In confronting escalating economic uncertainty, achieving a win–win situation for low-carbon transition and improved employment structure will contribute to economic recovery and sustainable growth but also contribute to building a community with a shared future for mankind. A critical issue for China’s economy and societal welfare, as well as a core component of sustainable development, concerns whether low-carbon economic transition influences employment skill structure. This study utilizes data from 30 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) in China from 2006 to 2021. Employing the entropy method, a low-carbon economic development level indicator system was constructed from four aspects: low-carbon output, low-carbon consumption, low-carbon resources, and low-carbon environment to measure the low-carbon economy and explore its direct and indirect effects on employment skill structure and spatial effects. The research findings indicate that low-carbon economies not only directly and significantly promote employment skill structure optimization but also indirectly generate promotional effects through pathways such as industrial structure adjustment, green innovation’s innovative effects, and factor substitution effects of increased pollution control investment. Among these, the indirect impact of industrial structure adjustment contributes most substantially. Low-carbon economies’ influence on employment skill structures exhibits spatial spillover effects, with neighboring regions’ low-carbon economies exerting positive spillover effects on local skill structures. Additionally, significant negative interdependence exists among regional employment skill structures. Based on the aforementioned research conclusions, the following recommendations are proposed: accelerate low-carbon economy development and employment skill structure enhancement in central and western regions to diminish regional disparities; encourage green innovation and promote traditional industry upgrading and transformation; formulate regional coordinated development plans, thereby strengthening the low-carbon economy’s optimizing role upon employment skills structure; and increase educational investment and strengthen labor skill training.

Information on the determinants of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of invasive plant species is crucial for managing invasive plants. With globalization, most countries have experienced substantial economic losses and environmental damage due to biological invasions. We analysed the determinants of variation in the diversity and phylogenetic structure of invasive plants among countries worldwide. To do so, we used a comprehensive checklist of invasive plants in 152 countries worldwide to calculate taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity (i.e. Faith’s PD metric) and phylogenetic structure, using mean phylogenetic distance (MPD) and mean nearest taxon distance (MNTD). We then combined these data in minimum adequate models with data on geographic, climatic, socio‐economic and international trade variables. We also conducted randomization tests to determine whether the phylogenetic diversity of invasive plants in these countries was clustered or overdispersed. Taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of invasive plants exhibited spatial congruence. Taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity were positively correlated with insularity, mean annual precipitation (MAP) and HS‐12 (seeds, grains and medicinal plants) import values per capita, but negatively associated with mean annual temperature (MAT) and HS‐07 (vegetables) import evenness. In addition, taxonomic diversity also increased with airport density, HS‐12 import evenness and lower HS‐08 (fruit and nuts) imports. MPD increased with greater land area and airport density and fewer HS‐12 exporting source countries. MNTD increased with MAT but declined with greater land area and insularity. Phylogenetic clustering occurred in 28.9%–49.3% of countries, whereas phylogenetic overdispersion was rare, observed only in 0.6%–5.3% of countries. Synthesis . Our study reveals that variation in taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of invasive plant species among countries is shaped by geographic, socio‐economic, climatic and international trade factors. Nearly one‐third of the countries showed phylogenetic clustering of invasive plant species, indicating a relatively consistent global pattern. These findings underscore the importance of integrating both taxonomic and phylogenetic perspectives in invasion ecology, emphasizing the need for regionally tailored management strategies that effectively account for regional geographic, climatic, socio‐economic and trade‐related factors to mitigate future plant invasions.

