Central Characteristics of Reform: Measures of the Effects of Improved Property Rights, a Stable Policy Environment, and Environmental Protection

N CHAPTER 2, D. Liu and Edmunds proposed that two features of China’s reforms had significant, and sometimes opposing, effects on forestry in the first

15 years of reform:

• The transfers of some property rights from collectives to households improved the incentives for forest management and led to increases in forest cover and eventual increases in the standing forest volume. The land area in forest plantations in the market-driven nonstate sector increased at an annual rate of 6% from 1989 to 1993.