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The forest ecological footprint distribution of Chinese log imports
Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235
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Forest Policy and Economics j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / f o r p o l
The forest ecological footprint distribution of Chinese log imports Ying Nie, Chunyi Ji, Hongqiang Yang ⁎ College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China Research Center for Economics and Trade in Forest Products of the State Forestry Administration, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China
a r t i c l e
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Article history: Received 26 May 2009 Received in revised form 12 October 2009 Accepted 22 November 2009 Keywords: Chinese log imports Ecological footprint Biocapacity
a b s t r a c t Since 1998 China has been the world's second major timber importing country, which raised a concern that China may represent a menace to the world's forest resources. In this study, an ecological footprint model is used to measure the forest impact embodied by Chinese log imports from 1995 to 2007. Special attention is given to the ratio of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log import to the biocapacity of the import origins. Chinese log demand continues to rely more on domestic supplies. Despite that the log import has increased the forest ecological footprint from Europe, those from Oceania and Asia, and Africa were less affected. From the perspective of ecological footprint we find little evidence that Chinese log imports present any serious menace to the world's forest resources. Crown Copyright © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction China is a nation that lacks substantial forest resources but is now the world's second largest consumer of timber. Its current per capita forest area of 0.132 ha, less than a quarter of the world class, only ranks 134th in the world. During the past decade, Chinese timber demand has increased by approximately 80%. In the “Eleventh FiveYear”1 period, Chinese annual consumption of timber resources reached about 0.70 billion cubic meters, while domestic supply was only 0.40 billion cubic meters, causing a wide gap about 0.30 billion cubic meters. The way to close this gap in Chinese timber resources between supply and demand has mainly been through timber imports (Yang and Nie, 2008). In 1998, China initiated a natural forest protection project, which resulted in a rapid drop in the domestic supply of timber resources. Since then, timber imports have increased year by year. The volume of imported logs in 1999 was 11.37 million cubic meters and it soared to 37.13 million cubic meters in 2007, representing an increase of 226.5%. China has become the world's second major timber importing country since 1998, Chinese log import has been considered to be closely relevant to the biocapacity sustainability of the log import origin (Pang and Xia, 2005). The impact of human resource utilization on the ecosystem has been under the observation of many ecological economists since the 1960s. The development of a dynamic model of the world's resources (Meadows et al., 1972) has laid the foundation for the study of ecological cost of
⁎ Corresponding author. College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China. Tel.: + 86 25 85427208. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Yang). 1 The Eleventh Five-Year Planning (2006–2010) was compiled and issued by the Ministry of Commerce in China for Construction of Rural Market System.
human activities. The study on net primary productivity accounting of global ecosystems (Whittaker, 1975), net primary productivity of human consumption (Vitousek et al., 1986) and energy analysis theory (Odum, 1994) have further promoted the study of the ecological footprint model. The ecological footprint is a metric that tracks human demand on, and availability of, regenerative and waste absorptive capacity within the biosphere (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). And more than 20 countries have taken advantage of its sustainable mechanism to measure various types of biocapacity sustainable development issues. The monitoring of ecological footprints of the world nations initiated by the World Wildlife Fund has also become an important metric of sustainable development. The ratio of the global ecological footprint to biocapacity has continued to increase and the global forest ecological footprint has also expanded (Table 1). The world's biocapacity per capita in 1997 was only 2.3 global hectares; while humankind's ecological footprint has exceeded the world's biocapacity by 30% (Wackernagel et al., 1997). Since 2003 China's ecological footprint has become the second only to that of the United States (Cheng et al., 2008). As an important part of human resource utilization, international trade can create pressure on the ecosystem sustainability in a given region (Rees, 1992), while the direction of the ecological pressure is opposite to the trade flow, as import will result in the local population having ecological stress outside the import area (Van den Bergh and Verbruggen, 1999). The ecological footprint model can be used to measure the international ecological dependence change from both the perspectives of the consumer and the producer (McDonald and Patterson, 2004). Against the background of world economic integration, for large international trading countries like China, it is of great value to ascertain the ecological impact on its trading partners. Changes in Chinese import and export structures have led to the growth of net import of many natural resources (Chen and Yang, 2005; Hu et al., 2006), which has resulted in the ecological footprint
1389-9341/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2009.11.003
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Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235
Table 1 Humanity's ecological footprint and biocapacity through time (in billion global hectares). Source: Global Footprint Network.
Total ecological capacity Total ecological footprint Ecological footprint to biocapacity ratio Forest ecological footprint
1961
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
13.0 7 0.54 1.1
13.0 8.1 0.63 1.2
13.1 10 0.76 1.3
13.1 11.2 0.85 1.3
13.1 12.5 0.95 1.4
13.2 12.9 0.98 1.5
13.4 14.5 1.09 1.6
13.4 14.9 1.11 1.4
13.4 16 1.19 1.5
13.4 17.4 1.31 1.5
transfer (Cheng et al., 2008). As the primary forest resource, the import of logs has given rise to an increased forest ecological footprint appropriation on the origin country (Hu et al., 2006). The concern was raised that China may represent a menace to the world's forest resources (US Environment Investigation Agency, 2005). Both the forest ecological footprint of Chinese log imports and its impact on the import origin are unclear. The purpose of this study is therefore to use an ecological footprint model to measure the ecological impact of the surge of Chinese log imports on the country of origin. The specific objectives were: 1) to use the ecological footprint model to obtain the forest ecological footprint accounts embodied in Chinese log imports from 1995 to 2007; 2) to analyze the changing trend of the import forest ecological footprint over the entire world; and 3) to compare the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand to the forest ecological footprint and biocapacity of the world's forests. 2. Theoretical framework and model 2.1. Theoretical framework The ecological footprint measures human appropriation of ecosystem products and services in terms of the amount of bioproductive land and sea area needed to supply these services (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). The area of land or sea available to serve a particular use is called biocapacity, and it represents the biosphere's ability to meet the human demand for material consumption and waste disposal. The ecological footprint and biocapacity accounts cover six land use types (Table 2): cropland, grazing land, fishing ground, forest land, built-up land, and carbon uptake land (to accommodate the carbon footprint). Models such as the dynamic model of the world's resources (Meadows et al., 1972), the input–output method (Bicknell et al., 1998), the time series analysis (Haberl et al., 2001), and the actual demand for land (Erb, 2004) essentially follow the basic assumptions of the traditional ecological footprint method (Wackernagel and Rees, l996): • The majority of the resources people consume and the wastes they generate can be tracked. • Most of these resource and waste flows can be measured in terms of the biologically productive area necessary to maintain flows. • By weighting each area in proportion to its bioproductivity, different types of areas can be converted into a common unit of global hectares, hectares with world average bioproductivity.
