State-owned forest farm reform closely tied to ecological forestry and livelihood forestry
This year is the first year of China's comprehensive deepening of reform. Forestry reform involves every aspect, but state-owned forest farm reform is clearly the top priority.
Zhao Shucong, Director of the State Forestry Administration, stressed at the national forestry directors' meeting held at the beginning of the year that this year efforts must be concentrated on drafting and completing the state-owned forest farm reform plan, and striving to fully launch state-owned forest farm reform.
To advance state-owned forest farm reform, the State Forestry Administration has been busy with preparations. In August last year, the long-awaited pilot reform of state-owned forest farms was launched. At present, through the joint efforts of many parties, the national state-owned forest farm reform plan has been drafted and completed.
⟦NL> From August 19 to 26, the “2014 Prefecture and County Forestry Directors Training Class” themed on state-owned forest farm reform was held in Beijing. The training class specially invited relevant experts and leaders from the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, and the State Forestry Administration, among other core ministries and commissions responsible for the top-level design of state-owned forest farm reform, to interact and exchange views with trainees on policies related to state-owned forest farm reform.
Protecting ecology, safeguarding national ecological security
“Include state-owned forest farm personnel funding, ecological protection funds, and necessary work funds in the county-level fiscal budget.” Liu Weixiang, Director of the Longhui County Forestry Bureau in Hunan Province, suggested that in the reform, state-owned forest farms must be included in government fiscal guarantees, and that public welfare forest subsidies, afforestation investment, and forest tending subsidies must be increased in order to accelerate the cultivation and protection of forest resources.
“The key is to strengthen top-level design and reinforce the government's primary responsibility, thereby achieving the reform goals of expanding state-owned forest farm forest resources and enhancing their functions.” Zhang Chenggang, Deputy Director of the Chengde City Forestry Bureau in Hebei Province, also expressed the view of attaching importance to protecting ecology in the reform, and suggested that the state increase funding input and introduce financial support policies to strengthen resource management.
State-owned forest farms were forestry public institutions established with state investment in the early days of the founding of New China on state-owned suitable forest wasteland and barren hills, specifically engaged in afforestation and forest management and protection. However, with the continuous development of the market economy and adjustments in forestry development policies, state-owned forest farms gradually fell into a situation of resource depletion and economic distress.
“The positioning of state-owned forest farms for ecological public welfare functions has gained broad recognition across society. They are the basic framework of our country's national ecological security barrier.” Yang Chao, Director-General of the State Forestry Administration's State-owned Forest Farm and Forest Tree Seed and Seedling Work General Station, introduced that the total operating area of the country's 4,855 state-owned forest farms reaches 1.15 billion mu, accounting for 8% of our country's land area. Among this, forest land area, forest area, and forest stock volume account for 19%, 23%, and 17% of the corresponding national shares, respectively.
“Among these 4,855 forest farms, 1,312 are included in the Natural Forest Resource Protection Project, 1,058 are included in the ‘Three-North’ Shelterbelt Project, and 359 and 165 are included in the ‘Yangtze River Protection Forest’ Project and the Coastal Shelterbelt Project, respectively.” Yang Chao further stressed, “It can be seen that state-owned forest farm reform bears on the quality of ecological civilization construction and is an important measure for protecting and enhancing forest ecological functions and safeguarding national ecological security.”
Fan Fangyan, Deputy Director of the Tai'an City Forestry Bureau in Shandong Province, and Lu Zhusheng, Deputy Director of the Jiujiang City Forestry Bureau in Jiangxi Province, also expressed the same view, hoping that in state-owned forest farm reform the state will reasonably define forest farm attributes, advance the separation of government, public institutions, and enterprises, clarify authority and responsibility, implement fiscal support policies, strengthen forest fire prevention system construction, innovate public welfare forest maintenance mechanisms mainly based on purchasing services, and severely crack down on acts that damage forest resources.
Benefiting livelihoods, raising employees' happiness index
Wuyi County is the vanguard of state-owned forest farm reform in Zhejiang Province. From 2004 to 2009, the forest farm ran an average annual wage funding deficit of 1.237 million yuan, but after implementing social insurance trusteeship for retired employees in 2009, it achieved a balance of income and expenditure for the first time the following year. Zhu Jiyue, Director of the County Forestry Bureau, said that in the reform, special attention must be paid to safeguarding employees' rights and interests. Only when people's hearts are stable can reform succeed.
