Forest acreage in China's northeast region, comprising Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces, accounts for half of the total land and the forestry and wood industries have traditionally supported the local economies. With a view toward sustainable development and rejuvenating the northeast, priority must be given to revamping these traditional industries.

Li Wenhua is a leading authority in ecology and dean of the School of Environment at Renmin University of China. He recently spoke with the China Economic Times about the forestry industry’s role in revitalizing the northeast.

Li said that the region's natural resources make the forestry and wood industries strong links in the local economy. The renowned "three treasures of northeast China" -- mink, pilose deer antler and ginseng -- come from the area's forests. Timber from the northeast was used to build many of the structures and railways through the People's Republic of China after its founding, particularly in Beijing. Northeast China is still the country’s largest stated-owned forestry and timber base.

Since the late 1980s, years of excessive exploitation of the forests, like other traditional resource-depleting and heavy industries in the region, put the area into a dangerous ecological situation and an economic decline.

Last year, the central government made an important strategic decision to revitalize northeast China. Because of the advantages of local resources and long tradition, it is felt that the forestry and wood industries should spearhead the rejuvenation, building up ecological bases for a "new northeast China."

Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Forestry Administration, said at a seminar on revitalizing old industrial bases and forestry of northeast China that forestry development should take the lead in the revitalization program. Forestry should provide ecological guarantees for the rejuvenation of the industrial base and the overall coordinated and sustainable development of the northeast. But, he said, the industry must undergo profound reform itself in order to do this.

The role of eco-economics

"Eco-economy is an economic pattern in which our demand can be satisfied now without threatening supplies for future generations," said Li Wenhua. With regard to forestry, developing the eco-economy is predicated on preserving the forest ecosystem.

The old "timber-cut economy" must go. Smaller amounts of timber should be cut, and the focus shifted to downstream processing and comprehensive utilization of timber to produce high-value-added products. New routes of resource exploitation should be explored, such as eco-tourism, bamboo ware, flowers, indigenous foods, and raising of rare trees, herbs and animals to give new impetus to the forestry industry.

The state must take the lead in controlling forestry development, creating policies according to market needs and resource availability in order to lead the industry on a sound path of development and to avoid duplication and redundancy at lower levels.

(Li Wenhua graduated from the Beijing Forestry University in 1953 and received his doctorate at the former Soviet Union Academy of Sciences in 1961. He now holds several posts simultaneously: dean, School of Environment, Renmin University of China; researcher, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences; academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering; and chairman, executive council, Chinese Association of Ecology.)

(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, April 8, 2004)