Author Description

Finally, the study addresses the question of farmer incentives and benefits. For large-scale forestry projects engaging smallholders in forestry is vital for the success of the project, with respect to a balanced socio-economic development in poor rural areas and guaranteed long-term success. Forestry development potentially improves the livelihoods of famers by increasing their income, and poverty alleviation has always been an important objective of bioenergy and oil forestry programs. Although these programs often provide financial support and technical services, some farmers are still not able to join. For instance, the participation rate of farmers in the camellia program was only 37%. Moreover, the participation level varied among counties and villages, because farmers’ participation is still constrained by their capacity in terms of wealth, labour endowment and education. Finally, forestry programs generate different benefit distribution impacts on farm households under different forest project implementation regimes. Results show that five implementation regimes of camellia plantations can be distinguished, i.e. Individual, Partnership, Collective-Individual, Collective, Company, each having their own specifics of project access and benefit distribution among smallholders. Collective-individual, Collective, and Company forest implementation regimes perform better in terms of program access and equal benefit distribution than Individual and Partnership regimes. But also for the former three regimes, village leaders and companies may seize substantial project benefit reducing the benefits to and marginal smallholders.