John Duncanson has been traveling to China since 1994. He has witnessed first-hand the dramatic changes taking place in China's forest industry. In 2006, he has spent close to five weeks touring most of China's primary forest regions on three separatetrips. Per capita consumption of wood and wood fiber in China is a quarter of a cubic meter (m~3) per year—less than a fifth of the global average. However, the sheer size of China's population has resulted in China becoming the largest consumer of wood products in the world, as well as the largest importer of wood and wood fiber. Although China is aggressively expanding its forest plantations, its wood deficit is forecast to grow to 190 million m~3 in 2010, up from an estimated 110 million m~3 in 2004. To alleviate some of the shortfall, China is embarking on a program to regenerate 39 million hectares of forest plantations and natural forests in degraded forested areas to increase its annual domestic wood production to 133 million m~3 by 2015.
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