Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
Economic development, land use and biodiversity change in the
tropical mountains of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, Southwest China
Guo Huijun a,1 , Christine Padoch b,∗ , Kevin Coffey b , Chen Aiguo a , Fu Yongneng a
a
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS, Menglun, Mengla, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan 666303, China
b Institute of Economic Botany, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY 10458-5126, USA
Abstract
The Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, located in southwestern China is an area of great biological and cultural diversity.
While the region has long been a dynamic one, the past 50 years have witnessed changes in the state of the biodiversity of Xishuangbanna
at an unprecedented pace and scale. Due to a number of trends including demographic growth, as well as abrupt shifts in land use and
economic policies, agricultural patterns have changed substantially. These shifts have resulted not only in a decline and fragmentation of
forest areas, but also in changes in the practice of swidden-fallow agriculture. This paper employs a variety of published data, combined with
original information derived from field research in Xishuangbanna villages, to draw attention to these trends and discuss their implications
for biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity.
© 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Socio-economic development; Land use; Biodiversity and agro-biodiversity change; Xishuangbanna
1. Introduction
From the mountains of Yunnan Province in southwestern
China to the interior of Kalimantan, the smallholder farmers
of Southeast Asia have historically been divided into two
groups: shifting cultivators or swiddeners in the hills and
paddy farmers in the valley bottoms (Burling, 1965; Geertz,
1963; Hanks, 1972). These groups and their technologies
have always been dynamic, with populations periodically
migrating, changing the way they farmed, and even shifting their ethnicity. But there have always been and still are
upland rice farmers, usually belonging to ethnic minorities,
and paddy cultivators in Southeast Asia.
The rates at which these ways of life are now changing
throughout much of Southeast Asia, and the geographic extent of that change are, however, unprecedented. The hill
farmers with their hundreds of rice landraces, their many
intercropped vegetables and fruits, and their cyclic way of
farming are disappearing throughout the region. The swiddens and fallows are largely being replaced by industrial
crops including rubber, oil palm, and a host of fruits grown
in monocultures (Fox, 2000). Where possible, paddies are
being extended (Padoch et al., 1998). The environmental as
∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-718-817-8975; fax: +1-718-220-1029.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Huijun),
[email protected] (C. Padoch).
1 Tel: +86-691-8716422; fax: +86-691-8715070.
well as cultural consequences of these technological changes
have yet to be appreciated.
This paper explores a landscape in transformation using
the results of a study based in southwestern China. It employs a variety of published information, including government statistics, and new data collected in selected villages
of the area, to investigate the processes of agro-ecosystem
change and some of their underlying economic, political,
and demographic causes as well as the effects of these
changes on biodiversity, including agro-biodiversity. The
study was conducted in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of southern Yunnan Province in China.
The majority of the data collected by the authors comes
from field surveys in numerous villages within and outside
of Xishuangbanna’s protected areas, as well as an intensive
study of two villages, Baka and Daka, over a 10-year-period.
The primary mode of data collection was ‘Household Level
Agro-biodiversity Assessment.’ This method has been discussed in detail in Guo et al., 2000. It involves economic
and demographic household surveys, as well as species
inventories of farmers’ fields.
2. Description of the study area—Xishuangbanna: a
center of diversities
The Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is located on the southern margins of Yunnan Province in China.
1462-9011/02/$ – see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
Fig. 1. Location of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture.
Biologically it is a key region of transition from the Eastern Himalayan flora and fauna to the biota of mainland
Southeast Asia. Its climate also represents a transition zone
from sub-tropical to tropical climates. And culturally it is a
meeting place of groups assumed to be descended from the
ancient nomadic Diqiang people and those who share an
ancestry with the peoples of Malaysia and other Southeast
Asian nations.
