On the Factors Influencing the Participatory Forest Management in Rural Communities in the West of China

The conflict between the conservation and utilization of forest resource is serious in China. Upon the basic theories of community participatory forest management and the practices in China, the paper sets up a conceptual framework for the factors influencing the rural households' participation in the forest management. The factors include the participation perception, local democracy, community cohesion, attitudes towards the participation, participation capacities and participation behaviors. Then the paper makes an empirical research with the Structural Equation Model using the rural household survey. The results show that the participation perception and community cohesion have positive impacts upon the participation attitudes, while the participation attitudes, local democracy and participation capacities have positive impacts upon the participation behaviors, etc. Then the paper proposes some suggestions such as giving rights to the community, setting up the communication channel, improving the communities' capacities, etc.