Subdivision
2.2. Model specifications In order to obtain the amount of biologically productive land needed to support the current Chinese log demand, the traditional ecological footprint model (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) is applied to get the global hectares of both domestic log production and international imports. The ecological footprint is normalized by global average yield, so that equivalence factors and yearly average productivities are used in this calculation (Erb, 2004; Wackernagel et al., 2004). The equation for assessing the forest land demand is displayed as follows: First, the consumption items of a designated region are divided and the annual consumption amount of number i item is obtained: Ci × Ni = Pi + Ii −Ei
ð1Þ
where Ci (m3/cap) is the annual consumption amount per capita of product i, Pi is the amount of product i harvested or waste emitted, Ii is the imported amount, Ei is the exported amount, and Ni is the number of the regional consumers for product i. The ecologically productive land per capita (ha/cap) of the product i is then calculated: Ai = Ci = Yi
ð2Þ
where Yi (m3/ha) is the annual average yield factor accounting for countries' differing levels of productivity for particular land use types. The yield factor provides comparability between various countries' ecological footprint or biocapacity calculations. The per capita ecological footprint ef is obtained as follows: ef = ∑Rj Ai
ð3Þ
where j is one of the six specified categories of ecological productive land, Rj is the equivalence factor translating the area supplied or Table 3 Equivalence factor. Source: ①Wackernagel, et al. Land use Policy, 2004, 21(3):261–269. ②WWF, living planet report 2004. ③WWF, living planet report 2006. ④WWF, living planet report 2008.
Table 2 Categories of total ecological footprint. Total ecological footprint
• All global hectares in any single year represent the same amount of bioproductivity, they can be added up to obtain an aggregate indicator of ecological footprint or biocapacity. • Human demand, expressed as the ecological footprint, can be directly compared to nature's supply, biocapacity, when both are expressed in global hectares. • Area demand can exceed area supply if demand on an ecosystem exceeds that ecosystem's regenerative capacity.
Category
Year
1991①
1999①
2001②
2003③
2005④
Cropland footprint Grazing footprint Forest land footprint Built-up land footprint Carbon uptake land footprint Fishing ground footprint
Built-up land Cropland Grazing Forest Fishing ground Fossil fuel
2.23 2.23 0.49 1.32 0.36 1.1
2.17 2.17 0.47 1.35 0.35 1.1
2.19 2.19 0.48 1.38 0.36 1.1
2.21 2.21 0.49 1.34 0.36 1.1
2.64 2.64 0.5 1.33 0.4 1.1
Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235
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Table 4 Domestic log production and net import (in million cubic meters). Source: China forestry development reports, 2000–2008. Year
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
South America
Total import
China
Total
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
0.3607 0.5349 0.9817 1.6946 4.6427 6.7985 9.4138 15.3348 14.7652 17.4362 20.6179 22.5124 26.3117
1.3296 1.3191 1.3483 1.6039 3.2944 3.3681 3.3067 3.088 4.0387 4.0663 3.2267 2.8931 2.5789
0.4359 0.8994 2.1165 1.4097 2.4592 2.0658 2.1475 2.6536 2.5042 1.6824 1.7919 2.1968 2.5489
0.2473 0.2638 0.3135 0.3742 0.8435 1.2622 1.8201 3.0635 3.935 2.8916 3.3623 4.1284 5.1501
0.095 0.1039 0.0994 0.0982 0.0667 0.07 0.1251 0.1504 0.1899 0.2166 0.327 0.3321 0.4402
0.0158 0.0002 0.0074 0.0225 0.0407 0.0205 0.0329 0.0319 0.0131 0.0093 0.0353 0.0853 0.0991
2.4843 3.1213 4.8668 5.2031 11.3472 13.5851 16.8461 24.3222 25.4461 26.3024 29.3611 32.1481 37.1289
67.669 67.103 63.948 59.662 52.368 43.9572 41.9703 41.2721 43.1986 47.1209 50.2287 61.1168 64.9205
70.1533 70.2243 68.8148 64.8651 63.7152 57.5423 58.8164 65.5943 68.6447 73.4233 79.5898 93.2649 102.0494
demanded by a specific land use type into units of world average biologically productive area: global hectares. The ecological footprint of the regional total population EF is then calculated as follows: EF = N × ef
ð4Þ
where N is the regional population. In order to research the distribution of the Chinese imported forest ecological footprint, we selected Chinese log demand as the specified consumption item i, and chose UN COMTRADE United Nations Commodity Trade statistics database tariff classification HS No. 4403 (Wood in the rough, whether or not stripped of bark or sapwood, or roughly squared) as the log classification criteria; forest land is the specified category of ecological productive land j; it is assumed that Chinese total log consumer number is consistent with the national population. The research model of this study is then adjusted to: EF = Rj ðPi + Ii −Ei Þ = Yi
ð5Þ
3. Data and results 3.1. The data A dynamic equivalence factor is used in the ecological footprint model (Table 3). We lack the forest land equivalence factors from 1992 to 1998. In order to simplify the EF model calculation, we suppose the factors from 1992 to 1998 are fixed with the data in 1991. Each equivalence factor from 1999 is used for two consecutive years. The data after 2000 are based on the equivalence factors published every two years by WWF (World Wildlife Fund). Chinese log import sources are analyzed based on six continents, which are Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North America and South America. All official import and export data (1995–2007) are obtained from UN COMTRADE DATABASE (Table 4). For the three inputs of the ecological footprint for China, direct consumption, indirect consumption, and international trade re-export, our paper primarily focuses on the direct consumption accounting, not including the carbon footprint2 caused by international trade. 3.2. Results 3.2.1. Total forest ecological footprint of Chinese log demand Based on the ecological footprint model, Chinese domestic log production and imported volumes from 1995 to 2007 were converted
2 The carbon footprint in the import trade accounted for about half of the total import ecological footprint and about two-thirds of the export ecological footprint.
