Abstract: In early 2008, a sleet and snow disaster attacked someprovinces in south China, which seriously affected large areas of forests andpeople's daily life and caused big economic losses to forest farmers, With the further development of collective forest tenure reform, more and more forest farmers are confronted with various risks in managing their individual forests. How to help those forest fanmers not feel helpless when such disasters occur and howto help them recover their economic losses and rebuild their capacily after thedisaster? This paper, based on the experience of this sleet and snow disaster, presents a description on the importance and necessity of establishing a forest insurance system in China.

Key words: forest insurance, importance, necessity