The Prefecture borders Myanmar and Laos (see Fig. 1). Its
topography is dominated by mountains. The total land area
of Xishuangbanna is 19,700 km2 . The 11% of the land area is
farming land, with 7% in cash crops, while 66% is officially
designated as forestry land (Yunnan Land Management
Bureau, 2000; Xishuangbanna Statistics Bureau, 1999). The
region is largely warm and humid and harbors exceptionally
high biodiversity. Flowering plant and fern species number roughly 5000. These account for 34.8% of Yunnan’s
higher plants, including 153 endemic species and 56 rare
and endangered species (Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical
Garden and Kunming Institute of Botany, 1987; Wu, 1989).
Xishuangbanna Prefecture also contains China’s largest area
of and most diverse types of mature tropical forests, much of
these lie within the Xishuangbanna Biosphere Reserve. The
region features eight vegetation types and twelve sub-types.
Among these are tropical rain forest, tropical monsoon forest, and sub-tropical monsoon evergreen broadleaf forest.
In 2000, the Prefecture had a total population of 999,391
people, living at an average density of 50 persons/km2 . Of
the total population, 35% were members of the local majority
ethnic group, the Dai, another 8% were Hani (Akha) with
many other ethnic groups represented. People of the Han
ethnicity, most of whom had immigrated into the region to
work on rubber plantations in 1960s, made up almost 30%
of the total population.
Many successful traditional agro-ecosystems that feature
high levels of biodiversity are found throughout the prefecture. Dai house gardens, traditional firewood management
systems based on Cassia siamea, and the management of
sacred forests or “holy hills” are among those that have
attracted considerable interest (Yu et al., 1985; Long, 1993;
Guo, 1993; Cui et al., 2000; Zeng et al., 2001). The area is
recognized as a center of diversity for rice and is home to
more than 400 upland rice varieties (Dai, 1998). Rich diversity in both crop species and varieties can still be found in
many areas under shifting cultivation, although, it is argued
in this paper this has been rapidly diminishing over the past
decades due to a series of changes in economic and political
policies, demographic processes, and conservation actions
(Ye and Dai, 2000).
The government has adopted measures to preserve biodiversity in the area including expanding formally protected
areas. Despite these actions, the forested land area is decreasing and fragmenting, and the populations of many species
have been reduced. Such erosion of diversity is also evident
for agro-biodiversity. The authors’ field observations in several Xishuangbanna villages show that, since initial studies
G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
in the late 1950s, many traditional varieties of paddy rice
and their wild relatives have been lost and/or replaced by
hybrids (Ye et al., 2002; Dai et al., 2001; Guo et al., 2001;
Zhu Hua, 1993; Xu Zaifu, 1994). We have also observed
that the function and roles of some traditional successful
woodland management patterns and agro-ecosytems are
also declining; some of these had played important roles in
conservation in the past.
Despite the prevailing pattern of diversity decline that this
paper outlines, it also mentions some recent and promising
countercurrents to agro-biodiversity loss. As some smallholder households take advantage of new economic and
tenure policies to explore emerging agricultural opportunities, they are developing efficient institutional and technical
approaches and adding diversity to plantations of industrial
crops.
3. Biodiversity change in Xishuangbanna
The data available on biodiversity is not comprehensive.
The information on the state and processes of change in
biodiversity that are related in this section were derived
from several sources: including a 1987 report of the (Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve Investigation Group, 1987), the
published work of other researchers as cited, and on several years of case study research conducted by authors Guo,
Chen, and Fu in two Xishuangbanna villages: Baka, a community of the Jinuo people and Daka, a Hani village. The
reduction also caused a decline in the number of vegetation
types, and even a loss of some species. Montane rain forest is one of the widespread vegetation types where native
species are being replaced by invading common species. The
native species in this vegetation type can now be found only
on the 400 “holy hills” that are preserved by communities.