Environmental regulation (ER) is crucial for promoting green total factor productivity (GTFP) and relies on efficient resource aggregation, flow, and allocation across regions for its implementation. It is therefore essential to examine the effects of ER on GTFP within the framework of regional synergistic development (RSD) to support China's green economic growth. This study quantifies the GTFP of 283 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2008 to 2022 and investigates the impact of ER on GTFP and its underlying mechanisms under RSD conditions using panel threshold regression, mediating effect models, and a dynamic spatial Durbin model. The results demonstrate that: first, China's GTFP exhibits a fluctuating-growth-fluctuation pattern, accompanied by significant regional disparities; second, the effects of ER on GTFP have a significant positive and increasing marginal effect non-linear characteristic under varying thresholds of RSD; third, when RSD is highly developed, ER enhances GTFP through industrial structure upgrading and local governments competition, whereas at lower RSD stages, government competition weakens ER's positive effect; finally, significant positive spatial spillover effects are observed, and ER and RSD interact synergistically to enhance GTFP. This study offers new insights into the relationship between ER and GTFP and provides actionable guidance for developing countries facing the dual challenges of economic growth and environmental governance.

Free trade and environmental sustainability are currently top economic and environmental research priorities. While numerous theories connect trade openness with environmental quality, empirical evidence often fails to support these claims. Using data spanning from 1980 to 2020, our study examines the effect of trade openness on CO _2 emissions in South Africa. By employing a novel ARDL modeling framework, our analysis confirms the presence of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis in South Africa. Our findings reveal that while GDP square enhances environmental quality, trade openness and economic growth have a degrading effect over time. Additionally, the study identifies that energy consumption, FDI, and value-added activities all contribute to environmental degradation. Findings also highlights the influence of institutional quality on the environment, demonstrating that political stability and control of corruption lead to increased CO _2 emissions, while the rule of law reduces CO _2 emissions. The research suggested that the potential of green economies should be leveraged in developing renewable energy, sustainable development, the recycling industry, and green financing sectors. A shift in economic activity in this direction will thus foster long-term economic growth and sustainable development.

This research aims to comprehensively analyze the potential environmental impact of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries. To achieve this, a two-model approach is employed, consisting of a fixed and random effects model covering the period of 1990 to 2021 and a difference-in-differences (DID) model focusing on the period of 2014 to 2021. The fixed and random effects model provides insights into long-term trends and country-specific effects, while the DID model assesses short-term changes and estimates causal relationship effects of the AfCFTA by comparing changes in environmental indicators before and after the AfCFTA establishment. Our conclusion is based on the random effect, which was determined to be more appropriate following the Hausman diagnostic test and the DID results. The random effect model results show that GDP increases environmental degradation, whereas GDP squared improves environmental quality. Trade openness and energy consumption improve the region's environmental quality, while foreign direct investment inflows damage the environment. The DID results indicate that the treatment variable (establishment of AfCFTA) has the potential of worsening the environment while the control variable (ECOWAS member) has the potential of improving environmental quality. The interaction variable (treatment x control) enhances environmental quality. The study suggests that the trade agreement has the potential to contribute to sustainable development and environmental protection. Policymakers should seize this opportunity by implementing environmental safeguards, promoting sustainable trade practices, fostering regional collaboration, and ensuring effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

This paper investigates the production efficiency of state-owned forest farms in China. There are currently two types of State-Owned Forest Farm(SOFF) in China. Ecological Type I farms are financed by the government,and their income goes to the government. The type II farms are more enterprise-oriented, partially financed by the government budget with the aim of eventually becoming independent enterprises.The results of the present study indicate that the efficiency varied in both groups among the farms, and the technical efficiency can reach the frontier in both groups.The scale efficiency shows that most SOFF exhibit an increasing scale of return, and the scale of economy exists in SOFFs. For the lowest-efficiency SOFF, there is much room for productivity improvement.

Park green space is the main place for outdoor leisure activities for the elderly. In the context of population aging, the even distribution of park green space among the elderly is an important manifestation of its social equity. Using the data set of park green space,road network and socioeconomic data from 2010 to 2019 of Beijing,this paper conducted an empirical study on the change of park green space social equity and its driving factors. The results showed that:1) The park green space social equity in Beijing improved from 2010to 2019 in general. 2) The social equity of park green space in various districts of Beijing presented obvious circle characteristics in space, and fairness in central areas is better than peripheral areas. The areas with the most obvious improvement in equity from 2010 to 2019 are the urban function expansion zone and Beijing Municipal Administrative Center.3) The policy of non-capital functions redistribution, the optimization of industrial structure and the increase supply of park green space supply had positive driving effect on the improvement of park green space social equity. Finally, the suggestions to promote the park green space social equity were proposed accordingly.