to forest ecological footprints. The changing trend of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand is shown in Fig. 1. Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint changes can be divided into two phases. The first phase is from 1995 to 2002, following the introduction of the natural forest protection project, Chinese domestic wood supply was reduced and net imports increased. Meanwhile, the appropriation of domestic forest ecological footprint gradually declined from 44.89 million gha in 1995 to 28.62 million gha in 2002, a decrease of 36.24%. The ecological footprint embodied in import flows jumped significantly from 1.65 million gha in 1995 to 16.86 million gha in 2002, a 9.22 times increase. The second phase is from 2002 to 2007, the domestic forest ecological footprint appropriation began to rise with a yearly average growth rate of 8.89%. This figure reached a high point of 43.39 million gha in 2007. However, Chinese log demand has faster growth than domestic supply due to the rapid economic development, so to close the gap between supply and demand was still partly dependent on international imports. From 2002 to 2007, the forest ecological footprint embodied in log imports increased from 16.86 million ha in 2002 to 24.82 million ha in 2007, an increase of 47.2%. 3.2.2. Distribution of forest ecological footprints The change in the distribution of Chinese imported forest ecological footprint for six continents from 1995 to 2007 is shown in Fig. 2. By combining Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint accounts, Table 5 provides time-series ratios about the forest ecological footprints proportions in each continent of Chinese log import. Take the ratio of Europe in 2007 for instance, 25.78% refers to the comparison of the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe to the forest ecological footprint for total Chinese log demand. From 1995 to 2002, Chinese domestic production declined year by year, as did the proportion of Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint appropriation to the forest ecological footprint for total Chinese log demand, which dropped from 96.46% in 1995 to 62.92% in 2002. From 2002 to 2007, the ratio of domestic forest ecological footprint remained relatively stable, at an average level of around 63% to 64% (Table 5). From 1995 to 2007, the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe showed the most significant increase, jumping up to 73 times, from less than 0.24 million gha in 1995 to 17.59 million gha in 2007 (Fig. 2). At the same time, its proportion climbed from 0.51% in 1995 to 25.78% in 2007. Oceania is the second rapid growth region at present, with the input forest ecological footprint to China at 0.16 million gha in 1995 and reaching 3.44 million gha in 2007. The proportion ascended from 0.35% in 1995 to 5.05% in 2007, an increase of 14 times. The imports from Asia and Africa had a similar fluctuation in ecological footprint. From 1995 to 2007, the total imported ecological footprint from Asia was more than that from Africa (23.94 million gha compared with 16.81 million gha). Prior to 2005, the imported ecological footprint from Asia fluctuated between 2 million gha and 2.75 million
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Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235 Table 5 Ratios of the forest ecological footprint proportions of Chinese log import (in percent).
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Fig. 1. Changing trend of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand.
Fig. 2. Distribution change of Chinese imported forest ecological footprint.
gha, and after 2005 it decreased, dropping to 1.72 million gha in 2007 with the ratio reduced to 2.5%. The imported ecological footprint from Africa was 0.29 million gha in 1995, and it reached a high point of 1.84 million gha in 2002, with the maximum proportion of 4.05%. It decreased to 1.70 million gha in 2007, with the same ratio as that of Asia 2.5%. Smaller ratios were seen for North America and South America, with the highest ratios at 0.43% and 0.1%, respectively, over the 13 years of the study. 3.2.3. Comparison with global forest ecological footprint and biocapacity As the population and economic development increase, the global ecological footprint continues to grow, having reached 17.4 billion gha, or almost 1.3 times the world's ecological capacity as of 2005 (Table 6). Among the six categories of ecological productive lands, forest land is not the most seriously threatened in terms of global
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
South America
Total import
China
0.51 0.76 1.43 2.61 7.29 11.81 16.01 23.38 21.51 23.75 25.91 24.14 25.78
1.90 1.88 1.96 2.47 5.17 5.85 5.62 4.71 5.88 5.54 4.05 3.10 2.53
0.62 1.28 3.08 2.17 3.86 3.59 3.65 4.05 3.65 2.29 2.25 2.36 2.50
0.35 0.38 0.46 0.58 1.32 2.19 3.09 4.67 5.73 3.94 4.22 4.43 5.05
0.14 0.15 0.14 0.15 0.10 0.12 0.21 0.23 0.28 0.30 0.41 0.36 0.43
0.02 0.00⋆ 0.01 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.04 0.09 0.10
3.54 4.44 7.07 8.02 17.81 23.61 28.64 37.08 37.07 35.82 36.89 34.47 36.38
96.46 95.56 92.93 91.98 82.19 76.39 71.36 62.92 62.93 64.18 63.11 65.53 63.62
Note:⋆0.00 = less than 0.05. Totals may not add up due to rounding.
