Is Regulation Protection? Forest Logging Quota Impact on Forest Carbon Sinks in China

Abstract

As the central part of terrestrial ecosystems, forests have an irreplaceable role in regulating climate, prompting various efforts to protect them. Logging regulation is the most commonly used forest conservation strategy. Although the logging permit scheme was written into the Forest Law in China, its effect on forest carbon sequestration has rarely been subject to careful empirical scrutiny. In this paper, we develop and estimate a spatial econometric model to disentangle its potential effects on forest carbon sinks based on a panel dataset of 29 provinces from 1989 to 2018 in China. Our calculations show that China’s forest carbon sinks are still growing and are connected geographically, with a tendency towards “high-high” and “low-low” aggregation. Increasing the logging quota produced a spatial spillover effect that might encourage the formation of forest carbon sinks in nearby areas. It considerably encouraged the expansion of forest carbon sinks. Additional mechanism testing is consistent with the claim that rising logging quotas have significantly boosted the proportion of timber forests in afforestation but had no effect on the movement of rural labor to urban areas. The development of forest carbon sinks is impacted in different ways by various logging quota types, with an increasing tendency for logging quotas to have a more significant contribution. Additionally, the non-collective forest region has a more significant spatial spillover effect of the logging quota on forest carbon sinks. The logging quota scheme should be improved by policymakers, beginning with eliminating tending quotas in the southern collective forest region. After that, the logging quota would gradually be eliminated nationwide, notably for commercial forests.