Deforestation In Chinese

[Micol Cohn]

Forestsare important in their functions of storing carbon dioxide as well as providing habitats to animal species. Poorly managed forests and deforestation therefore pose a huge threat to climate change and biodiversity. China is home to about 211 million hectares (Mha) of tree cover, making it the fifth country with the most trees in the world. Chinese deforestation and measures to combat it consequently can have a global impact.

By the end of 2020, total forest cover in China has increased from 8.6% in 1949 to 23.04% thanks to reforestation programmes in the 50s and the 70s which aimed to plant about 28 Mha and 27 Mha of trees respectively to help reverse damages from soil erosion provoked during the Chinese Civil War. Yet, this seemingly impressive figure is undermined by increasing deforestation activities within the last 20 years.

Studies have proven that a man-made plantation can perfectly offset a primary forest of the same size in terms of absorbing carbon dioxide. Yet, in terms of the conservation of biodiversity, primary forests are much more significant than secondary forests and man-made plantations as many species could only be found in primary forests. One example being about 60% of plants and 40% of bird species in the Brazilian Amazon can only be found in primary forests, whereas secondary forests are mostly occupied by common species found worldwide.

In looking at the loss of total tree cover in the past two decades, the Chinese deforestation situation is even direr. Between 2002 and 2020, China lost 10.1 Mha of tree cover, equivalent to a 6.2% decrease in tree cover. Although one part of the loss of tree cover is due to wildfires, shifting agriculture, and forestry, which provoked only temporary deforestation, a larger part of the loss of tree cover is driven by urbanisation and commodity-driven logging, resulting in permanent deforestation. Additionally, only about 30% of the trees planted during the tree-planting campaign in the 1970s survived. The decrease in tree cover results in a loss of absorbing power of 4.35 gigatonne (Gt) of carbon dioxide emissions during the period.

As the fifth country with the most hectares of trees in the world, the percentage decrease of tree cover in China has been relatively low in recent years when compared with Russia, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, four countries that hold more trees than China. Although it is still a long way to completely stop the downward trend both in the size of primary forests and in the number of trees, China has in fact made substantial efforts in tackling this particular issue in its economic policies.

Despite being one of the largest exporters of goods in the world, China has taken a different approach to its agricultural products such as timber, soy, and palm oil. In the late 2010s, China implemented a nationwide restriction on felling natural forests, resulting in a dependence on agricultural product imports, especially materials needed for manufacturing processes. Currently, exports of more than half of all timber coming from all over the world are destined to China.

However, some environmentalists argue that China, as the largest importer of wood-based products in the world, continues to harm natural forests, albeit outside the borders, passing the environmental costs on to other exporters. Critics are pushing for China to take its responsibilities on the global scale. Indeed, in the early 2010s, China did not have strict regulations on wood-based product imports and was not required to show certifications to prove that wood had been sourced from sustainable forests, and importers in China were attracted by the low price of wood from illegal sources. This reckless importing practices resulted in China being responsible for about 60% of the volume of illegal imports of wood.

Moreover, in April 2021, the United States and China made a joint statement addressing the climate crisis, and once affirmed its importance during the COP26 in Glasgow. In the statement, the two superpowers agreed to the necessity to eliminate global illegal deforestation through effectively enforcing their respective laws on banning illegal imports. China has been fairly successful in combating deforestation at the national level and has shown genuine efforts to expand its ambition on the global scale. But it will be a challenge if China can maintain this same level of effort not only on deforestation but also on other environmental issues, including eliminating its dependence on coal and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The latest paper in this series explores the role of agricultural commodities in South America and their influence on accelerating deforestation. The author is Andr Vasconcelos, a senior associate at Global Canopy and Trase, an organization tracking issues of supply chain sustainability. Vasconcelos examines the environmental impacts of soy and beef production in Uncovering the Deforestation and Climate Risks of Chinese and EU Soy and Beef Imports. He argues that current efforts to address deforestation are focused largely on the Amazon region while ignoring other important, highly diverse biomes. He argues that shifting targets to combat deforestation to specific production regions" offers a "strategic opportunity" for Chinese and European buyers to address the environmental impacts of large-scale beef and soy production.

