Forestland transfer between rural households in Jiangxi, China: Differentiated effects of actual and perceived tenure security

Abstract

This study analyzes the potentially differentiated impacts of actual and perceived tenure security on rural households' forestland transfer behavior. Logit and Tobit models were estimated using repeated survey data from 505 households in 50 villages of Jiangxi Province during 2017-2018. The results show that there is a great difference in the influence of actual and perceived tenure security on the transfer behavior. Issuing forest tenure certificates promotes the renting out of forestland by households but has no significant effect on forestland renting in. Meanwhile, perceived tenure security has a significant effect on forestland transfer behavior. Households' understanding and evaluation of the existing tenure policy also has a significantly positive impact on household's rent-out behavior. Further, the logging quota system has a significantly negative effect on household's renting in and out behavior. Our analysis suggests that the government should strive to improve the awareness of This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

The Impact of Granting of Forest Certificates on Farmers’ Income—Intermediation Effects Based on Forestland Lease

“…Granting forest certificates is the key content in the CFTR, which has made clear provisions on the attribution of forestland at the institutional level. Following the granting of forest certificates, farmers' sense of security is enhanced, leading to increased leasing of forestland [27] and facilitating the efficient allocation of labor and forestland resources [37,38]. The good impact of granting forest certificates on forestland leases is mostly achieved through the following methods: first, in terms of transaction costs, granting forest certificates has a clear land contracting relationship and strengthens the role of forestland management, which can provide institutional guarantees and improve the market for the lease of forestland, thus enhancing the stability of the property title of forestland, reducing the transaction cost of the lease of forestland, and promoting the lease of forestland [39].…”

“…Currently, scholars generally believe that forestland lease out can promote an increase in the total income of rural households, where this income increase is mainly divided into the increase in non-farm employment income and the increase in property income [46][47][48]. On the one hand, in terms of the increase in income from non-farm employment, some farmers are able to obtain more income-advantageous off-farm employment opportunities after leasing forestland out of the country.…”

“…On the one hand, most scholars believe that granting forest certificates has a positive impact on forestland leasing. The CFTR guarantees the security and stability of farmers' forestland titles at the legal level, reduces the risk of farmers losing their land when they go to the city to work [24], helps to improve the perception of the security of farmers' property titles [25,26], and reduces the cost of forestland transactions [27], which strengthens the willingness of farmers to lease forestland and promotes the occurrence of forestland lease behavior [28]. On the other hand, some scholars believe that granting forest certificates has a negative effect on forestland leasing.…”

Impacts of Tenure Security on Rural Households’ Forestland Investment: Evidence from Jiangxi, China

“…This study also considers several control variables that may influence households' investment decisions, including household characteristics, forestland characteristics, and village characteristics. To ensure consistency with previous studies [38,39], basic household indicators such as age, education level, and the number of household laborers were included. Forestland characteristics, such as forest area and forest types (i.e., bamboo and timber forests), were chosen due to their different values [40].…”

Impact and mechanism of rural labor migration on forest management income: Evidence from the Jiangxi Province, China

“…For regional heterogeneity analysis, the study used the topographic data of the village where the sample households resided (Type) and the ages of the household heads as control variables (Age). Based on previous research studies and the actual situation of the study areas, we also chose family characteristic factors (education of household head (Edu), the number of laborers in a household (Labor), whether family members are village cadres (Vcadres), forest resource factors (timber forest area (Timber_A), economic forest area (Economic_A), bamboo forest area (Bamboo_A), and forest fragmentation (Areatract)), economic and geographical factors (village population (V_pop), per capita net income in the village (V_income), and the distance from village to nearby town (Distance)) (Bao et al, 2021;Lian et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2022).…”