Natural biodiversity in Xishuangbanna is mainly conserved in the State Nature Reserve. The Reserve has grown
in size over several decades. When the Reserve was approved
by the People’s Congress of Yunnan Province in 1959 it was
473
57,200 ha in size. Its expansion to 240,000 ha was approved
by State Council and People’s Government of Yunnan in
1980. It now accounts for 12.16% of the total land area of
Xishuangbanna. Almost 82% of the reserve is believed to
be relatively undisturbed forest. However, there is a population resident in the area: In 1994 20,117 people, mostly
members of local ethnic minorities, live and farm within the
Natural Reserve. It also borders 142 other villages and five
state farms.
The Xishuangbanna State Natural Reserve preserves the
largest tropical rainforest with the richest diversity of plants
and animals in China. It also serves as an important research
site, since it is the northernmost tropical rainforest in the
world.
In addition the Reserve is a vital biological resource
for the livelihoods of local ethnic minorities. Local people
domesticated and still cultivate many important agricultural
crops in and around the Nature Reserve. Some crops domesticated in the region have become food and cash crops of
global importance; among these are rice, mango, litchi and
others. About 28 species of wild relatives of crops can be
found in the area. Local people are still domesticating wild
species; many wild plants are gathered for food, medicine
and other uses and often transferred into house gardens (Li,
1991).
The past 50 years have witnessed changes in the state of
the biodiversity of Xishuangbanna occurring at an unprecedented pace and scale. The beginning of this period was
characterized by both a reduction in the total extent of the
forest and its significant fragmentation. Even the large forest
area of the Reserve is not continuous, but divided into five
discontinuous patches. Fragmentation is an obstacle to gene
exchange. The area reduction also caused a decline in the
number of vegetation types, and even a loss of some species.
Montane rain forest, for instance, can now be found only on
the 400 “holy hills” that are preserved by communities. The
resultant fragmented rain forest differs from the original forest in its structure as well as in species richness. Some parts
of the original forest are now replaced by stands of largely
Table 1
Comparison of plant species of Manyangguang holy hill forest between 1959 and 1991 (in a 50 m × 50 m plot)
1959
No. of species
No. of individuals
Shannon–Wiener index
1991
No. of species
10
6
8
16
62
78
No. of individuals
21
21
16
58
2414
2472
2
5
0.97
Storey B
Storey C
13
34
2.52
33
96
4.54
No. of species
8
−7
−25
−21
3
−16
16
−13
−80
−77
1468
1391
Source: Zhua Hua, 1993; Xu Zaifu, 1994.
2.11
−0.74
−2.16
2.99
−1.54
3.81
96
1081
5.24
3.08
Shannon–Wiener index
2.38
59
946
4.65
Shannon–Wiener index
No. of individuals
1.78
37
135
4.52
Storey D
A +B +C +D
Index
1959:1991
Storey A
A +B +C
Year
−0.84
3.97
−1.26
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G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
Table 2
Land use in Xishuangbanna in 1994 (unit: mu (1/15 ha))
Land use
Jinghong
Total area
1. Farming land
1.1. Irrigated paddy
1.2. Rainfed
1.3. Watered upland
10,301,245
1,227,081
352,797
16,082
–
7,965,411
1,225,447
481,096
39,560
1,215
10,225,107
702,598
241,536
3,791
113
28,491,763
3,155,127
1,075,429
59,432
1,329
850,523
707,322
701,904
504,732
451,591
337,099
2,004,019
1,549,154
1.4. Dry land
1.4.1. Swidden
1.5. Vegetable
Menghai
Mengla
Total of Xishuangbanna
7,680
1,673
5,566
14,919
2. Plantation
2.1. Rubber
2.2. Other
1,065,358
950,639
13,108
197,162
54,466
–
614,966
572,916
3,218
1,877,486
1,578,020
16,326
3. Forestry land
3.1. Forested
6,701,617
6,320,611
4,855,956
4,322,975
7,376,823
6,538,634
18,934,396
17,182,220
12,131
91,836
39,342
166,526
997,353
3,987
57,126
42,794
94,789
1,488,151
1,208
53,325
41,939
165,588
1,268,660
17,325
202,287
124,075
426,904
3,754,163
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Pasture land
Settlement and factories
Transportation land
Water body
Unused land
Source: Yunnan Land Management Bureau, 2000.
pioneer species, and by other types of forests such as monsoon forest and sub-tropical monsoon evergreen broadleaf
forest (Zhu Hua, 1997).