Global Witness reveals today that Chinese banks are funnelling billions into agribusinesses driving global deforestation and are failing to take adequate measures to ensure their money is not contributing to environmental destruction.

As well as being vital carbon sinks and helping cool our planet, forests are also home to indigenous and local communities, are the site of unparalleled biodiversity and help prevent the spread of further zoonotic diseases like Covid-19, which pass from animals to humans.

While it is well-known that China is one of the world's largest consumers of agricultural commodities such as soy, beef and palm oil that drive deforestation globally, the fundamental role of the Chinese financial sector in bankrolling companies producing and trading such commodities has been much less scrutinised.

Our new analysis highlights that Chinese banks are pumping billions into agribusinesses which are some of the worst offenders when it comes to driving deforestation. The companies that major Chinese banks chose to finance suggest that the banks have done little or no due diligence to safeguard against their exposure to environmental and social harms.

The report, released June 7, revealed that between January 2013 and April 2020, Chinese financiers poured more than $22.5 billion into major companies producing and trading commodities linked to deforestation, such as palm oil, soy and beef. This makes China the sixth-largest funder of global deforestation in the period, behind major commodity producers Brazil, Malaysia, the U.S. and Indonesia, and non-producer Japan.

With the Chinese law regulating commercial banks set to undergo revisions this year, Global Witness and other campaigners are calling for policymakers to explicitly require commercial banks to ensure they are not financing businesses linked to environmental and social damage, whether locally or elsewhere.

From 2016 to 2020, 29% of Chinese funds to forest-risk companies went to those producing and trading palm oil, soy and beef, a Forests & Finance report found. These three agricultural commodities were the leading drivers of deforestation from 2001 to 2015 in countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Argentina, according to the World Resources Institute.

Chinese banks also funneled $3.2 billion into 28 palm oil groups during the period, including COFCO, ADM and Bunge, the report said. Nine of the firms were closely linked to the 2019 Indonesian forest fires and the cross-border haze that ensued, with some of the fires started to clear land for plantations, it alleged.

Mao Zedong was one of the early Socialist leaders who thought that the higher the population of China was, the more powerful China could become. Lumber was used in almost every aspect of the rapid industrialization effort: from building houses, railroads, dikes and dams, it is one of the most basic resources that a country needed to industrialize.

Tracking the path of deforestation during this era exemplifies the important shift away from agricultural work and towards industrial work, which led to millions of deaths from severe famine, which would eventually lead to the collapse of the Chinese economy by 1961.

This eventually which promoted the development of state-owned enterprise by allowing individuals or groups to manage the enterprise by contract. Private businesses were allowed to operate for the first time since the Communist takeover, and they gradually began to make up a greater percentage of industrial output.

In Sichuan and the Qinling Mountains, Logging companies started to capitalize on the high demand market for old growth timber that was still prevalent there.Without these ancient roots absorbing the water, runoff water went straight into the River and flooding the homes and farmlands of millions of people.

The ecological importance was continuously undermined by the new socialists leaders in favor of rapid growth. This was largely driven by the backyard blast furnaces and the unrealistic hope that China could rapidly industrialize by tapping into the enthusiasm and resources of rural people. While the return of the age-old style of Chinese farming gave many farmers their land back to them, the growing demand they were forced to keep up with meant that entire forests needed to be completely scraped away for grain.

The UN's International Day of Forests is held annually on March 21st to raise awareness of the ecological, economic and social importance of forests worldwide. On this theme, this blog focuses on the importance of global forests to the emerging economic superpower of China, asking one simple, yet fundamental, question; how does a country of 1.38 billion people feed itself in a sustainable way?

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