Increasing tree cover while losing diverse natural forests in tropical Hainan, China

To protect biodiversity and improve environmental
conditions, China has invested billions of dollars in
reforestation and payments for ecosystem service programs.
Here, we examine the Sloping Land Conversion Program, the
largest such programin the world and found that after 13 years
of implementation at our study site, it has had negative
impacts on natural tropical forests. GIS and remote sensing
techniques revealed that both natural forests and natural shrub
and grasslands were replaced by non-native monocultural
plantations on Hainan Island, China, a key tropical biodiversity
hotspot. Under current Chinese policy, these plantations
are classified simply as “forests”, with the assumption that
they are equivalent to natural forests. This lack of a distinction
in forest quality has led to substantial deforestation and
plantation expansion, including encroachment into protected
areas on Hainan. Additional social and economic drivers of
these changes were identified by examining the participants in
this program and their actions. Without a new ecologically
based definition of forests and new goals for reforestation,
such programs designed to improve ecosystem services, and
forest quality may actually threaten remaining natural forests
and other vegetation types in Hainan and in other areas of
mainland China.