We cannot accurately determine how many species have
been lost or greatly reduced over the past 50 years. But
an illustration of this is provided by the findings from a
50 m × 50 m plot of forest that was originally surveyed in
1959 and then again in 1991. This revealed that 21 tree
and shrub species were lost over the three decades. The
Shannon–Wiener index decreased from 5.23 to 3.97; only
43 species of the 95 species found in 1959 were still there
in 1991 (Zhu Hua, 1993, Xu Zaifu, 1994) (see Table 1).
4. Land use change in Xishuangbanna
While the erosion of biological diversity in natural
stands has attracted worldwide attention, less consideration
has been given to diversity loss in managed ecosystems:
especially to the causes and effects of replacement of
swidden-fallow systems by industrial monocultures. During
the past five decades, China has undergone major changes
in its social organization, economic and land policies, as
well as in the size and structure of its population. These
changes have had profound effects on environments and
peoples, including ethnic minorities, from the village to the
national level. Land use change is an essential link between
socio-economic shifts and the environment.
In order to estimate the directions and magnitude of land
use changes in the prefecture, we have employed published
data on land use from several government sources (Yunnan
Land Management Bureau, 2000; Xishuangbanna Statistics
Bureau, 1999). We note however, that many of these data
are deficient, especially in their recognition and estimates
of swidden cultivation. We base some of our analysis from
the results of household level surveys and field observations
in the villages mentioned above, as well as the published
research of other scholars.
Current statistics on land use suggest that three types
predominate in Xishuangbanna: (1) swidden cultivation that
accounts for almost half of all farmed land, (2) forests that
occupy almost 32% of the total land area of the Prefecture,
and (3) rubber plantations on 7% of the land (see Table 2
for a more detailed breakdown). In fact, official categories
do not adequately reflect actual land uses or practices of
farmers. Swidden-fallow lands, especially those that appear
abandoned or as secondary forests, are often not included
by officials as lands integral to swidden systems (Menzies,
1995). If on-farm investigations and interviews are not
done, swidden-fallow lands are routinely underestimated
and such important land uses as agro-forestry are misrepresented because they are not recognized as one of the land
use types in the official category.
The current uses of land in Xishuangbanna reflect developments over the past several decades. Among such general
trends are a decrease in state-managed lands and concomitant increase in community management. Areas devoted to
agriculture and plantation crops have increased most rapidly.
The processes of change in land use in Xishuangbanna are
very complex. But among the highlights that can be extracted
from available data are the following:
1. Farmland increased from 36,242 ha in 1949 to 114,774 ha
in 1998 (see Fig. 2). The government statistical census
reported that during that period irrigated paddy fields
G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
Fig. 2. Changes in land area of farming land in Xishuangbanna 1949–1998 (ha) (source: Xishuangbanna Statistics Bureau, 1999).
Fig. 3. Change in area of rubber plantation in Xishuangbanna 1949–1998 (ha).
Fig. 4. Changes in area of rice cultivation in Xishuangbanna 1949–1998 (ha) (source: Xishuangbanna Statistics Bureau, 1999).
