ABSTRACT
Decentralization of natural resource management varies from one country to another in terms of transfer of natural resources, responsibility and power: from central government to local governments, and from government to communitybased organizations, individual households or the private sector. In China, decentralization in the forest sector has taken place mainly in collective forests, the largest category of forest ownership from the mid-1950s to the early 1980s. The first decentralization took place in the early 1980s (Liu, 2001; Liu and Edmunds, 2003a and 2003b). Drawing on the experience of the past two decades, China launched a new round of decentralization in collective forest resources in the early part of this century. This decentralization process is expected to be complete by 2010.