sustainable development. Taking the year 2005 for instance, the proportion of the forest ecological footprint to the global ecological footprint was only 8.7% (Table 6), and none of the forest ecological footprints of the six continents exceeded the forest ecological capacity. From a global point of view, total ecological footprint of three continents has exceeded the biocapacity, including Asia, North America and Europe. And it is noteworthy that in Africa and Asia, the ratio of forest ecological footprint to their forest biocapacity is extremely high, having reached 67.8% and 100.2%, respectively, which is substantially higher than the world's average level of 28.8% (Table 6). In 2005, the proportion of the forest ecological footprint appropriation for total Chinese log demand (domestic and net import) to global forest ecological footprint was 3.51%, and the ratio to the global forest biocapacity was 1.01% (Table 6). The imported forest ecological footprint from Oceania accounted for 9.21% of its forest ecological footprint and 3.45% of its forest biocapacity. As the region exporting the largest amount of logs to China, the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe accounted for only 4.52% of its forest ecological footprint and 1.35% of its forest biocapacity. The ratios of the forest ecological footprint transferred from Asia to its forest ecological footprint and biocapacity were almost the same at 0.46%. And the imported forest ecological footprint from Africa accounted only for 0.56% of its forest ecological footprint and 0.38% of its forest biocapacity. In order to get clearer about the impact of Chinese log import on the import origins, we calculated the ratios of forest ecological footprint to forest biocapacity for the import origin with and without Chinese log import in Table 6. Here we cite the most seriously affected area Oceania as an instance, the ratio without import refers to the proportion of Oceania's forest ecological footprint to its forest biocapacity, and while calculating the ratio with import we should integrate both Oceania's forest ecological footprint and the imported
Table 6 Ecological footprint and biocapacity, 2005 (in million global hectares). Source: National Footprint Accounts 2008 edition.
World Africa Asia Oceania South America North America Europe a b
Total ecological biocapacity
Total ecological footprint
Forest ecological biocapacity
Forest ecological footprint
EF of Chinese log demand
Ratio without importb
13360.95 1627.09 2996.52 393.70 2655.69 2143.30 2519.74
17443.63 1237.53 6407.00 198.35 1350.77 3037.83 3134.14
5265.11 317.06 465.50 65.05 1360.17 831.02 1024.50
1516.91 214.97 466.29 24.39 175.91 337.10 304.59
53.19a 1.20 2.16 2.25 0.02 0.22 13.78
– 67.80% 100.17% 37.49% 12.93% 40.56% 29.73%
Forest ecological footprint appropriation for total Chinese log demand (domestic and import). Ratios of ecological footprint to ecological biocapacity for the import origin with and without Chinese log import.
Ratio with importb – 68.18% 100.63% 40.94% 12.93% 40.59% 31.08%
Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235
forest ecological footprint from Oceania. From the statistical results 37.49% and 40.94%, we can see that the ratios didn't reveal a big contrast in terms of ratios without and with Chinese log import.
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his assistance with data and thoughtful comments. And we also sincerely acknowledge the financial support from the KfW-Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
4. Conclusions and discussions References Chinese domestic log supply data demonstrated that Chinese domestic production has always been the main source of supply; and that despite the increased volumes of log import, the highest proportion of imports to the total demand is less than 37%. Facing the reality of Chinese large demand for imported logs, this study calculated the ecological costs to the import origins from the perspective of the ecological footprint. Based on the measured results of the distribution of imported forest ecological footprints, it is clear that the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe has been increasing since 1998 and has become the largest forest ecological footprint import area for China. Oceania is the second largest region, but the imported forest ecological footprint is significantly less than that for Europe; the proportion is 5% in 2007. Asia and Africa are respectively the third and the fourth forest ecological footprint import region with the same ratio of 2.5% in 2007. The import forest ecological footprint from North America and South America is the least, at less than 1%. On a global scale, the forest ecological footprint did not appear to be the most serious factor to the global sustainable development among the six categories of ecological productive land. However, due to the sharp depletion of the forests and the serious ecological deterioration in Oceania, Asia, and Africa, the current ratio of their forest ecological footprints to the forest ecological capacity is now higher than the world average level. Comparison of the Chinese imported forest ecological footprint with the biocapacity of the import origins confirmed that the ecological footprint embodied in the import flow is much smaller than the ecological capacity. And the ratios of forest ecological footprint to forest biocapacity for a country of origin with and without Chinese log import are not significantly different. From the above analysis, it can be concluded qualitatively that from 1995 to 2007, Chinese log imports had little effect on the forest ecosystem of the import origins, and that China did not pose a serious menace to the world's forest resources. Because of data limitations, this article failed to explore the ecological footprint of Chinese indirect consumption and international re-export trade of imported logs. A study on the impact of Chinese imported logs on the forest ecosystems of several major importing countries would be an interesting extension of the present study. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully thank Mr. Richard Sobey of WBLPO/CAFWorld Bank Loan Project Office of the Chinese Academy of Forestry for
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Forest Policy and Economics j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / f o r p o l
The forest ecological footprint distribution of Chinese log imports Ying Nie, Chunyi Ji, Hongqiang Yang ⁎ College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China Research Center for Economics and Trade in Forest Products of the State Forestry Administration, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 26 May 2009 Received in revised form 12 October 2009 Accepted 22 November 2009 Keywords: Chinese log imports Ecological footprint Biocapacity