木质板材是全球林产品贸易的主要产品之一,中国木质板材出口额已持续多年居世界第1.近年来,越南木质板材出口贸易发展非常迅速,对中国板材出口造成了相当大的冲击.文中利用2002-2021年数据计算中国和越南木质板材出口显示性比较优势指数和相似度指数,对比二者的出口竞争力;通过随机前沿引力模型分析中国板材出口贸易影响因素,测算并比较中越板材出口贸易潜力.结果表明:中越板材出口在市场结构和产品结构上存在竞争,越南板材出口持续挤压中国的市场份额;贸易双方的经济规模、市场需求以及出口目的地的板材产量对于板材出口贸易增长存在影响,关税等因素影响着板材出口贸易的效率.

Parental environmental effects can be a rapid and effective means for clonal plants in response to temporally or spatially varying environments. However, few studies have quantitatively measured the ecological significance of parental effects in aquatic clonal plants. In this study, we developed a two-generation (parent-offspring) growth model to examine the parental effects of nitrogen (N) conditions on summed and mean performance of clonal offspring of one wetland species Alternanthera philoxeroides. We also examined the role of survival status and developmental stage of clonal offspring in the consequence of parental effects in aquatic clonal plants. Our results indicated direct evidence that (1) there were significant non-linear correlations between the performance of parental plants and initial status of clonal offspring (i.e., the mass and number of clonal propagules); (2) parental N effects on the summed performance of clonal offspring were content-dependent (i.e., there were significant interactions between parental and offspring N effects), while parental effects on the mean performance of offspring were independent of offspring conditions; (3) parental effects mainly occurred at the early development stage of clonal offspring, and then gradually declined at the late stage; (4) the context-dependent parental effects on the summed performance of clonal offspring gradually strengthened when offspring survival was high. The mathematical models derived from the experimental data may help researchers to not only deeply explore the ecological significance of parental environmental effects in aquatic clonal plants, but also to reveal the importance of potential factors that have been often neglected in empirical studies.

Charcoal production is an essential energy source and income source for many people in low-income countries, such as Africa. Charcoal production is also associated with deforestation-a global issue that significantly affects the environment and ecosystems. Therefore, promoting strategies that can balance forestry protection and people's livelihoods in low-income countries is critical. This study investigated the factors affecting Zambia's rural households' participation in the natural regeneration (NR) program-the program initiated by the Forest and Farm Facility program (FFF) of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Zambia in 2015. Using household survey data collected from Choma District in Southern Zambia, this study used descriptive statistical analysis and a logit model to detect the factors that affect the use of the NR program. The results indicate that charcoal production enhances the livelihoods of rural households when forest conservation is reconciled with household income and forest-management methods that abandon traditional practices. Participation in the NR program seems to be mainly driven by household income. The results indicated that the relationship between forest-resource utilization and conservation in Choma is encouraging. The implementation of the Forest and Farm Facility program is recommended to be spread to other communities to improve both livelihoods in local communities and forest conservation.

This study examined and analyzed the contribution of forestry sector on the Nigerian economy and the factors affecting the contribution of forestry Sector on the Economy in Nigeria. Data was sourced from National Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank of Nigeria for the period of 1970-2015. The data collected was analyzed using unit root test and multiple regression analysis. The study found that population, crop production, oil sector, and forestry sector have significant positive impact on economy while inflation has significant adverse effect on the economy. The study further found that rural and urban population, permanent cropland and net forest depletion are the main factors affecting sustainable forestry contribution significantly and negatively. Therefore, the main factors affecting forestry sector contribution to the national economy were rapid human population growth in both rural and urban areas, arable land, permanent cropland, and net forest depletion. It was based on these that we recommended that the present practice of accepting forestry as public venture is not ideal. The private firms and industries that derived their raw materials from the forest should be made to pay back some of their considerable profits to forest regeneration programs.

