Rights of Access to Upland Forest Resources in Southwest China

Abstract

"This paper looks at the ways in which changes in forest policy in China over the lst forty years have affected six villages in Songming County, Yunan Province. It emphasizes the importance of village and household research in understanding the ways which policies are implemented and their effects on patterns of development. Based on data gathering during an exercise in rural household surveys in Yunan, we suggest that an emphasis on controlling access to the resource may be less effective than providing incentives for communities to manage their resources, and that where incentives do exist, there is a real danger that bureaucratic procedures may stifle those incentives, a mounting to another set of controls."