475
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G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
increased in area faster than did dry land farms, from
22,534 ha in 1949 to 46,945 ha in 1998 (Xishuangbanna
Statistics Bureau, 1999). During some decades there were
large increases in the extent of state farms. This last trend
contributed much to the expansion of farming into what
had been forests. It should be pointed out that during this
time of firm state control, swidden cultivation decreased
sharply.2
2. The extent of mature forests decreased, and they became
increasingly fragmented. A general trend that has been
mentioned is the decline in what was largely undisturbed
forest cover. There were 1.05 million ha of natural forest
in 1952; only 0.3 million ha remained in 1994, a loss of
0.75 million ha. Our research in Xishuangbanna indicates
that the main reason for the decline was the expansion of
state rubber plantations; village rubber plantings, on the
other hand (see below) were usually made in converted
swidden-fallows.
3. There was a very large increase in land devoted to
rubber production. Rubber planting began in the 1960s.
By 1998, rubber plantations occupied 136,186 ha in
Xishuangbanna (see Figs. 3 and 4). Before the 1980s,
rubber was grown almost exclusively on state farms.
Under new economic and land policies, beginning in
the 1980s farmers living in local communities started to
grow rubber. In 1965 there were only 42 ha of community rubber plantations; by 1998, this had increased to
41,449 ha and village-grown rubber as a percentage of
total rubber plantation increased from 0.5 to 45%. Much
of this production was located in lands designated as
community forests. Most often the forests replaced by
rubber plantations were actually swidden-fallow forests.
5. Changes in Chinese land policies
China experienced four major changes in land policies in
a period of under 50 years: around 1950, 1960, 1980 and
1993. The policy shifts around 1950 and 1980 are the two
most important transformations. In 1950, landlord-owned
lands were divided among farming households, followed
later by collectivization of farm production. Around 1980
another major upheaval occurred in agricultural organization when work by production teams gave way to work by
farming households. These fundamental policy changes also
gave rise to conflicts over land ownership among some farmers. The frequency of land policy changes has also led to
considerable uncertainty and a lack of flexibility (untransferability) in land use, and a resultant reluctance among small
farmers to make larger investments in land. Some farmers
2 We note that Table 2 and Fig. 2 are based on different government
documentation, hence the apparent discrepancies in some data. Several
of the authors have a decade or more of experience with government
land statistics and believe that the Statistics Bureau often miscalculates,
particularly underestimates, land use areas. As we note above, government
statistics on shifting cultivation are especially rarely, if ever, accurate.
have wasted available resources while others have overused
their lands because of inflexible land ownership rules.
6. Swidden cultivation and agro-biodiversity change
Swidden cultivation was the principal agro-ecosystem
found in south and southwest Yunnan province until the
20th century. It is still prevalent in many parts of Southeast
Asia, stretching from Yunnan to Laos, Myanmar, Northern
Thailand, and parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, including the
interior of Kalimantan, despite different tenure systems and
socio-economic conditions. Xishuangbanna accounts for
most of the swidden cultivation found in Yunnan Province
and most of the rest of southwestern China. Swidden agriculture contributes significantly to agro-biodiversity because
of the rich diversity of crops and varieties that characterize
swidden fields.
However, with population growth, development of a
market-driven and globalizing economy, and the expansion
of state-controlled nature reserves, swidden cultivation is
fast on the wane. The state policy of forbidding cutting of
any natural forest adopted in 1998 following the Yangtze
River Floods, is creating new challenges to swidden cultivation and the agro-biodiversity it gives rise to.3
While the methods of national data collection makes it
difficult to estimate the total loss of swidden lands in the
Prefecture, data from Xishuangbanna townships suggest the
total is large. For instance, total swidden fields decreased
from 21,600 ha in 1980 to 14,000 ha in 1999 in Jinuo township in Xishuangbanna. In 2000 cash crop plantations and
“reforestation lands” accounted for 36.3% of what had been
swidden fields two decades earlier. On a still smaller scale
we observed similar trends. For instance, there was a 50%
reduction in size of average swidden fields in Baka village
(from 26 to 13 mu) in 1983 when the enlargement of the
Xishuangbanna Nature Reserve led to loss of community
lands. Interviews with farmers and field observations in
the village show that the size was further reduced to 8 mu
by 2000; most of that reduction was due to conversion
of swidden-fallows to rubber and fruit tree plantations. In
Daka we also found that new rubber cultivation has greatly
reduced the extent of swidden-fallow lands. All of the
2800 mu of rubber plantation that has been put in since the
1980s was planted in what were once swidden-fallows.
