ABSTRACT
China is currently facing serious environmental challenges and is listed amongst the world’s most serious contributors to pollution and environmental destruction (Wang 2004, Liu and Diamond 2005). With the highest population in the world (currently 1.3 billion) and the fastest rate of economic development, national resources are being depleted dramatically and not replaced quickly enough. Not only are local products being consumed at a rate too fast for sustainable renewal, but China is also a major importer of tropical forest timber, making it largely responsible for current worldwide tropical forest deforestation (Adams and Castano 2001). China’s leaders are aware of these environmental problems, which began with serious deforestation in the 1950s, leading to overgrazing, accelerated topsoil erosion (Fig. 1a), landslides (Fig. 1b, 2)
and desertification. Such land degradation has been exacerbated over the last 20 years due to rapid industrialization. In the 12 years since the Kyoto Protocol, huge efforts have been undertaken in what can be called the ‘greening’ of China. Although the Kyoto Protocol recognizes the importance of controlling and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which currently come primarily from industrial and transportation sources, it also recognizes the corresponding opportunities to be gained through better management of carbon (C) reservoirs and enhancement of C sinks (sequestration) in forestry and agriculture (Dumanski 2004). Better management of land use change, soil conservation and the restoration of degraded land will help achieve C sequestration. Nevertheless, mitigation of such strategies is not easy, and requires the cooperation of the central government, local authorities and stakeholders. In a vast country like China which is undergoing huge industrialization and economic development, difficulties may be confounded through financial and technical shortcomings, communication problems and the isolation of impoverished farmers and stakeholders.
