The Jinggangshan Nature Reserve was set up in 1981, and was upgraded to a national nature reserve in April 2000. Total area of the nature reserve is 15,873 hectares. It is a forestry-type nature reserve, which aims at protecting the mountain forest ecosystem as well as rare and precious wild animals and plants. The terrain in the reserve is stiff and the land forms are complicated. In the nature reserve, there are more than 50 peaks at an elevation of more than 1,000 meters above the sea level, with the highest peak, Mount Pingshui, at an elevation of 1,779 meters. The mountains show clear vertical variations in climate, vegetation and soil. The average temperature ranges between 14 and 17 degrees centigrade, and the annual precipitation is 1,865.5mm and the frost-free period is 250 days.

Qingyuan Man Autonomous County, located in the eastern mountain area of Liaoning, is a key forestry county in Liaoning Province. Forest land area in Qingyuan County is 312,561.9 ha, with the forest cover of 71.4%, accounting for 79.59% of total county land area. Qingyuan County is a pilot demonstrati in situ of national forest administration, where the forest category division work started in the late 1980s. In recent years, based on the strategic objective of “developing themajor ecological county in Liaoning”, Qingyuan County strengthens the development of forestry ecological system, which is starting from developing “green ecological shelter zone” and “clean water source” of urban agglomeration around Shenyang. First, it allocates 182,00 ha of public welfare forest, where the national public welfare forest area is 86,700 ha with strict conservation; second, it suspends commercial logging on 95,300 ha of natural forest; as of the third, it establishes Liaoning Hun River Source Provincial Level Nature Reserve with the area of 18,900 ha with standardized management; fourth, it conducts mountain closure in fragile ecological area, with the closure area of 33,000 ha, which ensuring the closure area will grow to mature forest; last, it launches public plantation and greening campaign, and endeavors to develop forest reserve resources, which has accumulatively afforestation of 43,300 ha since 2006.  

Picture: www.lnly.gov.cn

Yong’an city is one of the important forests districts in Fujian Province, which has a famous name of “90% for mountains, 5% for water, 5% for farmland”, and it is a typical southern mountain area with 79.50% forest coverage rate. Among the current forest land, the collective forest land area is 2.65 million mu, occupying 69.30% of the total. The large area of collective forest determines that forestry is majority industry, which is a key resource to increase income for local farmers. From 2007 to 2011, with the improvement of forest management knowledge and intensity, the area changes of tree species present that the areas of fir, eucalyptus, so_ broad-leaved forest and rare tree species show an uptrend in China, the total area rises from 24.90% to 27.80% with average annual increase of 0.60%. The areas of pine, hard broad-leaved forest, bamboo forest and economical fruit tree show a decline.  

Lin’an is located at the western suburb of Hangzhou, which is the source of Taihu Lake and Qiantang River. The area of Lin’an is 3126.8 km2 and has a population of 530,000. In terms of the development characteristics, Lin’an is a typical representative of southern collective forests. The forest land area of Lin’an is 260,000 ha (the collective forest land area occupies 95% of the total forest area), the forest stock volume is 10.20 million m3, and the forest cover 76.55% of total land area. Lin’an has two state-level nature reserves -Tianmu Mountain and Qingliang Peak, which is called “Hometown of Bamboo” and “Hickory Capital” in China.  

Scope and tasks of the program

According to “some advices on further improving pilot land conversion from farmland back to forestland by the State Council (State Council Ref. [2000] 24)”, “some advices on further improving policy measures for land conversion from farmland back to forestland (State Council ref. [2002] 10) and the “regulations on land conversion from farmland back to forestland”, based on in-depth investigations and wide solicitation of comments from relevant provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities direct under the central government), agencies and experts, and according to the scale of 14.67 million ha of land conversion from farmland back to forestland determined by the second plenary meeting of the State Council’s leading group for western region development, the State Forestry Administration together with the State Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Office of Western Region Development of the State Council, the State Food Administration jointly formulated “the program plan for land conversion from farmland back to forestland (2001-2010)”.