In the early 1990s, southwest China’s Baicai Village developed a novel experiment in community forestry—a joint stock forest plantation—to reverse the environmental impacts of deforestation and encourage reforestation. With the central government’s priority shift toward conservation in the late 1990s, Baicai’s allowed timber harvest fell nearly five fold, reducing both village incomes and funds and incentives for forest stewardship. Given that part of its plantation harbors the headwaters of the Xiaozhaizi River, through a payment mechanism downstream villages might be able to compensate Baicai for a portion of its forest management expenditures.
<<