The historical pattern of land use in China has been described as a process of clearance of forest for conversion to agriculture. There is evidence though that forests were protected, maintained, or intensively managed in some places, often for periods of several centuries.

This book describes six examples of managed forests varying from the Imperial Hunting Enclosure in north-eastern China to intensively cultivated small-scale systems where timber was grown as a commercial product intercropped with other cash crops. The author shows that individuals and communities acted to manage resources for a number of reasons including economic benefit, and religious or symbolic purposes. Users adopted different management strategies to suit their own organisational capacities and changing social and economic conditions.

Sustainability of these management systems depended on the users' ability to control access to and utilisation of the resource, and their ability to adjust to changes over time.