Opportunities for biodiversity gains under the world's largest reforestation programme.
Reforestation is a critical means of addressing the environmental and social problems of deforestation. China's Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP) is the world's largest reforestation scheme. Here we provide the first nationwide assessment of the tree composition of GFGP forests and the first combined ecological and economic study aimed at understanding GFGP's biodiversity implications. Across China, GFGP forests are overwhelmingly monocultures or compositionally simple mixed forests. Focusing on birds and bees in Sichuan Province, we find that GFGP reforestation results in modest gains (via mixed forest) and losses (via monocultures) of bird diversity, along with major losses of bee diversity. Moreover, all current modes of GFGP reforestation fall short of restoring biodiversity to levels approximating native forests. However, even within existing modes of reforestation, GFGP can achieve greater biodiversity gains by promoting mixed forests over monocultures; doing so is unlikely to entail major opportunity costs or pose unforeseen economic risks to households.
Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
Fangyuan
F
Hua
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.|Kunming College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Xiaoyang
X
Wang
College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610000, China.
Xinlei
X
Zheng
Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
Brendan
B
Fisher
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Lin
L
Wang
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Jianguo
J
Zhu
College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan 610000, China.
Ya
Y
Tang
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.|School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park, Norwich, Norfolk NR47TJ, UK.
Douglas W
DW
Yu
Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.|Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
David S
DS
Wilcove
D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds / Q000145:classification* / Q000502:physiology; D002681:China; D052918:Environmental Restoration and Remediation; D065928:Forests