Abstract
China established collective forest systems in the 1950s under socialist systems that allocated forest ownership to the state and collectives. Problems arose due to a lack of clarity about forest rights, so collective forest tenure reform were implemented to clarify forest use rights and tree ownership. In collective forests, not only right confirming policies but another forest policies overlapped, but research focused on these policies’impacts and relationships is limited. This study aimed to clarify the state of forest management and policies’impacts on villagers by examining forest policies through case studies of three villages in Hunan Province. We found that due to overlapping ecological forest in collective forest, forest rights certificates in the study villages were transferred to villager groups without any notification to the farmers. Also, farmers were not informed that portions of their collective forests had been designated as ecological forests, placing restrictions on their use of forest. The implementation of forest policies involved three actors（local authorities, village leaders and farmers）, but local authorities generally implemented them mainly through village leaders. We concluded that to prevent disadvantages to local farmers, it is desirable that policies be implemented through transparent systems and ensure that information reaches them.
