With the start of economic reforms in 1978, China’s forest sector was caught up in a whirlwind of change. It began with the devolution of forest tenures in rural areas, but led to reform of state-owned forest enterprises via introduction of stumpage fees and liberalized forest product prices. From the early 1990s to 1998, while China increasingly embraced the market economy, the nation’s natural forests continued to be depleted despite repeated emphasis on sustainable development. Then, in the wake of the 1998 floods in the Yangtze River basin, there was a shift in focus from timber production to environmental protection,