TY - JOUR
T1 - Decentralisation and accountability in forest management
T2 - A case from Yunnan, Southwest China
AU - Xu, Jianchu
AU - Ribot, Jesse C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Jianchu Xu is Professor at the Kunming Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming. Jesse C. Ribot is a Senior Associate at the Institutions and Governance Program, World Resources Institute (WRI), Washington, DC. The authors would like to thank the Ford Foundation, World Resources Institute and PARDYP (People and Resource Dynamics in Mountain Watershed of the Hindu-Kush Himalayas Project) for funding the field research and writing for this essay. The authors would also like to thank Zheng Lixia, Laetia Kress and Diana Conyers for editing this essay, and owe special thanks to two anonymous reviewers and Anne Larson, whose comments contributed greatly to the development of the essay. Jesse Ribot would like to acknowledge Jianchu Xu for inviting him onboard as co-author: as the former is an Africa specialist with no experience in China, the credit must go to Jianchu Xu for the insights and knowledge about China presented herein.
PY - 2004/3
Y1 - 2004/3
N2 - Over the last two decades, China has introduced forest resources management reforms aiming to protect forests and enhance rural livelihoods. As part of these reforms, some powers over forestry management have been decentralised to village-level institutions. However, this decentralisation has so far failed to give local communities adequate control over forest resources, especially in areas like Yunnan where the ethnic minority population is heavily dependent on these resources for its livelihood. Insufficient powers have been decentralised, the village-level institutions are not sufficiently accountable to the public and some of the reforms designed to protect forest resources have had a negative impact on rural livelihoods.
AB - Over the last two decades, China has introduced forest resources management reforms aiming to protect forests and enhance rural livelihoods. As part of these reforms, some powers over forestry management have been decentralised to village-level institutions. However, this decentralisation has so far failed to give local communities adequate control over forest resources, especially in areas like Yunnan where the ethnic minority population is heavily dependent on these resources for its livelihood. Insufficient powers have been decentralised, the village-level institutions are not sufficiently accountable to the public and some of the reforms designed to protect forest resources have had a negative impact on rural livelihoods.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=2342445946&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=2342445946&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09578810410001688789
DO - 10.1080/09578810410001688789
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:2342445946
SN - 0957-8811
VL - 16
SP - 153
EP - 173
JO - European Journal of Development Research
JF - European Journal of Development Research
IS - 1
ER -