Research on Sustainable High-Quality Forestry Development in China—From Measurements, Dynamic Evolution, and Regional Differences

Abstract

Following the new development philosophy, this research elaborates the connotation of sustainable high-quality forestry development and constructs an evaluation index system based on the connotation. The entropy-based TOPSIS method was used to measure the forestry development level from 2005 to 2021 in China. On this basis, the kernel density estimation, spatial association analysis, Markov chain, and Gini index were used to analyze the evolution characteristics in time and space and regional differences in China’s forestry development from multiple angles and levels. The results show that, first, although the overall sustainable high-quality development level of China’s forestry tends to rise, and the level ranking of each province is relatively stable, the development level varies greatly from province to province; second, the development level in the central, eastern, and western regions shows an upward trend, and in the northeast region, it rose first and then fell, presenting a decreasing step distribution of from the eastern, central, northeast, to western regions; third, the regional differences are the main reasons for the development difference in China’s forestry, with the largest difference in the east, followed by the west, central, and northeast regions; fourth, sustainable high-quality forestry development in various provinces has a great effect in terms of spatial agglomeration, and the spatial lag has a significant impact on the transfer of sustainable high-quality forestry development; however, there are still some difficulties in achieving progress in its development.