Responsible forestry, resilience and restoration in China

China is stepping forward as an important player in addressing nature loss and climate change. The country has made promising commitments to restoring forests, improving forest management and tackling illegal logging. Although China hosts the largest area of planted forests in the world, the management level isn’t always robust enough to balance biodiversity conservation and timber production. Improving forest quality through responsible forest management is a key challenge in China. The many smallholders involved in managing forests and plantations often lack capacity and incentives to improve forest management practices, and domestic market demand for responsibly sourced forest products is relatively low.

All this provides opportunities for WWF and IKEA to support the transformation of China’s forest sector. Since 2002, we’ve been collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders in the country at national, provincial and community level, from government forest agencies to industry associations to smallholder cooperatives. The partnership is now building on these achievements and is working to upscale responsible forest management, forest restoration and market transformation to benefit forests in China and globally.

What we’re doing

Expanding responsible forest management

Under the WWF and IKEA partnership, we’re expanding the area of responsibly managed forests in China by working with current and potential future IKEA suppliers and demonstrating better practices on the ground. We’re providing training and technical assistance to forest managers, communities and smallholders to help them meet the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard, including protecting areas of high conservation value. As well as strengthening management in various types of forest, we’re promoting better practices in tree plantations through training, capacity building and knowledge-sharing events. Our goal is to increase the area of FSC-certified forest by 100,000 hectares by 2023.

Strengthening standards for bamboo and rubber

Engaging with communities and smallholders to explore sustainable bamboo production is a new area for the partnership in the country. Fast-growing and abundant, bamboo can provide a sustainable substitute for wood, taking pressure off forests, while also providing an important source of income for local people. China is already a major producer of bamboo and, with improvements in technology, production techniques and marketing, there’s huge scope to expand further.

We’re working to improve sustainability standards in rubber plantations and are training smallholders and local communities in China’s major rubber growing areas in Hainan and Yunnan provinces. Along with this, we’re aiming to ensure China’s overseas investment supports sustainable rubber production by engaging 20 overseas investors and at least 5 rubberwood farm managers to incorporate the FSC standard.

Restoring degraded forests and enhancing biodiversity

WWF and IKEA are working together to improve the resilience of forests in priority areas for biodiversity protection. In southern China, we’re restoring native vegetation on at least 10 hectares of plantations converted from natural forests in Guangxi province. In the Wangqing region of northeast China, we’ve completed an assessment of effective measures to restore forest biodiversity, and an evidence-based forest biodiversity recovery project is now underway. In the Amur-Heilong landscape, we are working to restore 10,000 hectares of high conservation value forest within the Amur tiger habitat. In doing so, we aim to transform monoculture forests toward landscapes with higher biodiversity using a variety of native plant species – vital for the recovery of populations of big cats like Amur tigers and leopards. By demonstrating how successful restoration on the ground can support biodiversity, local livelihoods and reduced human-wildlife conflicts, we can serve as an example for local and national restoration policies and practices, including the Chinese government’s Natural Forest Protection and Rehabilitation System.

Building demand for sustainable wood

Chinese domestic demand for responsibly sourced timber products has been increasing, with the number of FSC Chain of Custody certificates increasing by 300% from 2017 to 2019. The partnership aims to build on this by raising awareness of responsibly sourced wood and paper products among the public and companies, including by organizing campaigns and events at IKEA stores and with other partners. We’re also engaging with governments and financial institutions to develop policies and incentives supporting sustainable forest management both in China and overseas.

For more information

Michelle Slaney
WWF Senior Programme Manager Forests
Michelle.Slaney@wwf.se

 

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