Ever since the disastrous floods of 1998, the Chinese government has used the Natural Forest Protection and Sloping Land Conversion Programs to promote afforestation and reforestation as means to reduce runoff, control erosion, and stabilize local livelihoods. These two ambitious programs have been reported as large-scale successes, contributing to an overall increase in China's forest cover and to the stated goals of environmental stabilization. A small-scale field study at the project level of the implementation of these two programs in Baiwu Township, Yanyuan County, Sichuan, casts doubt upon the accuracy and reliability of these claims of success; ground observations revealed utter failure in some sites and only marginal success in others. Reasons for this discrepancy are posited as involving ecological, economic, and bureaucratic factors. Further research is suggested to determine whether these discrepancies are merely local aberrations or represent larger-scale failures in reforestation programs.

China’s tuigeng huanlin or “Returning Farmland to Forest” (RFFP) program has been widely praised as the world’s largest and most successful payment for ecosystem services program, as well as a major contributor to China’s dramatic increase in forest cover from perhaps as low as 8% in 1960 to about 21% today. By compensating rural households for the conversion of marginal farmland to forestland and financing the afforestation of barren mountainsides, the program, in addition to expanding forestland, aims to reduce soil erosion and alleviate poverty. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative studies conducted on the local implementation of RFFP in three diverse townships in Sichuan. We find the actual results to be more mixed than the official figures would indicate. Though there have been some positive results, we identify problems with site and species selection, compensation for land taken out of cultivation, shift of labor to off-farm activities, and monitoring of replanted sites, which challenge the ecological and economic impacts of these programs and reveal much of the effort of the program has been misdirected. We suggest that efforts are misplaced because of the top-down, panacea nature of the program, which in turn is a feature of Chinese bureaucratic management.

The Returning Farmland to Forest Program (RFFP; tuigeng huanlin gongcheng), which compensates farmers for cultivating forest on previously non-forested land, is central among the-ecological construction‖ programs that have transformed landscapes across China. Under the RFFP, the state has redefined large areas of land as afforestation area intended to provide environmental services including erosion control, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity regeneration. Tensions among the program's social and environmental objectives as well as the combination of formal rigidity and practical flexibility manifest in ambiguous forest classifications and tremendous variation in outcomes. The RFFP centers on two forest categorizations: ecological forest, intended to rehabilitate environmental services, and commercial forest, which may provide lesser ecological benefits but delivers more immediate economic benefits to households. RFFP policy documents designate-dual-function species‖ that can be planted as-forests with a primary goal of ecological service provision which also generate commercial value.‖ A substantial portion of-ecological forests‖ are dual landscapes intended to accomplish both environmental and socioeconomic goals. Drawing from cases in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Hainan provinces, this paper examines the processes of central policymaking and local implementation through which dual-function forests have proliferated, showing how rural residents have responded to the risks and promises of dual-function forests and exploring implications for rural livelihoods and landscapes. While they might be expected to bring win-win outcomes, the performance of dual-function forests on social and environmental goals depends on how local officials and residents respond to the program. Their proliferation demonstrates tensions inherent in state projects aimed at generating both environmental and economic values from rural landscapes.

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