An Econometric Analysis of Causes of Forestry Area Changes in Northeast China

As one of the areas covered by plenty of primeval forests, Northeast China contributes a lot for the conservation of water and land resources, produces timber production, and provides habitats for a huge number of wild animals and plants. With changes of socio-economic factors as well as the geophysical conditions, there are dramatic shrinkage trends of forestry area. Therefore, it is of significance to find the underlining reasons for the changes of forestry area. To grasp the determinants of forestry area change in Northeast China, an econometric model is developed which is composed of three equations identifying forest production, conversion from open forest to closed forest and conversion from other land uses to closed forest, and then to explore the impacts on the changes of forestry area from demographic, social, economic, location and geophysical factors. The research results provide meaningful decision-making information for conserving and exploiting the forest resources and for making out the planning for forest production in the Northeast China region.