ABSTRACT
In September 2004, Mr Y, director of an office in the forestry department of Jiangxi Province, received an order demanding that he be responsible for the recently established Office of Forestry Property Rights Reform. As a veteran cadre working in the forestry industry, Mr Y was quite familiar with the new job and knew Jiangxi’s forestry better than anyone else. Located in the central part of China, Jiangxi Province is known as a key forestry region of the south, with a coverage rate of 60.05 per cent, ranking second in China. The area of forest in Jiangxi Province is 130 million mu, with a total standing crop of 350 million cubic metres. The people in the province vividly describe the features of the province as follows: ‘60 per cent of the total area is mountains, 20 per cent water, 10 per cent fields and 10 per cent roads and residential areas’. What is more, much of the forest contained in the overlapping mountains has become a precious natural resource which is vividly named ‘Green Bank’. However, people in Jiangxi have derived no benefits from the wealth of the Green Bank but, instead, have suffered from extreme poverty since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. What has happened?
