies, discounted loans from state banks and extended repayment periods [1]. The program's goal is to plant 13.3 million hectares of fast growing plantations between 2001 and 2015, creating an estate that can supply 130 million m 3 •yr −1 of timber for China's domestic market.…”

Chinese trade and investment and its impacts on forests: A scoping study in the miombo woodlands

“…56 Market forces driving high volumes of demand include the growing Chinese economy, the active wood-processing sector, the logging ban in China and the tendency to import wood in excess of current demand (with some companies reportedly storing imported timber underwater for later sale at a premium) (Barr and Cossalter 2004). 57 It is therefore important to note that while an important share of timber is consumed domestically, international demand for processed wood products (e.g.…”