a b s t r a c t Since 1998 China has been the world's second major timber importing country, which raised a concern that China may represent a menace to the world's forest resources. In this study, an ecological footprint model is used to measure the forest impact embodied by Chinese log imports from 1995 to 2007. Special attention is given to the ratio of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log import to the biocapacity of the import origins. Chinese log demand continues to rely more on domestic supplies. Despite that the log import has increased the forest ecological footprint from Europe, those from Oceania and Asia, and Africa were less affected. From the perspective of ecological footprint we find little evidence that Chinese log imports present any serious menace to the world's forest resources. Crown Copyright © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction China is a nation that lacks substantial forest resources but is now the world's second largest consumer of timber. Its current per capita forest area of 0.132 ha, less than a quarter of the world class, only ranks 134th in the world. During the past decade, Chinese timber demand has increased by approximately 80%. In the “Eleventh FiveYear”1 period, Chinese annual consumption of timber resources reached about 0.70 billion cubic meters, while domestic supply was only 0.40 billion cubic meters, causing a wide gap about 0.30 billion cubic meters. The way to close this gap in Chinese timber resources between supply and demand has mainly been through timber imports (Yang and Nie, 2008). In 1998, China initiated a natural forest protection project, which resulted in a rapid drop in the domestic supply of timber resources. Since then, timber imports have increased year by year. The volume of imported logs in 1999 was 11.37 million cubic meters and it soared to 37.13 million cubic meters in 2007, representing an increase of 226.5%. China has become the world's second major timber importing country since 1998, Chinese log import has been considered to be closely relevant to the biocapacity sustainability of the log import origin (Pang and Xia, 2005). The impact of human resource utilization on the ecosystem has been under the observation of many ecological economists since the 1960s. The development of a dynamic model of the world's resources (Meadows et al., 1972) has laid the foundation for the study of ecological cost of
⁎ Corresponding author. College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, No.159, Longpan Road, Jiangsu, 210037, China. Tel.: + 86 25 85427208. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Yang). 1 The Eleventh Five-Year Planning (2006–2010) was compiled and issued by the Ministry of Commerce in China for Construction of Rural Market System.
human activities. The study on net primary productivity accounting of global ecosystems (Whittaker, 1975), net primary productivity of human consumption (Vitousek et al., 1986) and energy analysis theory (Odum, 1994) have further promoted the study of the ecological footprint model. The ecological footprint is a metric that tracks human demand on, and availability of, regenerative and waste absorptive capacity within the biosphere (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). And more than 20 countries have taken advantage of its sustainable mechanism to measure various types of biocapacity sustainable development issues. The monitoring of ecological footprints of the world nations initiated by the World Wildlife Fund has also become an important metric of sustainable development. The ratio of the global ecological footprint to biocapacity has continued to increase and the global forest ecological footprint has also expanded (Table 1). The world's biocapacity per capita in 1997 was only 2.3 global hectares; while humankind's ecological footprint has exceeded the world's biocapacity by 30% (Wackernagel et al., 1997). Since 2003 China's ecological footprint has become the second only to that of the United States (Cheng et al., 2008). As an important part of human resource utilization, international trade can create pressure on the ecosystem sustainability in a given region (Rees, 1992), while the direction of the ecological pressure is opposite to the trade flow, as import will result in the local population having ecological stress outside the import area (Van den Bergh and Verbruggen, 1999). The ecological footprint model can be used to measure the international ecological dependence change from both the perspectives of the consumer and the producer (McDonald and Patterson, 2004). Against the background of world economic integration, for large international trading countries like China, it is of great value to ascertain the ecological impact on its trading partners. Changes in Chinese import and export structures have led to the growth of net import of many natural resources (Chen and Yang, 2005; Hu et al., 2006), which has resulted in the ecological footprint
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Table 1 Humanity's ecological footprint and biocapacity through time (in billion global hectares). Source: Global Footprint Network.
Total ecological capacity Total ecological footprint Ecological footprint to biocapacity ratio Forest ecological footprint
1961
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
13.0 7 0.54 1.1
13.0 8.1 0.63 1.2
13.1 10 0.76 1.3
13.1 11.2 0.85 1.3
13.1 12.5 0.95 1.4
13.2 12.9 0.98 1.5
13.4 14.5 1.09 1.6
13.4 14.9 1.11 1.4
13.4 16 1.19 1.5
13.4 17.4 1.31 1.5
transfer (Cheng et al., 2008). As the primary forest resource, the import of logs has given rise to an increased forest ecological footprint appropriation on the origin country (Hu et al., 2006). The concern was raised that China may represent a menace to the world's forest resources (US Environment Investigation Agency, 2005). Both the forest ecological footprint of Chinese log imports and its impact on the import origin are unclear. The purpose of this study is therefore to use an ecological footprint model to measure the ecological impact of the surge of Chinese log imports on the country of origin. The specific objectives were: 1) to use the ecological footprint model to obtain the forest ecological footprint accounts embodied in Chinese log imports from 1995 to 2007; 2) to analyze the changing trend of the import forest ecological footprint over the entire world; and 3) to compare the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand to the forest ecological footprint and biocapacity of the world's forests. 2. Theoretical framework and model 2.1. Theoretical framework The ecological footprint measures human appropriation of ecosystem products and services in terms of the amount of bioproductive land and sea area needed to supply these services (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). The area of land or sea available to serve a particular use is called biocapacity, and it represents the biosphere's ability to meet the human demand for material consumption and waste disposal. The ecological footprint and biocapacity accounts cover six land use types (Table 2): cropland, grazing land, fishing ground, forest land, built-up land, and carbon uptake land (to accommodate the carbon footprint). Models such as the dynamic model of the world's resources (Meadows et al., 1972), the input–output method (Bicknell et al., 1998), the time series analysis (Haberl et al., 2001), and the actual demand for land (Erb, 2004) essentially follow the basic assumptions of the traditional ecological footprint method (Wackernagel and Rees, l996): • The majority of the resources people consume and the wastes they generate can be tracked. • Most of these resource and waste flows can be measured in terms of the biologically productive area necessary to maintain flows. • By weighting each area in proportion to its bioproductivity, different types of areas can be converted into a common unit of global hectares, hectares with world average bioproductivity.
