Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation - APFNet

Table III.1. Summary of past NFI results
Interval
Total standing stock
(million m 3 )
Forest area
(million ha)
78
Forest stock
(million m 3 )
Forest
coverage (%)
1st (1973-1976) 9532.27 121.86 8655.79 12.7
2nd (1977-1981) 10260.60 115.28 9027.95 12.0
3rd (1984-1988) 10572.50 124.65 9141.08 12.98
4th (1989-1993) 11785.00 133.70 10137.00 13.92
5th (1994-1998) 12487.86 158.94 11266.59 16.55
6th (1999-2003) 13618.10 174.90 12455.85 18.21
7th (2004-2008) 14912.68 195.45 13720.80 20.36
Source: SFA 2009.
Poverty Situation
The National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) defines poverty as a situation in which an individual
or a family lacks basic materials and needs, and living standards do not reach acceptable minimum
social living standards. The poverty line sets the lowest costs for the necessary consumption of goods
or services for people to maintain their basic survival under certain conditions of time, space, and social
development stage, also known as the poverty standard. In China, there are two poverty standards or
levels. One is the absolute poverty level that is below the standard and is referred to as “extreme
poverty.” The other is the relative poverty level and refers to the level above absolute poverty, but with
lower income, also known as “low-income population.”
The current poverty standard of China was first estimated in 1986 based on consumption expenditure
surveys of 67,000 rural households conducted by the NBS. After 1986, it was adjusted according to the
changes in the rural price index. In 2009, China’s absolute poverty standard for rural and low-income
poverty standard were integrated into a single new poverty standard, which is about US$ 180 (RMB
1,196) per year, and equivalent to US$ 0.5 per day 1 net income per capita (Gu Zhongyang 2009).
In the implementation of the national poverty strategy in the 1990s, the Chinese government identified
592 national poverty-stricken counties (NPSC) 2 . From the spatial distribution, most of these poor
counties are located in mountainous areas or high altitude mountains. There are 373 poverty counties of
concentrated distribution in 13 zones, covering approximately 170 million ha, and affecting 119 million
people, including a rural population of 104 million (Jia Ruoxiang 2011).
National Economy and Poverty Alleviation
Since the start of the reform and opening up in 1978, China’s economy has rapidly grown while rural
poverty alleviation and development has also made remarkable achievements.
From 1978 to 2009, with China’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 9.8%, the socioeconomic
development situation changed from solving the problem of basic living to achieving an
almost well-off living standard. According to the preliminary estimates by NBS, China’s GDP totaled
US$ 5,880 billion in 2010 with an increase of 10.3% from that in 2009, and accounted for 8.5% of global
GDP, ranking the country second in the world.
1 The exchange rate in 2010 was US$1: US$ 6.7695.
2 The classification of a national poverty-stricken county is approved by the State Council according to a
county’s poor population, net income per capita, GDP per capita, and financial revenue per capita.