This paper intends to analyze how political leaders in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have viewed and emphasized the importance of the nation’s forests over the last half century and more.
Judith Shapiro, the author of
Mao’s War against Nature, has claimed that severe damage to the natural environment in contemporary China, such as the indiscriminate construction of large dams, deforestation, and the extermination of species during the Great Leap Forward, were strongly related to Maoism, which overestimated human power and disregarded the system of nature.
However, the political leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, continuously appealed for the extension and conservation of forests, even during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.
The primary reason why the CCP leaders persisted in this approach was that the severe shortage of forests caused by long-term human impact had already created immense pressure by 1949. To prevent the increasing occurrence of natural disasters such as floods, soil erosion, and desertification, and to avoid the future deprivation of forest products for economic development, it was necessary to increase and conserve forests and maintain their multiple uses. This necessity was actually related to the validity of the claim of the CCP leaders over the area. As long as they maintained a one-party domination, they had to recognize themselves (and were in fact so recognized by the people) as the only entity responsible for the various problems caused by the decline in forests.
From this point of view, the political leaders of the PRC have for over five decades commonly emphasized the importance of forests and appealed for their multiple uses to be increased. This view toward forests does not appear to be explained or distorted by specific ideologies such as Maoism or Marxism. Rather, it appears to be based on the pragmatism of the political leaders in the face of the deteriorating forest environment in contemporary China. In addition, as the leaders value forests not only as a resource for producing materials but also as a bulwark against natural disasters, they have not focussed only on a “simplified” forest service—at least at the consciousness level.
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