Subdivision
2.2. Model specifications In order to obtain the amount of biologically productive land needed to support the current Chinese log demand, the traditional ecological footprint model (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) is applied to get the global hectares of both domestic log production and international imports. The ecological footprint is normalized by global average yield, so that equivalence factors and yearly average productivities are used in this calculation (Erb, 2004; Wackernagel et al., 2004). The equation for assessing the forest land demand is displayed as follows: First, the consumption items of a designated region are divided and the annual consumption amount of number i item is obtained: Ci × Ni = Pi + Ii −Ei
ð1Þ
where Ci (m3/cap) is the annual consumption amount per capita of product i, Pi is the amount of product i harvested or waste emitted, Ii is the imported amount, Ei is the exported amount, and Ni is the number of the regional consumers for product i. The ecologically productive land per capita (ha/cap) of the product i is then calculated: Ai = Ci = Yi
ð2Þ
where Yi (m3/ha) is the annual average yield factor accounting for countries' differing levels of productivity for particular land use types. The yield factor provides comparability between various countries' ecological footprint or biocapacity calculations. The per capita ecological footprint ef is obtained as follows: ef = ∑Rj Ai
ð3Þ
where j is one of the six specified categories of ecological productive land, Rj is the equivalence factor translating the area supplied or Table 3 Equivalence factor. Source: ①Wackernagel, et al. Land use Policy, 2004, 21(3):261–269. ②WWF, living planet report 2004. ③WWF, living planet report 2006. ④WWF, living planet report 2008.
Table 2 Categories of total ecological footprint. Total ecological footprint
• All global hectares in any single year represent the same amount of bioproductivity, they can be added up to obtain an aggregate indicator of ecological footprint or biocapacity. • Human demand, expressed as the ecological footprint, can be directly compared to nature's supply, biocapacity, when both are expressed in global hectares. • Area demand can exceed area supply if demand on an ecosystem exceeds that ecosystem's regenerative capacity.
Category
Year
1991①
1999①
2001②
2003③
2005④
Cropland footprint Grazing footprint Forest land footprint Built-up land footprint Carbon uptake land footprint Fishing ground footprint
Built-up land Cropland Grazing Forest Fishing ground Fossil fuel
2.23 2.23 0.49 1.32 0.36 1.1
2.17 2.17 0.47 1.35 0.35 1.1
2.19 2.19 0.48 1.38 0.36 1.1
2.21 2.21 0.49 1.34 0.36 1.1
2.64 2.64 0.5 1.33 0.4 1.1
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Table 4 Domestic log production and net import (in million cubic meters). Source: China forestry development reports, 2000–2008. Year
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
South America
Total import
China
Total
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
0.3607 0.5349 0.9817 1.6946 4.6427 6.7985 9.4138 15.3348 14.7652 17.4362 20.6179 22.5124 26.3117
1.3296 1.3191 1.3483 1.6039 3.2944 3.3681 3.3067 3.088 4.0387 4.0663 3.2267 2.8931 2.5789
0.4359 0.8994 2.1165 1.4097 2.4592 2.0658 2.1475 2.6536 2.5042 1.6824 1.7919 2.1968 2.5489
0.2473 0.2638 0.3135 0.3742 0.8435 1.2622 1.8201 3.0635 3.935 2.8916 3.3623 4.1284 5.1501
0.095 0.1039 0.0994 0.0982 0.0667 0.07 0.1251 0.1504 0.1899 0.2166 0.327 0.3321 0.4402
0.0158 0.0002 0.0074 0.0225 0.0407 0.0205 0.0329 0.0319 0.0131 0.0093 0.0353 0.0853 0.0991
2.4843 3.1213 4.8668 5.2031 11.3472 13.5851 16.8461 24.3222 25.4461 26.3024 29.3611 32.1481 37.1289
67.669 67.103 63.948 59.662 52.368 43.9572 41.9703 41.2721 43.1986 47.1209 50.2287 61.1168 64.9205
70.1533 70.2243 68.8148 64.8651 63.7152 57.5423 58.8164 65.5943 68.6447 73.4233 79.5898 93.2649 102.0494
demanded by a specific land use type into units of world average biologically productive area: global hectares. The ecological footprint of the regional total population EF is then calculated as follows: EF = N × ef
ð4Þ
where N is the regional population. In order to research the distribution of the Chinese imported forest ecological footprint, we selected Chinese log demand as the specified consumption item i, and chose UN COMTRADE United Nations Commodity Trade statistics database tariff classification HS No. 4403 (Wood in the rough, whether or not stripped of bark or sapwood, or roughly squared) as the log classification criteria; forest land is the specified category of ecological productive land j; it is assumed that Chinese total log consumer number is consistent with the national population. The research model of this study is then adjusted to: EF = Rj ðPi + Ii −Ei Þ = Yi
ð5Þ
3. Data and results 3.1. The data A dynamic equivalence factor is used in the ecological footprint model (Table 3). We lack the forest land equivalence factors from 1992 to 1998. In order to simplify the EF model calculation, we suppose the factors from 1992 to 1998 are fixed with the data in 1991. Each equivalence factor from 1999 is used for two consecutive years. The data after 2000 are based on the equivalence factors published every two years by WWF (World Wildlife Fund). Chinese log import sources are analyzed based on six continents, which are Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North America and South America. All official import and export data (1995–2007) are obtained from UN COMTRADE DATABASE (Table 4). For the three inputs of the ecological footprint for China, direct consumption, indirect consumption, and international trade re-export, our paper primarily focuses on the direct consumption accounting, not including the carbon footprint2 caused by international trade. 3.2. Results 3.2.1. Total forest ecological footprint of Chinese log demand Based on the ecological footprint model, Chinese domestic log production and imported volumes from 1995 to 2007 were converted
2 The carbon footprint in the import trade accounted for about half of the total import ecological footprint and about two-thirds of the export ecological footprint.
