Opinions on Innovating Institutional Mechanisms to Advance Large-Scale National Land Greening Issued
The General Office of the Provincial Government issued the "Opinions on Innovating Institutional Mechanisms to Advance Large-Scale National Land Greening," proposing that by 2030, all 11 prefecture-level cities will be built into National Forest Cities; the forest coverage rates in the province's mountainous, hilly, Bashang and plain areas will reach 50%, 30%, 20% and 12% or more respectively; the greening coverage rate of urban built-up areas will reach 35% or more; the village greening coverage rate will reach 30% or more; the province's forest coverage rate will reach and remain at 36% or more; and all cities and counties will be built into provincial-level Garden Cities (County Towns).
The Opinions propose that Hebei Province will deepen the reform of the collective forest tenure system, carry out forest tenure real estate registration, implement collective forestland ownership, protect farmers' contract rights, liberalize forestland management rights, exercise rights such as management right transfer and investment as shares in accordance with the law, accelerate the standardized and orderly transfer of collective forest tenure, and expand the scale of land used for afforestation.
In important water conservation functional areas, according to national land greening needs, the intensity of planting structure adjustment for cultivated land, sub-cultivated land and sloping cultivated land may be increased, and water-saving, drought-tolerant native tree species may be planted to give play to the function of water conservation. In the Zhangjiakou and Chengde areas, sloping cultivated land above 15 degrees and desertified cultivated land without irrigation conditions and seriously affected by wind and sand hazards may be included in the scope of returning farmland to forest and grassland.
On the premise of protecting cultivated land, not damaging the plow layer, and not changing the nature and use of cultivated land, adjust and optimize the agricultural planting structure, encourage the development of seedlings and flowers, woody grain and oil, and famous, high-quality, special and new fruit products, and promote agricultural efficiency, rural greening and farmers' income growth.
Deepen the "streamline administration, delegate power, improve regulation and upgrade services" reform, improve administrative approval efficiency, and support returning migrant workers, retired military personnel, college graduates and self-employed individuals in establishing family forest farms, professional cooperatives and joint-stock cooperatives; attract state-owned enterprises, private enterprises and other industrial and commercial capital to establish specialized ecological protection and restoration enterprises; support state-owned forest farms in relying on technical advantages to transfer surrounding collective forestland and unused land in accordance with laws and regulations, participate in local afforestation and greening, and expand forest farm scale.
Support family forest farms, cooperatives, enterprises and other new afforestation entities in contracting barren hills, wasteland and desertified land for afforestation and greening. Those that meet the quality standards for new afforestation shall be subsidized according to the current afforestation subsidy standards or rewarded and subsidized by the local government according to the corresponding project subsidy standards.
Expand the scope of public welfare forest compensation. For newly planted protective forests by individuals, enterprises, cooperatives and other social entities, after passing inspection by the forestry department, they shall be included in the scope of public welfare forest compensation in stages according to policy provisions. Explore the gradual inclusion of green corridor forest belts along national roads, provincial roads, expressways and high-speed railways into the scope of ecological public welfare forest compensation.
Governments at all levels shall include afforestation and greening investment in their annual fiscal budgets and gradually increase the scale of funds, which may be integrated with subsidy funds from higher-level afforestation projects. Increase fiscal support for key afforestation projects, and while keeping the purpose unchanged, accelerate the adoption of "reward instead of subsidy" and "subsidy after afforestation" forms, giving priority subsidies in accordance with policy provisions to modern forestry demonstration parks, forest ecological complexes, leading forestry enterprises, forest farmer cooperatives, large afforestation households and others that meet the requirements.
Promote and apply the PPP financing model and others to leverage and attract various types of capital from state-owned enterprises, private enterprises, foreign enterprises, collectives, individuals and social organizations into key forestry ecological engineering construction. Encourage individuals, enterprises, units and foreign investors to donate funds for afforestation; for individuals donating 1 million yuan or more and enterprises, units and foreign investors donating 5 million yuan or more, naming rights for green spaces and trees may be granted.
Encourage financial institutions to develop financial products that meet afforestation and greening needs, gradually expand the scale of collective forest tenure mortgage loan business, explore market-oriented pledge guarantee loans for forestry management income rights and public welfare forest compensation beneficiary rights, increase credit support, and support forest tenure acquisition and storage guarantees between forestry management entities.
According to the Opinions, Hebei Province will give certain amounts of monetary rewards to cities and counties with outstanding afforestation and greening achievements; individuals with outstanding achievements may be awarded the Hebei Province Greening Medal and given corresponding material rewards; afforestation market entities with outstanding achievements will be given certain fund subsidies. The creation of National Greening Model Units (Cities, Counties), National Forest Cities, Ecological Garden Cities, Garden Cities and forest coverage rate indicators will be listed as content of the province's major key work supervision, to ensure that by 2020, National Garden Cities (County Towns) reach about 50.