From tenure ambiguity to sustainable governance: historical evolution and the logic of institutional change in China’s collective forest tenure reform

Collective forest tenure reform is a major institutional arrangement through which China has promoted ecological civilization, rural revitalization, and the modernization of natural resource governance. Its significance has extended beyond property-right clarification to broader issues of sustainable development, including ecological protection, resource allocation, income growth for forest-dependent households, and the realization of multiple forest values. Based on 90 national-level policy documents issued between 1981 and 2025, this study adopts a historical institutionalist perspective and constructs an analytical framework of institutional context, forms of institutional change, and actors’ behavioral responses to examine the historical evolution and institutional logic of China’s collective forest tenure reform. The findings show that the reform has undergone six major stages and has evolved not as a linear accumulation of policies, but as gradual institutional change shaped by shifts in national development strategies, ecological constraints, factor-price changes, and interactions among multiple actors. The focus of reform has shifted from tenure stabilization and the restoration of production incentives toward rights realization, institutional coordination, ecological value conversion, and stronger grassroots governance. The study argues that future reform should prioritize grassroots governance capacity, improve transfer rules, reduce rights-integration costs, and strengthen ecological compensation and value-realization mechanisms.