Across China: Alternative businesses taking root under logging ban

Local governments are hoping that half a million loggers will embrace new job opportunities as China phases in a ban on commercial logging in natural forests.

Fan Zhaoyi was among the first to capitalize on these new opportunities when he turned his log cabin in Shuangfeng Forest, Heilongjiang Province, into a guesthouse for tourists six years ago.

Though many local people were skeptical about starting their own businesses, Fan took his chance. His hotel with 15 rooms now earns him over 400,000 yuan (about 61,000 U.S. dollars) a year, almost 20 times what he made as a logger.

"Not many people liked the idea at that time. They did not know what the forest could offer other than timber," Fan said. "They did not know that what was ordinary to our eyes was extraordinary to other people."

To protect this extraordinary nature, the central government plans to ban all commercial logging in natural forests by 2017, and has already done so in most of Inner Mongolia and Jilin Province.

The government is well aware of the economic and social effects of the 480,000 people who once earned their living by logging suddenly finding themselves unemployed. As State Forestry Administration researcher Wang Yuehua said, "The scheme's success depends on re-employment."

In the same way as Fan Zhaoyi has converted his home into a hotel, so trains that once served loggers in Inner Mongolia's Greater Hinggan Mountains have been turned into a tourist attraction.

"The trains used to be part of the foresters' daily lives. They brought in necessities and carried timber and other products out," said Bai Wenxi, head of the local forestry bureau. "When logging stopped, we decided to keep the trains, and loggers became train drivers, ticket officers and forest wardens."

Loggers have also started their own agricultural businesses.

In Hunchun, Jilin Province, local people raised 400,000 yuan to start a black fungus co-op in 2012. In 2015, the co-op made one million yuan, employing 25 former loggers, according to its leader, Cheng Feng.

In Jilin's Yanbian, 278 former loggers raised over five million yuan and founded a biotech company, again processing edible and medicinal fungi. The company has 1,500 employees today, all loggers who lost their jobs in April when the ban came into effect in Bajiazi Forest, said Sun Chengzhong, director of the local forestry bureau.

Despite these successes, researcher Wang believes there will still be 100,000 people out of work when the logging ban is complete. She said more jobs must be found in tourism, agriculture and with Chinese logging corporations abroad. Endi