Forestry and Forest Policy are key issues for the protection of China's natural environment and for its continued economic development. Originally published in 2003, the contributors to this title review the successes of China's forest policies and the growth of its forests over the past quarter-century and examine the challenges facing China's forests and rural environment. China's Forests: Global Lessons from Market Reforms is a valuable resource for students interested in environmental studies, international forest policy, and the modern development of China.

Forestry and Forest Policy are key issues for the protection of China's natural environment and for its continued economic development. Originally published in 2003, the contributors to this title review the successes of China's forest policies and the growth of its forests over the past quarter-century and examine the challenges facing China's forests and rural environment. China's Forests: Global Lessons from Market Reforms is a valuable resource for students interested in environmental studies, international forest policy, and the modern development of China.

First Published in 2011. This is the sixth volume in the Forests, Lands, and Recreation set of ten volumes. This text is one of many on the topic of timber supply, a perpetually central issue in forest economics and policy. But it is also something else: It is an attempt to examine the economic efficiency of investments in timber production. Special attention is directed to the increasingly important issue of investments in forestland, particularly public forestland, where allocation of land between timber production and other forest uses is an issue of national policy importance.

This book traces the economic and biological pattern of forest development from initial settlement and harvest activity at the natural forest frontier to modern industrial forest plantations. It builds from diagrams describing three discrete stages of forest development, and then discusses the management and policy implications associated with each, supporting its observations with examples and data from six continents and from both developed and developing countries. It shows that characteristic distinctions between the three stages make forestry unusual in natural resource management and that effective policy requires different, even contrasting, decisions at each stage. William F. Hyde's comprehensive discussion covers a wide range of issues, including the impacts of both specific forest policies and broader macroeconomic policies, the unique requirements of current issues such as global warming, biodiversity and tourism, and the complexities of the different forest products industries. Concluding chapters review the roles of the newer institutional landowners, of smaller private and farm landowners, and of public agencies. This highly-original volume reaches far beyond forest economics; it explains what forestry can do for regional development and environmental conservation and what policies designed for other sectors and the macro-economy can do for forestry.

This book traces the economic and biological pattern of forest development from initial settlement and harvest activity at the natural forest frontier to modern industrial forest plantations. It builds from diagrams describing three discrete stages of forest development, and then discusses the management and policy implications associated with each, supporting its observations with examples and data from six continents and from both developed and developing countries. It shows that characteristic distinctions between the three stages make forestry unusual in natural resource management and that effective policy requires different, even contrasting, decisions at each stage. William F. Hyde's comprehensive discussion covers a wide range of issues, including the impacts of both specific forest policies and broader macroeconomic policies, the unique requirements of current issues such as global warming, biodiversity and tourism, and the complexities of the different forest products industries. Concluding chapters review the roles of the newer institutional landowners, of smaller private and farm landowners, and of public agencies. This highly-original volume reaches far beyond forest economics; it explains what forestry can do for regional development and environmental conservation and what policies designed for other sectors and the macro-economy can do for forestry.

As cities in developing countries grow and become more prosperous, energy use shifts from fuelwood to fuels like charcoal, kerosene, and coal, and, ultimately, to fuels such as liquid petroleum gas, and electricity. Energy use is not usually considered as a social issue. Yet, as this book demonstrates, the movement away from traditional fuels has a strong socio-economic dimension, as poor people are the last to attain the benefits of using modern energy. The result is that health risks from the continued use of wood fuel fall most heavily on the poor, and indoor pollution from wood stoves has its greatest effect on women and children who cook and spend much more of their time indoors. Barnes, Krutilla, and Hyde provide the first worldwide assessment of the energy transition as it occurs in urban households, drawing upon data collected by the World Bank Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP). From 1984-2000, the program conducted over 25,000 household energy surveys in 45 cities spanning 12 countries and 3 continents. Additionally, GIS mapping software was used to compile a biomass database of vegetation patterns surrounding 34 cities. Using this rich set of geographic, biological, and socioeconomic data, the authors describe problems and policy options associated with each stage in the energy transition. The authors show how the poorest are most vulnerable to changes in energy markets and demonstrate how the collection of biomass fuel contributes to deforestation. Their book serves as an important contribution to development studies, and as a guide for policymakers hoping to encourage sustainable energy markets and an improved quality of life for growing urban populations.

Economic development and forest use, with special emphasis on understanding the components of forest degradation and exploitation in developing countries, is the focus of this book. Contributors, mostly from South or Southeast Asia, examine deforestation and tenurial rights, linkages between migration, poverty, and resource exploitation, technology diffusion among poor-subsistence households, fuelwood and energy collection pressures on open-access resources, government and public investments, and household models of labor choice and its impact on resources. Emphasis is on empirical investigation of these problems, though some conceptual material related to resource exploitation, rent distributions, and household economics is presented.
The book is the first to study household resource rent models within a developing-country forestry context. The empirical models are motivated by specifying and formally testing linkages between labor, time, and other input decisions. The book also is the first self-contained study using data from several countries to study a common set of problems such as forest use pressure, the relationship between forest exploitation, household allocation of time, and rents, the adoption of technologies to mitigate exploitation of forest resources, and the importance of population pressure and spatial aspects of deforestation.
The book fills a niche by bringing rigorous economic theories and hypothesis testing to social aspects of resource use. It will be of interest to a range of professionals, from academic economists working in forestry and development to resource policy professionals at international development agencies, especially those struggling with developing incentives to reduce forest degradation.
William F. Hyde is Professor in the Department of Forestry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Gregory S. Amacher is Associate Professor in the Department of Forestry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute.