Poverty Context
China has achieved significant success in poverty alleviation since the economic reforms were first introduced in the country in 1978. During the short interval of six years from 1978 to 1984, the number of the poor in China has decreased from 250 million to 125 million, and the incidence of poverty dropped from 30.7%to 14.8% (Yuxin et al, 2001). The main reason behind this success was that with the deepening of reform of the economic system and enhancing of market economy, people both in rural and urban areas benefited significantly from increased income. Though the estimates vary, at present, as per China’s definition of income poverty, 60 million people, 4.6% of its population, are considered as absolute poor (World Bank, 2000). However, as with other Asian countries, the poverty in China is more pronounced in the rural areas. Hyde et al (2003) note that this has been primarily due to land distribution component of China’s reforms, which was conducted in an egalitarian manner within each village and hence the rural poverty has less to do with food security than with the generally lower level of social services and a higher level of vulnerability to natural hazard and macroeconomic fluctuations.
There has been increasing concern about the impact of economic reforms that the reduction of poverty has been mainly been achieved in ‘better-endowed’ rural areas. The ‘resource-poor’ densely populated mountain and lower plateau areas of the Center, Northwest and the South-Southwest, where the potential for agriculture production is lowest, still have high incidences of poverty. Ruiz-Perez et al (2003) also note that it is frequently in these less accessible areas, where natural constraints limit agriculture, that forests have been preserved. Therefore, the patterns of isolation, poverty, and extensive forest cover are similar to what could be found in other Asian countries, where explaining the causal links between them is often a difficult task. In these areas, people rely on forests for livelihood support in many ways. Their dependence on forests ranges from for energy (fuelwood), for timber used on their farms and households and NTFPs to sell to generate cash income (Liu, 2003). However, as the estimates of actual contribution to rural income vary largely based on various factors like rights access, market functions and regulatory frameworks between counties, the role of forest-based income opportunities in poverty alleviation are often not evident and hence not a priority in reforms agenda.