Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park Wuzhishan looks out from afar. Photography/Chen Jianwei
Ninzhi Spiroon forest. Photography/Chen Jianwei
Changbai Mountain Red Pine Broadleaf Forest Autumn. Photography/Chen Jianwei
The classification of forests is a simple or complex issue.
Simply put, the forests on the earth can be divided into three types: coniferous forest , coniferous mixed forest and broadleaf forest, or four types: coniferous forest, coniferous mixed forest, deciduous broadleaf forest and evergreen broadleaf forest. These forest types are distributed in different regions according to different climatic factors. However, due to the differences in hydrothermal combinations, forests in different regions show huge differences. According to the dominant species of the community or the characteristic species of the tree layer, professional workers have identified more than 200 different forest types (compositions). Therefore, it is not easy to summarize how many types of forests there are in China based on the characteristics of China's forests.
In the past, people often classified forests by forest zoning. Forestry production has the characteristics of vast territory, complex terrain, uneven distribution and a wide variety of types. In the vast area, the natural geographical conditions and social and economic conditions vary. In order to facilitate management, people divide forest resources into zoning according to the characteristics of forest resources and the differences in environmental factors.
Forest zoning reflects people's basic and guiding understanding of a country's forest resources. Before the founding of New China, experts and scholars from different periods proposed forest zoning plans under the historical context at that time. After the founding of New China, the country attached great importance to comprehensive natural geographical zoning and agricultural and forestry zoning.
1950 Mr. Wu Zhonglun proposed "Forest Division in China - On the Natural Distribution of Pine Genome", Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Forestry, the National Agricultural Zoning Committee, Mr. Hou Xueyu , etc. have all announced relevant zonings, but due to the limitations of the conditions at that time, the limited information mastered and the different perspectives of understanding, these zonings have obvious marks of the times: some are based on forestry The zoning and large-scale agricultural zoning are carried out, emphasizing the function of forests to produce wood; some are considered from the perspective of vegetation, related to the scientific research direction of plant scientists and major national scientific research projects; some are focused on the relationship between trees, tree species and soil, and are related to the site conditions for afforestation... These zonings have made significant contributions to the forestry development, forest protection and construction of the era, and also explored ways for later zoning work and laid the foundation.
In 1997, the Ministry of Forestry presided over the compilation of "China Forest", which aims to "propose a basis and guidelines for forest partitioning and a forest partition established through this." This book proposes nine major areas of China's forests, 44 forest areas and forest areas, and 4 non-forest areas belonging to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area. At that time, it was believed that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area in the ninth district had no forests, so it was collectively called the "Eight Forest Areas".
In 2005, " China Forest Resources " edited by Mr. Ray Gafu, based on the 1997 "China Forest" zoning, it added that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in the ninth District has forests, and was renamed "Nine Forests Zones".
In 2010, the "Zone of China Forestry Development" was published. The "Zone is for forest land, wetlands, desertified or desertified land, forest resources, and affiliated wildlife and microbial resources." "The main purpose of zoning is to understand the forestry development conditions in different regions, clarify the development direction and leading functions of forestry in different regions, and coordinate the planning of the productivity layout of forestry ecological products, material products and ecological cultural products." This zoning played a very important role in the development of forestry transformation (expanding to forest land, wetlands, desertification, forest resources, and wildlife resources, etc.) at that time, and played a basic, strategic and guiding role in the development of forestry across the country. But this is still forestry zoning, not pure forest zoning.
my country has not yet had a natural geographical zoning of China's forests or ecological zoning based on ecosystems purely based on ecosystem understanding.Since 2010, the author has consulted a large amount of literature and materials to try to find a Chinese forest zoning that looks at forests from an ecosystem perspective, but has never been found.