Gradual as well as abrupt change characterizes the process of disappearance of swiddening in Yunnan. In addition
to changes in land-use, major changes are already apparent in farming techniques, agricultural tools, fallow periods,
species and crop variety structure in the swidden areas that
remain in Xishuangbanna.
3 “Natural forests”, as defined by the policy include both mature and
younger forests. Thus, the cutting of swidden fallows as well as managed
state farm forests is forbidden by the policy.
G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
477
Fig. 5. Changes in swidden cultivation methods in Xishuangbanna.
The area devoted to rice cultivation increased from
31,578 ha in 1949 to 65,450 ha in 1998. The year of greatest
extent of rice cultivation was, however 1980, with the land
area devoted to both paddy rice and upland rice declining
since then.
But the apparent change in the extent of rice farming
does not give an accurate view of the decline of swidden
farming. Our research in the villages of Baka and Daka
indicate that during the past 50 years, the fallows that are
the heart of a swidden-fallow system have also changed.
What were once largely natural fallows have now become
largely planted ones and fallow periods have changed from
long term fallows averaging more than 13 years between
rice cropping, to grass fallows of 3–5 years, and even to
permanent farming. The tools used for planting changed
from dibbles to hoes and in the case of Baka even to the use
of ploughs (see Fig. 5).
A change of techniques is mirrored in a change in the
assemblages of crops and especially of “weed” species found
in swiddens. Some of these species have long played a role
as tertiary or famine subsistence crops and are lost with
the rapid transformation of swidden systems. The transition
from a planned to a market-driven economy in China is
reflected in a shift from mainly upland rice to cash crops,
such as rubber, and fruits as the main crop of the swidden
system in most communities. Apart from the increase in
rubber planting, other market-oriented crops that have come
to prominence are tea and Chinese cardamon (see Fig. 6).
There have customarily been more traditional crops and
more seedlings of native tropical rainforest species in swidden fields and swidden-fallows than on any other type of
agricultural land. For instance, 58 tree species were found
in 500 m2 of land that had lain fallow for 6 years after swiddening (Tang et al., 2001). In a sample of nine swidden fields
in a Xishuangbanna village, researchers found between 30
and 54 species of plants in plots of just 400 m2 ; of these
between 15 and 31 were used by farmers (Fu et al., 2000).
These data suggest that swidden cultivation may provide
important tools for the restoration of native tropical forests
and for the conservation of traditional agricultural crops.
Replacement of traditional swidden cultivation with less diverse more permanent forms of farming will reduce these
opportunities.
7. Diversification of agro-ecosystems and in situ crop
diversity conservation
Although, we have so far outlined a process of unrelieved decrease in agro-biodiversity linked to the decline
of swiddening, there are some signs that may also signal
an opposite trend. While we do not expect swiddening to
Fig. 6. Changes in the area of the main cash crops growing in Xishuangbanna 1949–1998 (ha).
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G. Huijun et al. / Environmental Science & Policy 5 (2002) 471–479
be revived again, recent policy changes may actually encourage some maintenance of agricultural biodiversity in
permanent field systems. Since the recent decentralization
of agricultural decision-making, the disparities between
small farmers have been growing. Today small farmers
make most decisions concerning land management and
agricultural technologies. Farming patterns that might have
been quite uniform in terms of fallow type, fallow period,
agricultural tools and crop structure before the 1980s are
becoming increasingly disparate in 1990s.
This is illustrated by a household level agro-biodiversity
assessment (Fu et al., 2001) carried out over 3 years among
11 households engaged in swidden cultivation in Daka Village, which showed considerable variation among farmers.