在乡村振兴战略推动下,全社会对乡村旅游投资越来越多.乡村旅游促进了农村产业发展和农民生活富裕.以浙江省为例,选取2014-2018年569个连续样本村的面板数据,在考虑资源禀赋、乡村旅游基础设施条件、地区经济发展水平等因素的基础上,研究旅游投资对乡村旅游经济效益的影响.首先,通过LM检验、F检验、Hausman检验判别面板数据模型类型;其次,运用Stata13.0建立随机效应模型.分析结果显示,旅游投资对乡村旅游经营总收入有显著的正向促进作用,旅游投资每增加1％,乡村旅游经营总收入就提高0.24％.政府旅游投资对提高乡村经济效益起到重要作用.最后,针对提升乡村旅游投资效益提出政策建议.

Drawing from the idea that income distribution is affected by imperfect market competition, this article examines the effect of a wood market cartel, where roundwood buyers illegally exchanged price information in Finland during 1997–2004. Prices before, during, and after the infringement period are examined using a comparator-based econometric approach with indicator variables in single-equation cointegrating models and in a seemingly unrelated regressions model. Using monthly data during 1996–2012, we investigate the prices of four softwood assortments, pine logs and pulpwood, and spruce logs and pulpwood, consisting of the majority of the industrial wood volume traded in the Finnish wood market. The results suggest that the price of pine pulpwood was statistically significantly affected and that the reduction in the price of pine pulpwood due to the infringement was on average about 10% over the 1997–2004 infringement period.

Forests and the forest products industry contribute to climate change mitigation by sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in biomass, and by fabricating products that substitute other, more greenhouse-gas-emission-intensive materials and energy. This study investigates primary wood-working industries (panel, furniture, pulp and paper) in order to determine the development of carbon emissions in China during the last two decades. The input–output approach is used and the factors driving the changes in CO2 emissions are analyzed by Index Decomposition Analysis–Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI). The results show that carbon emissions in forest product industries have been declining during the last twenty years and that the driving factor of this change is the energy intensity of production and economic input, which have changed dramatically.

Southwest China (SW China) covers three global biodiversity hotspots-the Mountains of Southwest China, the Eastern Himalayas and the Indo-Burma, India and Myanmar region-and has been recognized as one of the world's most important refuges for diverse types of wildlife. Knowledge of the distribution of vascular plants in SW China provides essential information for determining priority conservation areas within these global biodiversity hotspots. However, little is known of the congruence among hotspots identified by different criteria. Here, the research aimed to identify proxies that could represent vascular plants in SW China by identifying the spatial congruence between different hotspots. First, the distributions of species richness (SR), endemic species richness (ER), threatened species richness (TR) and rare species richness (RR) for 24,070 vascular plants in SW China were mapped. Then, Gi* statistics were used to identify endemic species hotspots (EH), threatened species hotspots (TH) and rare species hotspots (RH); spatial congruence was tested by overlapping these three hotspots. The results showed that the spatial congruence of EH, TH and RH in the three hotspots was low, only similar to 21% were common to the three hotspots, and similar to 51% did not overlap with any other hotspots. However, the integration of EH, TH and RH (EH. TH. RH) provided a robust proxy for vascular plant diversity based on metrics of conservation efficiency, as the combination represents similar to 84% of all vascular plants in SW China and supports similar to 81%, similar to 82% and similar to 75% of endemic, threatened and rare species, respectively. Finally, 8 hotspot regions (counties) representing 20,187 species were identified as priority conservation areas, with only similar to 8.2% land cover of SW China, suggesting that this hotspots integration approach can provide a robust alternative for enhancing overall levels of biodiversity conservation and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of local management efforts.

