Workers struggle in wake of logging ban
Print Edition
One year since China initiated a pilot ban on logging in parts of northeast China Khingan area, local forestry administrations face a seemingly impossible mission: stop the harvest of what for years has been their source of income.
Inheriting a tradition that dated back to the era of a planned economy, forestry administrations are more than just government bodies, but also state-owned enterprises that employ the majority of local residents within its jurisdiction.
It was in the early 1950s, after the birth of the People’s Republic of China, that the first generation of professional loggers began setting up shop in Khingan, a massive, dense forest that straddles the border of Heilongjiang Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
In the 1960s, China mobilized tens of thousands of people, including soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army, from across the country into a logging campaign in Khingan to meet the country’s urgent need for timber.
“We used to light a fire when cold and eat ice when thirsty,” said 77-year-old Yang Fengyi, who was among the first loggers to work in Khingan, describing how fellow workers “crawled on ice and slept on snow.”
It was a struggle to survive in one of the world’s coldest corners. Workers made tremendous sacrifices in the freezing temperatures, where snow covers the ground for seven months a year.
At its climax the logging provided the bulk of wood production in China, until there were few trees left.
“A dozen logs used to fill up a truck. In recent years, it took over a hundred logs,” said Wang Yude, who retired from Wumahe forestry administration after decades of logging.
In 1999, China’s forest cover declined to only half of the world’s average, with forest administrations and their commercial operations falling into what were widely called two crises.
The resource and economy crises, together with massive floods that devastated parts of China in 1998, prompted the country to initiate a natural forest protection plan that promised to dramatically cut logging, including in Khingan.
For local residents, mostly employees of the forest administrations and downstream industries, who have been living on cutting down the trees it was clear that their way of life was simply unsustainable.
“When I came here, the trees were so high it was as if they could reach the sky. The diameter of a tree was over 50 centimeters, now it’s only 20,” said Chang Zuoxue, who joined logging on the Lesser Khingan Mountains in the 1980s.
“The slump in rail freight of logs has resulted in one third of the staff being laid off and the rest of us earn less now,” said Wu Zhongkai, an official at nearby Suihua railway station.
Last year, a ban on logging was instituted in parts of Khingan. This year, the ban was extended to its entirety.
China will phase in a blanket ban on logging in all of its natural forests, said Zhao Shucong in February, director of the State Forestry Administration. He added artificial forests would be used for timber productions.
That would lead to a painful transition for forestry administration employees, who are already poor. According to Zhao, their yearly income was around 27,000 yuan (US$4,300), about half of the national average.
In Greater Khingan, 147 out of 202 companies that processed wood have gone out of business.
However difficult the coming days, a belief of better now than later was widely shared.
“Even if the state does not ban logging, what would be left for the younger generation? After all, this generation does not see much of wood,” said Wang Tiechang, a 27-year-old logger.
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