to forest ecological footprints. The changing trend of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand is shown in Fig. 1. Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint changes can be divided into two phases. The first phase is from 1995 to 2002, following the introduction of the natural forest protection project, Chinese domestic wood supply was reduced and net imports increased. Meanwhile, the appropriation of domestic forest ecological footprint gradually declined from 44.89 million gha in 1995 to 28.62 million gha in 2002, a decrease of 36.24%. The ecological footprint embodied in import flows jumped significantly from 1.65 million gha in 1995 to 16.86 million gha in 2002, a 9.22 times increase. The second phase is from 2002 to 2007, the domestic forest ecological footprint appropriation began to rise with a yearly average growth rate of 8.89%. This figure reached a high point of 43.39 million gha in 2007. However, Chinese log demand has faster growth than domestic supply due to the rapid economic development, so to close the gap between supply and demand was still partly dependent on international imports. From 2002 to 2007, the forest ecological footprint embodied in log imports increased from 16.86 million ha in 2002 to 24.82 million ha in 2007, an increase of 47.2%. 3.2.2. Distribution of forest ecological footprints The change in the distribution of Chinese imported forest ecological footprint for six continents from 1995 to 2007 is shown in Fig. 2. By combining Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint accounts, Table 5 provides time-series ratios about the forest ecological footprints proportions in each continent of Chinese log import. Take the ratio of Europe in 2007 for instance, 25.78% refers to the comparison of the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe to the forest ecological footprint for total Chinese log demand. From 1995 to 2002, Chinese domestic production declined year by year, as did the proportion of Chinese domestic forest ecological footprint appropriation to the forest ecological footprint for total Chinese log demand, which dropped from 96.46% in 1995 to 62.92% in 2002. From 2002 to 2007, the ratio of domestic forest ecological footprint remained relatively stable, at an average level of around 63% to 64% (Table 5). From 1995 to 2007, the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe showed the most significant increase, jumping up to 73 times, from less than 0.24 million gha in 1995 to 17.59 million gha in 2007 (Fig. 2). At the same time, its proportion climbed from 0.51% in 1995 to 25.78% in 2007. Oceania is the second rapid growth region at present, with the input forest ecological footprint to China at 0.16 million gha in 1995 and reaching 3.44 million gha in 2007. The proportion ascended from 0.35% in 1995 to 5.05% in 2007, an increase of 14 times. The imports from Asia and Africa had a similar fluctuation in ecological footprint. From 1995 to 2007, the total imported ecological footprint from Asia was more than that from Africa (23.94 million gha compared with 16.81 million gha). Prior to 2005, the imported ecological footprint from Asia fluctuated between 2 million gha and 2.75 million
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Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235 Table 5 Ratios of the forest ecological footprint proportions of Chinese log import (in percent).
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 Fig. 1. Changing trend of the forest ecological footprint for Chinese log demand.
Fig. 2. Distribution change of Chinese imported forest ecological footprint.
gha, and after 2005 it decreased, dropping to 1.72 million gha in 2007 with the ratio reduced to 2.5%. The imported ecological footprint from Africa was 0.29 million gha in 1995, and it reached a high point of 1.84 million gha in 2002, with the maximum proportion of 4.05%. It decreased to 1.70 million gha in 2007, with the same ratio as that of Asia 2.5%. Smaller ratios were seen for North America and South America, with the highest ratios at 0.43% and 0.1%, respectively, over the 13 years of the study. 3.2.3. Comparison with global forest ecological footprint and biocapacity As the population and economic development increase, the global ecological footprint continues to grow, having reached 17.4 billion gha, or almost 1.3 times the world's ecological capacity as of 2005 (Table 6). Among the six categories of ecological productive lands, forest land is not the most seriously threatened in terms of global
Europe
Asia
Africa
Oceania
North America
South America
Total import
China
0.51 0.76 1.43 2.61 7.29 11.81 16.01 23.38 21.51 23.75 25.91 24.14 25.78
1.90 1.88 1.96 2.47 5.17 5.85 5.62 4.71 5.88 5.54 4.05 3.10 2.53
0.62 1.28 3.08 2.17 3.86 3.59 3.65 4.05 3.65 2.29 2.25 2.36 2.50
0.35 0.38 0.46 0.58 1.32 2.19 3.09 4.67 5.73 3.94 4.22 4.43 5.05
0.14 0.15 0.14 0.15 0.10 0.12 0.21 0.23 0.28 0.30 0.41 0.36 0.43
0.02 0.00⋆ 0.01 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.06 0.05 0.02 0.01 0.04 0.09 0.10
3.54 4.44 7.07 8.02 17.81 23.61 28.64 37.08 37.07 35.82 36.89 34.47 36.38
96.46 95.56 92.93 91.98 82.19 76.39 71.36 62.92 62.93 64.18 63.11 65.53 63.62
Note:⋆0.00 = less than 0.05. Totals may not add up due to rounding.
