Decentralisation and accountability in forest management: A case from Yunnan, southwest China

China literally means ?The Central Kingdom?. As it is a vast country, China?s state administration struggles continuously to maintain the delicate power balance between the political centre and the periphery and between central and local governments. Extension of state control over peripheral areas and resources has long dominated the administration?s political agenda [Harrell, 1995; Menzies, 1992]. Like Chinese emperors of the past, the Communist Party today remains preoccupied with the issue of stabilising strategic border or peripheral areas. Today, China has joined the global move towards liberalisation and decentralisation. Economic reforms in recent decades have produced high and sustained economic growth rates and lifted millions of people out of poverty. Concurrent political reforms have decentralised many decision-making processes and created new democratic institutions, especially in rural areas. This process has ceded new political powers and established new economic incentives; it has also transferred some natural-resource management powers to local entities. This decentralisation and power transfer first occurred in the agriculture sector with the introduction of the ?Household Responsibility System? in 1978, which allowed each household or farmer to decide what crops to cultivate, where to cultivate them and how much to cultivate. These changes have placed additional stress on natural resources and on the livelihoods of indigenous communities in politically and economicallyperipheral areas. In 1981, the central government responded to poor forest management and to the economic potential of forest resources by decentralising forest management to local communities and individual households under a forestland allocation policy called ?Forestry Three Fixes?. Increasing public awareness of deforestation and its links to soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, floods and other forms of environmental degradation have made the protection of forest ecosystems a central government priority. Conflicts emerged between decentralisation for enhancing local forest management and livelihoods and protecting environmental services that affect larger-scale populations [Yin, 1998].