Abstract:

The ongoing property rights reform of collectively owned forests has contributed to increasing forest farmers income. Increments of forestry income resulted from acquirement of transfer benefits and an income increase in forest management. Whether farmers transfer benefits are reasonable determines to some extent that the objectives of collective forest property rights system reform can be fully achieved. In this paper we applied forest land and stumpage price theory to examine whether or not the present transfer benefits were reasonable. Following a brief review of the reform and the transfer in Suichuan County， we compared the theoretical prices with the actual prices of forestland and stumpage transfers. It was concluded that， given the present logging quota constraints， farmers transfer income was significantly lower than the theoretical value of the forest. The policy implications of the result were discussed.

Key words: the reform of collective forest Property rights system, farmers, transfer benefits