Strictly speaking, the closest thing to China's forest zoning from the perspective of forest resources should be "China Forest Resources" edited by Mr. Ray Gafu in 2005 (also traceable to the forest partition in 1997). In terms of exploring forest resources, we have been using this zoning, but when we look at Chinese forests from the perspective of biodiversity and ecosystem diversity, we will find that this zoning is still a bit regrettable:
On the one hand, the understanding of forest resources at that time still needs to be supplemented. Although the "China Forest Resources" published in 2005 has been revised and proposed that "there are forests" in , the Qinghai-Tibet High-altitude Zone, there are no subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests, and there are no tropical rainforests. On the other hand, the principle of forest partition in China at that time was mainly to "consider the characteristics of forestry management and management", and now the perspective of forests in the ecological civilization society has changed to the protection and restoration of ecosystem functions and biodiversity. The diversity of Chinese forest ecosystems is reflected in the diversity of forest species composition, forest structure, internal connection, ecological processes and ecological functions. Various forest types form relatively stable ecosystems through complex interconnection with different and diverse plants and animals. In addition, the earth's biosphere with forest ecosystems as the main body and humans form a harmonious and unified community of life between man and nature, so the relationship between forests and humans should also be considered.
The first Chinese to conduct forest zoning from the perspective of ecosystems was "China Ecosystem" edited by Mr. Sun Honglie in 2005. This book lists China's forest ecosystem as a outline, and 10 ecosystem items are divided into. But unfortunately, this forest zoning did not fall on the mountain plot and there was no zoning map. Among the top ten orders, the subtropical areas occupied 5 orders and 2 orders. Many types of distributions in these orders existed in staggered areas.
If we count from "China Forest Resources" edited by Mr. Ray Gafu and "China Ecosystem" edited by Mr. Sun Honglie in 2005, it has been 17 years since the zoning of China's forest resources was released. In the past 17 years, the situation of forestry in China has undergone tremendous changes, and has achieved a huge transformation from cutting and camping to comprehensive cut-off, to forest ecological protection and ecological restoration. Building an ecological civilization society has become a strategic task of China's modernization construction. Unfortunately, there has not been a new era of forest zoning yet. Reality calls for China's forest zoning in the new era, a new zoning from the perspective of ecosystems.
So far, my country has conducted 9 consecutive forest resource inventory, 2 national wildlife surveys, 2 national wild plant surveys, and 4 national giant panda resource surveys, and has accumulated quite rich resource data and data. If we can make full use of these achievements, introduce new forest zoning based on the "one map" of national land space planning, and fully understand Chinese forests from the perspective of ecosystems, it will be a very good basis and starting point.
Appendix: Review of the process of China's forest zoning
After reviewing a large amount of literature and materials, many pioneers had done work in China's forest zoning before the founding of New China. After the founding of New China, different aspects and different experts have done a lot of work, which is enough to illustrate the importance of zoning for a country's forest management and scientific research. Because of the limited space, the following will only list these tasks briefly (not necessarily complete), and the specific zoning plans will not be discussed one by one.
As early as 1931, Austrian botanists proposed to divide China (including the Korean Peninsula, Japan and Myanmar parts) into 9 plant geographical areas. Later, Chinese scholars Zou Shuwen, Qian Chongshu , Zhou Yingchang, etc. also made various natural geographical divisions and soil divisions.
In short, forest scientists and natural geographers at that time made various forest partitions and geographical partitions based on the information they had and referring to relevant international documents. Due to limited information, the zoning plan formulated is relatively general and simple.
Since the founding of New China in 1949, the country has attached great importance to comprehensive natural geographical zoning and agricultural and forestry zoning.
In 1950, Wu Zhonglun proposed the "China Forest Zone, Special Reference to the Natural Distribution of Pine Seeds" to divide the country into 18 districts, of which 4 are non-forest areas.
In 1954, the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized the national natural zoning work and compiled the "China Natural zoning Draft" (1956, Science Press ).
1954 The Ministry of Forestry organized the preparation of the "China Forestry Zoning Draft". There are 18 districts in the country. This zoning plan is basically consistent with Wu Zhonglun (1950) "China Forest Division", except that the main forest species are marked on the naming of the district.
After 1978, scientific and technological work has developed rapidly. The National Agricultural Zoning Committee was established in 1979. Over the past 10 years, many important forestry works have been published, and all of them have special chapters on forest partitions.
