Improving Carbon Sequestration Capacity of Forest Vegetation in China: Afforestation or Forest Management?

Both forest management-especially forest tending-and afforestation help to enhance the carbon sequestration of forest vegetation. However, with limited resources, appropriate measures need to be selected to increase the vegetation carbon sinks based on regional endowments. This study aimed to assess the differences in the effects and costs of afforestation and forest tending on vegetation carbon sequestration and to help select suitable afforestation and forest tending areas. In this paper, we used panel fixed effects models to analyze the effects of afforestation and forest tending on vegetation carbon sequestration and conducted a regional heterogeneity analysis to identify suitable afforestation and tending areas. Our results show that the vegetation carbon sequestration capacity of forest tending is 4.48 times higher than that of afforestation, and there is obvious spatial heterogeneity in the effects of afforestation and forest tending on vegetation carbon sequestration. Specifically, the marginal contribution of afforestation is higher than that of tending in northwest and southwest China, whereas the marginal contribution of tending is greater in other regions. Additionally, the afforestation cost for vegetation carbon sequestration is 44.44 times higher than that of tending. Therefore, the management of existing forests must be enhanced, especially in northeastern, southern, and northern China. Similar to the northwest and southwest regions of China, there is still a need to emphasize the use of suitable space for afforestation.