The Spatial Spillover Effects of Environmental Regulations on Forestry Ecological Security Efficiency in China

The report of the 20th national congress of the communist party of China (NCCPC) announced the long-term goal of promoting green development by adhering to ecological priorities and expanding green areas. Ensuring forestry ecological security is necessary to achieve this. This article studies the impact of environmental regulations (ER) on forestry ecological security efficiency (FESE) based on provincial panel data from 2005 to 2019 using a spatial econometric model, which evaluates the spatial spillover effect of FESE and analyzes the improvement path of FESE. This study shows the following: (1) China’s FESE is at a low level. (2) The current increase in FESE is heavily based on scale expansion; it is necessary to further release the technological dividend, and the coordinated development of technical efficiency and scale efficiency promotes forestry development. (3) FESE has a negative spatial spillover effect, emphasizing spatial linkage effects and achieving optimal allocation of production factors. (4) The indirect effect of ER on FESE is linear in the positive direction and the direct effect of the quadratic term ER on FESE is inverted “U” shaped. The provincial governments separately formulate ER to form a horizontal linkage for pollution control, improve the forestry ecological compensation system, incorporate a green economy assessment into political performance, and comprehensively coordinate environmental policy implementation to promote FESE.