Since Jiujiang City in Jiangxi Province launched the renovation of dilapidated and old housing at state-owned forest farms in 2010, government departments at all levels have actively implemented policies such as tax and fee reductions and exemptions and gratis allocation of construction land, gradually fulfilling forest farm employees' “dream of comfortable housing.” Lu Zhusheng said that state-owned forest farm reform must do everything possible to bring warmth to employees, because a warm home is a person's strong backing.
China's state-owned forest farms have 750,000 employees. Due to constraints of the institutional mechanisms and relevant national policies, state-owned forest farms that for many years adhered to “first improve the slope, then the dwelling; first production, then living” have in recent years shown the characteristics of being “neither urban nor rural, neither industrial nor agricultural, neither public institution nor enterprise.” Infrastructure is backward, and livelihood problems are prominent. Among them, 486 forest farms have no road access to the farm headquarters, 575 have no telephone access, 170 have no electricity, and 1,575 have drinking water safety issues or difficulty accessing water. In 2013, the per capita annual income of on-the-job employees at forest farms was 18,000 yuan, only 35.3% of the national per capita annual income of urban employees, and 22.5% of all on-the-job employees had not participated in basic old-age insurance, while 30.6% had not participated in basic medical insurance.
“Protecting forest ecology and safeguarding employees' livelihoods are the two major goals of state-owned forest farm reform.” Yang Chao said that in state-owned forest farm reform, particular importance must be attached to improving mechanisms for employee transfer and reemployment and social security mechanisms. Compulsory buyouts of length of service must absolutely not be adopted, and one-time layoffs and placement must not be carried out.
“Properly resettling employees is one of the main tasks of state-owned forest farm reform.” Liu Chunyan, Deputy Director-General of the State Forestry Administration's State-owned Forest Farm and Forest Tree Seed and Seedling Work General Station, said, “The broad masses of state-owned forest farm employees have devoted their youth to the country's ecological construction and have stood up as the backbone of our country's ecological construction. In this reform, in accordance with the principles of fairness and justice, employees must be properly resettled and full employment ensured. Surplus employees should in principle be properly resettled within the forest farms through methods such as carrying out forest tending and management and forest resource management and protection, and some personnel aged 40 to 50 may retire early in accordance with national policies.”
Regarding the problem of living difficulties for forest farm employees, Vice Premier Wang Yang pointed out during a research visit to the State Forestry Administration on April 3, 2013, that employees in state-owned forest regions and forest farms have made major contributions to the country's development. Special studies and focused attention are needed, and effective measures must be taken to comprehensively improve production and living conditions in forest regions, so that forest farmers and forestry employees can live a good life.
Strengthening the team, empowering modern forestry development
“Understanding talent is great learning, gathering talent is great ability, and using talent is great wisdom.” General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the need to cultivate, attract, respect, and care for talent.
State-owned forest farm reform is no exception. Ding Lixin, Deputy Director of the Personnel Department of the State Forestry Administration, said that the holding of the 2014 prefecture and county forestry directors training class was precisely to strengthen the building of the grassroots forestry leading cadre team, comprehensively enhance the policy level and ability of grassroots forestry bureau directors to advance state-owned forest farm reform, and thereby better promote the development of ecological forestry and livelihood forestry.
“Through study, we broadened our horizons, increased our knowledge, and exchanged experience.” Ai Yanjun, class monitor of the training class and Director of the Yongzhou City Forestry Bureau in Hunan Province, said that the training made everyone feel that building a professional talent team is very important and urgent in the reform and development of state-owned forest farms.
Zhang Chenggang had the same feeling. He proposed strengthening the building of a scientific and technological talent team and the transformation, application, and promotion of scientific and technological achievements, and said that a rationally structured talent pool with excellent quality is precisely an important support for the development of forestry science and technology.
“The building of the forest farm employee team is the fundamental force for protecting ecology and benefiting livelihoods.” In the process of state-owned forest farm reform, Yang Chao believes that active attention should be paid to introducing high-level talent and practical talent urgently needed for reform and development, cultivating professional backbones, strengthening talent training, and enhancing the quality of practitioners, so as to expand space for economic development, provide guarantees for people's wellbeing, set an example for scientific and technological progress, and empower modern forestry development.
It is understood that the trainees of this training class were mainly prefecture and county forestry directors from the 7 pilot provinces for state-owned forest farm reform, namely Hebei, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Shandong, Hunan, and Gansu, as well as from provinces and regions with relatively high reform enthusiasm such as Fujian, Guizhou, and Xinjiang. They have long worked on the front line of forestry reform and development and are the direct executors of implementing the national forestry strategic deployment and advancing forestry reform.