China’s 175 million hectares of forest and 12.5 billion cubic meters of forest stock rank as 5th and 6th respectively in the world. Generations of over exploitation, disease and fires have reduced its forest coverage to 18% of its land mass, ranking its 0.13 hectares of forest per capita at 134 globally, less than one-fourth the world average. The recent goal of China is to increase its forest coverage to 26% by 2050.
In an attempt to increase utilization of sustainable forest management practices, China has instituted major land ownership tenure reforms that now allow individuals land ownership rights as well as their ability to transfer these rights to other PRC entities.
Sustained economic growth, logging bans and other afforestation programs have made China the largest wood importer and consumer in the world.
China Forestry Inc. is a timber investment group established to capitalize on China’s demand for wood and urbanization by acquiring timber user right certificates to finance afforestation through sustainable forest management.