基于实地调研得到的1638份有效问卷调查资料,运用二元Logistic模型分析影响两轮退耕农户复耕意愿的影响因素.结果表明:1)影响两轮退耕农户复耕意愿的因素存在差异,前一轮退耕农户的复耕意愿受退耕地情况的影响较大,如退耕林种、退耕林地保存率和退耕地收益;新一轮退耕农户复耕意愿受退耕补助标准显著影响,同时退耕农户中不同群体的复耕意愿存在显著差异,如少数民族和低保户复耕意愿较强.2)不同地形类型和地区的退耕农户复耕意愿不同,前一轮丘陵和山区的退耕农户复耕意愿较强,新一轮西北地区的退耕农户复耕意愿较强.为有效巩固退耕还林成果,防止复耕现象,应制定更加灵活化的扶持政策,提高退耕林分质量,挖掘退耕林地经济潜力,以及加强宣传,以提高工程的社会评价和农户认可度.

Forest certification plays an important role in the global trade of legal, sustainably harvested timber. There is no accurate definition of how international forest certification systems impact international trade from a global perspective. This paper is intended to evaluate the influence of forest certification on international trade, so that it can provide a scientific basis for the improvement of the international forest certification systems and for the development of relevant forestry industries in different countries. First, the influence of forest certification on international trade of forest products is explained in the economic model; hence, four hypotheses are put forward. Second, to test these hypotheses, we verify the panel data of bilateral trade and forest certification of all forest products among 67 economies from 2009 to 2018 by incorporating forest certifications into the gravity model. Finally, tests by country groups and product groups were further analyzed, respectively. The results show that: (1) The extended Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood (PPML) estimation solves the problem of the heteroscedasticity and zero trade value problems of the gravity model well in the forest industry. (2) Forest certification has an export competitive effect, a trade barrier effect, as well as common language effect. (3) Forest certification has asymmetric trade effects. The export competitive effect of forest certification in developing countries is greater than that in developed countries. Forest certification has become a trade barrier for developing countries, especially in the process of trade with developed countries. The common language effect is higher during the trade between developed and developing countries. The export competitive effect of wood products is higher than that of furniture products. Forest certification has trade barrier effect on wood products in developing countries, while it has trade barrier effect on furniture products in developed countries.

<span id="ChDivSummary" name="ChDivSummary" class="abstract-text">澜湄流域国家和地区是世界上典型的贫困区域之一,澜湄流域拥有相似的气候、植物物种和地理环境,在减贫经验方面具有相互借鉴的基础。文中在分析澜湄国家贫困演变历程和现状以及森林资源状况基础上,总结我国云南省和泰国林业减贫的成功实践,结合对澜湄流域的贫困林区、森林管理机构和农户的实地调研,阐述了澜湄国家面临的挑战以及对社区林业减贫的需求,提出了澜湄流域的林业减贫对策与建议,以期助力澜湄流域减贫事业。</span>

回顾我国集体林权改革的主要进展,介绍产权四模式的主要观点,提出深化集体林权改革的思考和建议。研究发现,林权改革没有统一的格式,产权四模式总结了发展中国家林权改革的一些规律,可以为我国集体林改所借鉴;与其他模式相比,财产权模式对我国集体林改影响最大,明晰产权、提高效率一直是集体林改的目标;农业结构模式明确提出的市场机制可能带来产权不安全的问题需要引起重视;制度模式主张政府发挥产权改革的主导作用、制定法律法规巩固产权的主张对深化林权改革有重要借鉴意义;共有产权模式提出的保留共有森林资源为贫困人口提供"一席之地"的主张,为减贫和乡村振兴提供思路。在结束明晰产权主体改革任务之后,应将工作重点转向制定相关法律法规巩固产权改革成果、维护农户林权利益;在推动林地规模化经营中,要谨慎推进森林资源金融化,防止出现"代价高昂的不平等";充分认识集体林权改革的复杂性、艰巨性和长期性,将林改工作从工程式运作逐渐转向常规监管,加强林权管理。