Poverty Alleviation Via Forest Carbon Sequestration: Theory, Empirical Evidence, and Policy Implications

This book focuses on two issues: the creation of benefits and opportunities for the poverty-stricken people and the trade-off between FCS and poverty alleviation. At the theoretical level, it explains the essential characteristics of PAFCS, analyses the impact mechanism of FCS projects in poverty alleviation, clarifies the stakeholders and their interests and demands, and delineates the dynamic mechanism of FCS projects and poverty alleviation. Based on this theoretical framework, the current situation and challenges for PAFCS in southwest China’s ethnic areas are examined in depth. Project performance was quantitatively measured both for projects themselves and for community farmers. The research emphasises that FCS projects in poverty-stricken areas are not the same as PAFCS, highlights the combination of poverty alleviation theory and ecological compensation theory, and considers PAFCS as an intersection of poverty research and ecological compensation research. Additionally, the research suggested that FCS projects are not general poverty alleviation projects, highlights the need for full respect to be granted to the subjective will and value judgement of farmers, including poverty-stricken farmers, takes the lead in focusing on the win-win goal of combating climate change and reducing poverty, and makes a breakthrough in researching some key issues that need to be solved in the practice of PAFCS in the ethnic areas of Southwest China. This book is helpful for global scholars in the field of sustainable development, anti-poverty and forest carbon sequestration, government officials, and organisations in developing countries concerned with agricultural development, forestry economy, and sustainable development, as well as all the people around the world who want to find innovative solutions in the climate negotiations.

Weizhong Zeng is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Sichuan Agricultural University and the director of the Western China Rural Revitalization Research Center. His main research fields are regional economy and green development. He has led and completed more than 20 research projects and has published over 80 academic papers. He received multiple research awards from Sichuan Province and the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Fan Yang is currently an associate professor at the School of Public Administration of Sichuan University and a researcher at the Western China Poverty Reduction Research Center of Sichuan University. He obtained a doctoral degree in Management from Sichuan Agricultural University in December 2018 and studied as a co-trained doctoral graduate student at Louisiana State University in the USA from August 2017 to August 2018. His research interests include ecological economy, poverty, and social security. He received research funding from the National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences in China. He has received research awards from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China.