Sustainability of Forests Created by China's Sloping Land Conversion Program: A comparison among three sites in Anhui, Hubei and Shanxi

China implemented the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) during 2001-2010, which led to the conversion of millions of hectares of marginal croplands to forests across 25 provinces involving 124 million people and costing the government 233 billion Yuan. The objective of this study was to evaluate the sustainability of SLCP forests and the program's impacts on the livelihoods of the participating farmers based on data collected from household surveys in Anhui, Hubei, and Shanxi provinces. Overall, it seems likely that the areas will remain as forests in the near and medium future, with the possibility for the forests to be later reconverted back to croplands varying significantly across the three sites. The SLCP is associated with minor improvements in the livelihoods for a majority of participating farmers, and offers a significant safety net for households that are poor. We also found that farmers are overwhelmingly positive toward the program. To sustain these successes, continued monitoring of the forests is needed as current factors determining the success of the program may change. Further, studies in different regions of China would also be useful as SLCP outcomes strongly depend on the local context and conditions.