sustainable development. Taking the year 2005 for instance, the proportion of the forest ecological footprint to the global ecological footprint was only 8.7% (Table 6), and none of the forest ecological footprints of the six continents exceeded the forest ecological capacity. From a global point of view, total ecological footprint of three continents has exceeded the biocapacity, including Asia, North America and Europe. And it is noteworthy that in Africa and Asia, the ratio of forest ecological footprint to their forest biocapacity is extremely high, having reached 67.8% and 100.2%, respectively, which is substantially higher than the world's average level of 28.8% (Table 6). In 2005, the proportion of the forest ecological footprint appropriation for total Chinese log demand (domestic and net import) to global forest ecological footprint was 3.51%, and the ratio to the global forest biocapacity was 1.01% (Table 6). The imported forest ecological footprint from Oceania accounted for 9.21% of its forest ecological footprint and 3.45% of its forest biocapacity. As the region exporting the largest amount of logs to China, the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe accounted for only 4.52% of its forest ecological footprint and 1.35% of its forest biocapacity. The ratios of the forest ecological footprint transferred from Asia to its forest ecological footprint and biocapacity were almost the same at 0.46%. And the imported forest ecological footprint from Africa accounted only for 0.56% of its forest ecological footprint and 0.38% of its forest biocapacity. In order to get clearer about the impact of Chinese log import on the import origins, we calculated the ratios of forest ecological footprint to forest biocapacity for the import origin with and without Chinese log import in Table 6. Here we cite the most seriously affected area Oceania as an instance, the ratio without import refers to the proportion of Oceania's forest ecological footprint to its forest biocapacity, and while calculating the ratio with import we should integrate both Oceania's forest ecological footprint and the imported
Table 6 Ecological footprint and biocapacity, 2005 (in million global hectares). Source: National Footprint Accounts 2008 edition.
World Africa Asia Oceania South America North America Europe a b
Total ecological biocapacity
Total ecological footprint
Forest ecological biocapacity
Forest ecological footprint
EF of Chinese log demand
Ratio without importb
13360.95 1627.09 2996.52 393.70 2655.69 2143.30 2519.74
17443.63 1237.53 6407.00 198.35 1350.77 3037.83 3134.14
5265.11 317.06 465.50 65.05 1360.17 831.02 1024.50
1516.91 214.97 466.29 24.39 175.91 337.10 304.59
53.19a 1.20 2.16 2.25 0.02 0.22 13.78
– 67.80% 100.17% 37.49% 12.93% 40.56% 29.73%
Forest ecological footprint appropriation for total Chinese log demand (domestic and import). Ratios of ecological footprint to ecological biocapacity for the import origin with and without Chinese log import.
Ratio with importb – 68.18% 100.63% 40.94% 12.93% 40.59% 31.08%
Y. Nie et al. / Forest Policy and Economics 12 (2010) 231–235
forest ecological footprint from Oceania. From the statistical results 37.49% and 40.94%, we can see that the ratios didn't reveal a big contrast in terms of ratios without and with Chinese log import.
235
his assistance with data and thoughtful comments. And we also sincerely acknowledge the financial support from the KfW-Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
4. Conclusions and discussions References Chinese domestic log supply data demonstrated that Chinese domestic production has always been the main source of supply; and that despite the increased volumes of log import, the highest proportion of imports to the total demand is less than 37%. Facing the reality of Chinese large demand for imported logs, this study calculated the ecological costs to the import origins from the perspective of the ecological footprint. Based on the measured results of the distribution of imported forest ecological footprints, it is clear that the imported forest ecological footprint from Europe has been increasing since 1998 and has become the largest forest ecological footprint import area for China. Oceania is the second largest region, but the imported forest ecological footprint is significantly less than that for Europe; the proportion is 5% in 2007. Asia and Africa are respectively the third and the fourth forest ecological footprint import region with the same ratio of 2.5% in 2007. The import forest ecological footprint from North America and South America is the least, at less than 1%. On a global scale, the forest ecological footprint did not appear to be the most serious factor to the global sustainable development among the six categories of ecological productive land. However, due to the sharp depletion of the forests and the serious ecological deterioration in Oceania, Asia, and Africa, the current ratio of their forest ecological footprints to the forest ecological capacity is now higher than the world average level. Comparison of the Chinese imported forest ecological footprint with the biocapacity of the import origins confirmed that the ecological footprint embodied in the import flow is much smaller than the ecological capacity. And the ratios of forest ecological footprint to forest biocapacity for a country of origin with and without Chinese log import are not significantly different. From the above analysis, it can be concluded qualitatively that from 1995 to 2007, Chinese log imports had little effect on the forest ecosystem of the import origins, and that China did not pose a serious menace to the world's forest resources. Because of data limitations, this article failed to explore the ecological footprint of Chinese indirect consumption and international re-export trade of imported logs. A study on the impact of Chinese imported logs on the forest ecosystems of several major importing countries would be an interesting extension of the present study. Acknowledgements The authors gratefully thank Mr. Richard Sobey of WBLPO/CAFWorld Bank Loan Project Office of the Chinese Academy of Forestry for
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