2. Forest Resources and Forestry Development
China's large land area, in which temperature and humidity vary greatly depending on the region, supplies a variety of ecological conditions required by diverse types of trees, which form rich forestry resources. The country has totally about 8,000 species of woody plants including 2,000 species of tall trees. Among the woody plants are some 1,000 species making good lumbers and special economic trees, and 6,000 species of shrubs. More than 50 species are tall species uniquely to China.
The results of the Fourth Forestry Resources Survey (1989 to 1993) show that China has 133.70 million hectares of forest area, accounting for 13.92% of the total land area, which is far below the world average of 22%. It has 11,780 million cubic meters of accumulated standing crops, and 10,137 million cubic meters of forest-nursery stock. Per-capita forest area in China is 0.11 hectares, which is merely a ninth of the world average. Lumber resource consumption of the country in 1993 was 320 million cubic meters, while the net growth increments of lumber were 400 million cubic meters, which is larger than consumption. Compared to the Third Forestry Resources Survey (1984 to 1988), however, accumulated mature lumber have decreased by about 200 million cubic meters, or an average loss of some 54.73 million cubic meters each year.
The problem is not only the scarce forest resources, but the irrational forest distribution and the tree-species structure in China. 9400 mm precipitation isohyet line runs from the western Daxing'anling area to the edge of Qing-Zang Plateau in the south, dividing the country between the southeast half favorable to growth of forests and the infavorable northwest half undesirable. The proportion of forest area is over 30% in many provinces in the east or the south of the country, including Heilongjian, Jilin, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujiang, and Taiwan, while that in most provinces in the northwest region, including Gansu, Ningxia Hui, Xinjiang, and Qinghai, is less than 5%. In some areas it is even less than 1%. The main expression of the irrational forest structure in China is the large proportion of timber forests and the small proportion of windbreak and economic forests. A forest structure like this is undesirable for sustainable utilization of forest resources. In addition, China's utilization rate of the land area available for forestry is so low that only 45% of the area actually has forests.