1980, "Chinese Vegetation" was published. The book divides the country into 8 regions. Five of them are named forest areas.
"China Comprehensive Agricultural Zoning" ( Agricultural Press , 1981) published in 1981 divides the country into 10 Level 1 districts. "China Mountain Forest" ( China Forestry Press , 1981), published in the same year, divided the country into 8 big forest areas.
In 1983, the first volume of "China Tree Chronicles" (China Forestry Press) was published. The beginning of the volume proposed the zoning of major tree species in China, and divided the country into 10 districts. In the same year, "Introduction to the Introduction of Foreign Tree Species" (Science Press, 1983). The book divides the country into 10 districts based on the actual effects and needs of tree species introduction.
In 1986, Lieutenant "China Forest Soil" (Science Press) divided China's forest vegetation into 8 districts.
1987, the national forestry zoning zoning office of the Ministry of Forestry, "China Forestry Zoning" (China Forestry Publishing House) proposed the national forestry zoning zoning as:
1. Northeast timber shelterbelt shelterbelt shelterbelt
2. Mongolian-Xinjiang shelterbelt shelterbelt
3. Loess Plateau shelterbelt shelterbelt
4. North China protective timber forest area
5. Qinghai-Tibet Plateau desert non-suitable forest area
6. Southwest alpine canyon protective timber forest area
7. South China economic forest area
8. South China tropical forest area
1988, Hou Xueyu proposed to divide the forest area into 7 forest areas in the study of vegetation zoning in China.
In 1997, the Ministry of Forestry presided over the compilation of "China Forestry" (China Forestry Press), proposing the nine major "regions" of Chinese forests, 44 forest "regions" and forest "regions", and 4 non-forest "regions" belonging to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area. The nine major regions are as follows:
1. Northeast temperate coniferous forests and coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forests (hereinafter referred to as the Northeast region)
2. North China warm temperate deciduous broad-leaved forests and oil pine side Berlin area (hereinafter referred to as the North China region)
3. East China Central and South China subtropical evergreen broadleaf forests and Masquerade pine fir bamboo forest area (hereinafter referred to as East China Central and South China)
4. Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest and Yunnan pine forest area (hereinafter referred to as Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau area)
5. South China tropical rainforest rainforest area (hereinafter referred to as South China Tropical Area)
6. Southwest alpine canyon coniferous forest area (hereinafter referred to as Southwest Alpine area)
7. Forest grassland and grassland areas in eastern Inner Mongolia (hereinafter referred to as eastern Inner Mongolia)
8. Semi-desert and mountain coniferous forest areas in Mongolian and Xinxian Desert (hereinafter referred to as Mengxin District)
9. Grassland meadows and desert areas in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (hereinafter referred to as Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area)
At that time, it was believed that there were no forests in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau area in the ninth area, so it was often called "Eight Forest Areas".
In 2005, "China Forest Resources" (China Forestry Press) edited by Lei Jiafu added that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has forests, and the zoning of "China Forest" in 1997 was continued, and was renamed "Nine Forests Zones".
In 2005, the book "China Ecosystem" (Science Press) edited by Sun Honglie listed China's forest ecosystem as a outline, and 10 ecosystem items are divided into the following categories. The subordinate units of each ecosystem are genus and subgenus, fusion and subgroup. Ecosystem genus and subgenus refer to taxonomic genus of the same genus of the key or dominant species of producers in the same climate zone.Ecosystem clumps and subclusters refer to the same ecosystem with the same key species or dominant species in the same climate zone. The 10 ecosystem orders are as follows:
1) Cold temperate Northern coniferous forest ecosystem Order
2) Middle temperate Order broadleaf mixed forest ecosystem order
3) Warm temperate deciduous broadleaf forest Ecosystem order
4) Subtropical evergreen deciduous broadleaf mixed forest ecosystem order
5) Subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest ecosystem order
6) Subtropical western mountainous Hard leaf evergreen broadleaf forest Growth正大学正学正学武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武武It can be seen that the layout of forestry productivity in China's forestry development zoning is the foundation and the purpose.
Source: Forest and Human Magazine
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