In Daka, which is a village of the Hani (Akha) ethnic group,
a total of 156 plant species were found in plots (400 m2 )
made in 3-year-old swidden fields of 11 households. Multiple indices of biodiversity were calculated to distinguish
differences in species composition in the sampled plots.
Divergence in agricultural practices had led to notable
variation among plots in species abundance, presence, and
distribution, as well as in the density of individual plants.
As a result, when the plots were compared using different
biological indices, there was little consistency in the rank
of a single plot across multiple measurements. An investigation of this phenomenon revealed that the differences
among the fields: which would previously have been considered under similar management regimes, had become
so great that those fields should now be considered separate agro-ecosystems (Fu et al., 2001). Policies adopted in
1978 and 1982, as well as the opportunities created by new
markets, are doubtless encouraging this diversification of
agro-ecosystems and dissimilarity among small farmers in
swidden cultivation management.
8. Conclusions and implications
The past five decades have seen unprecedented rates of
change in the biodiversity, especially the agro-biodiversity,
of southwestern China. Instability of land tenure policies, the
replacement of natural forests by state farms, the expansion
of community rubber plantations and the transition from
central planning to market-driven economic policy have
been among the drivers of this change. Other factors include
population growth, an expansion of paddy rice, and a policy
of natural forest protection and nature reserve expansion,
which have led to a decrease in the area available for swidden cultivation in some villages. Furthermore where swidden persists farming practices have changed: natural fallows
are being replaced by artificial fallows, fallow cycles are
shorter, and a few cash crops are taking the place of a diversity of traditional crops. Recent trends towards smallholder
diversification of cash crop production show some promise
for regaining diversity in the region’s agriculture, but policies have yet to reflect the value of this new development.
Since swidden production systems have been central to
the economies and cultures of many minority peoples, as
well as to the preservation of agricultural biodiversity and
secondary forests, a broad-ranging and rapid reduction in
the practice has important implications. The many ethnic
minorities of Southeast Asia, including those of southwestern China, have largely defined themselves through their
distinctive resource management patterns and crops. While
large scale cultivation of industrial export-oriented crops
may bring more income to the area, it is far from clear that
this income will improve the economic security of its inhabitants, particularly when the sources of this income are
dramatically narrowed by monocultures.
The processes that are leading to the disappearance of
swidden cultivation and associated resource management
practices may be irresistible, and we do not here propose
any measures to reverse these powerful regional and global
trends. We do, however, wish to point out that these land use
changes have impacts on biological and agricultural diversity
that are not summed up by “deforestation”, “fragmentation”
or “forest conversion”, the categories of land cover change
that receive most attention from conservationists. The fading
of diverse and cyclic land uses throughout Southeast Asia
and the concomitant changes in biodiversity on the genetic,
species, landscape and cultural levels need to be appreciated
and understood and some of that diversity preserved in other
land uses.
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Guo Huijun is the Senior Research Fellow and Vice Director of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, as
well as Professor of Graduate School of The Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a botanist and has been doing research on agro-forestry,
natural reserve management and agro-biodiversity conservation in many
regions of Yunnan, SW China for almost two decades.
Christine Padoch is the Matthew Calbraith Perry Curator at the Institute of Economic Botany of the New York Botanical Garden. She is an
anthropologist and has been doing research on smallholder resource management in the tropical areas of South America and Southeast Asia for
almost three decades.
Kevin Coffey is a graduate student and Evan Frankel Scholar at the Yale
School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is a social ecologist
interested in agricultural biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia.
Chen Aiguo is Associate Senior Research Fellow of Xishuangbanna
Tropical Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is a
forestry researcher and has been doing research on agro-forestry about
15 years in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.
Fu Yongneng is a Assistant Research Fellow at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, The Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an
agronomist and has been doing research on agro-biodiversity for 6 years
in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China.