In new ‘Organic Law of the Village Committee' was passed. Implementation on a widespread scale began in Yunnan in 2000. The new law aims to establish a new governance system in which townships - as the lowest level of state administrative power – are legally empowered to administer, while the village committees are defined as a form of villager self-management organization and are entitled to self-govern. Those institutional changes has further impacts in local resource management patterns.

Therefore, this research project formed aims to explore the transformation of institutions of rural governance in the wake of market reforms and what impact those changes have had on the management of natural resources at the community level. The research will serve as a reference for CBIK and other donors/NGO''''s currently working in the region and contribute to an improved understanding of the opportunities and constraints in rural governance/natural resource management in China . Afterwards, based on those enhanced understandings, the study also will produce both practical recommendation for policy makers at multiple levels to improve good rural governance practices with regard to natural resource management in and to produce theoretical recommendations for researchers for further study in this respects in Yunnan .

Based on the , Objectives of this study is Identified as: To understand how direct village elections are reshaping natural resource management in China ?

By studying the roles, powers and responsibilities of the villagers' committees and their position in the chain of natural resource-related decision-making, our aim is to make the following contributions:

Six sites have been proposed where CBIK and ICRAF have ongoing action research projects. These sites cover different ethnic groups with diverse livelihoods and resource issues. The sites are:

Menglong

Yangliu

Laobo