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Although efforts in improving forest rights across developing countries are growing, de jure property rights and physical ownership of forests do not automatically enable farmers to obtain benefits from forests. Their access to forest benefits is limited by a range of legal and extralegal mechanisms. This case study describes a notable pattern of timber-harvest governance in China, in which centralized quota setting and allocation allow rent-seeking behavior on the part of powerful local elites who control timber harvest and trade by handing out logging permits, and who also reap the greatest proportion of benefits. It is argued that excluding farmers from harvesting and trade discourages them from investing in forest conservation over the long term. This calls for a policy to gradually remove the quota system so that farmers can obtain forest benefits.
