Promoting the rise of Central China is one of the most important national strategies regarding the promotion of China’s economic development. However, the environmental issues in the central regions have become remarkably severe. It is therefore worthwhile exploring how economic development and environmental protection can be coordinated. Focusing on the 29 prefecture-level cities in the Central Plains Urban Agglomeration, the authors empirically analyze the relationship between the economy and the environment from 2004 to 2014. The combined methods of the spatial autocorrelation model, the environmental Kuznets curve, and the global spatial correlation test are systematically employed. The results show that: (1) a strong spatial correlation exists between industrial wastewater discharge, industrial sulfur dioxide, and dust emissions in the Central Plains Urban Agglomeration; (2) the relationship between the economy and the environment of this urban agglomeration reveals an inverted “U” curve, which confirms the classical environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis. Industrial dust emissions have surpassed the inflection point of the Kuznets curve, but its spatial spillover effect still remains strong. This is caused by an accumulation effect and a lag effect; (3) the proportion of the secondary industry and population has a strong positive effect on pollution discharge; investments in science and technology have a certain inhibitory effect on industrial sulfur dioxide emission. Moreover, an increase in the number of industrial enterprises has a negative effect on industrial wastewater emission. At the end, the authors put forward policy recommendations regarding the establishment of a joint supervisory department and unified environmental standards at the regional level to deal with the spillover effects of pollution.

The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region Integration Plan is one of the most important national strategies in China promoting regional economic development. The environmental problems in this region, however, especially air pollution and contaminated groundwater, have enormous influence on the people’s health while also causing economic loss. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the pattern of its environmental and economic development. Panel data in the period 2004–2014 are used to establish an advanced model of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. The results indicate that the economic growth and environmental pollution of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region do not completely meet the Environment Kuznets Curve assumptions. The discharge volume of industrial wastewater and economic growth reflect a wave-type relation. The sulfur dioxide discharge volume and economic growth reflect a U-shaped relation; the generated volume of industrial solid wastes and economic growth reflect a reversed N-shaped relation, which is in accordance with the Environmental Kuznets Curve characteristics at the second inflection point. The variables added value of the secondary industry, population size and raw coal consumption volume have a significant positive influence on the discharge of various environmental pollutants in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The analysis provides policy recommendations for the government to develop regional economic and environmental protection policies.

The influence of the nontimber forest products (NTFPs) on the coordinated economic and ecological development has received considerable attention, where the results are mixed. This study took Lin’an District in Zhejiang Province of China as an example for analysis. Using long-term (more than 40 years) data, system coupling and autoregressive distributed lag models were combined to analyze the effect of NTFP development on coordinated economic–ecological development. The results show that large-scale commercial NTFP development positively affected coordinated economic–ecological development, and a long-term stable equilibrium relationship between them existed. The degree of regional economic–ecological coupling increased from 0.05 in 1978 to 0.98 in 2019, and both area and value of NTFP had a significant effect on the coupling degree at the 5% level. These findings indicate that NTFP development is an effective method to promote the coordinated development of the economy and ecological environment especially in mountain areas, and the government should encourage NTFP development by ecological management, strengthening policy guidance, and providing technological innovation support, etc.

Understanding the evolution of the intra-industry trade of forest products between China and its main partner countries is a prerequisite for improving the flow of trade. The intra-industry trade status and the main influencing factors of Chinese forest products trade were measured and identified via use of bilateral forest product trade data between China and its 24 partners from 2000 to 2014, and use of static, marginal, and structural intra-industry trade indices. The results show that, firstly, intra-industry trade of the major Chinese forest products is exhibiting a low-level growth trend and has considerable growth potential. The top five countries with relatively high intra-industry trade levels are Italy, Germany, the United States, Vietnam, and Japan, and the bottom five are New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, Russia, and Spain. Secondly, the intra-industry trade among China and 13 countries, represented by South Korea, is low quality and vertical-type trade; the intra-industry trade among China and seven countries, represented by Thailand, is high quality and a vertical type of trade. Finally, the empirical analysis shows that trade openness and geographical distance are the key factors of intra-industry trade of forest products. The per capita gross domestic product gap, urbanization, foreign direct investment, forest area, and import and export value of forest products also have certain impacts on intra-industry trade.