From shifting cultivation and agroforestry to ecological village construct, a case in the Nabanhe Watershed, Xishuangbanna, Southwest China

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1 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS AND ECOSYSTEMS IN MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS 7-9 March 2006, Chiang Mai, Thailand From shifting cultivation and agroforestry to ecological village construct, a case in the Nabanhe Watershed, Xishuangbanna, Southwest China Zhao-lu Wu Kunming Branch, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS, 88 Xuefu Road, Kunming , China. zlwu@xtbg.ac.cn Abstract The balance between biodiversity conservation and economic development at community level is a key issue for ecosystem management. Agroforestry was believed to be the better approach to improve shifting cultivation. But more chemical fertilizer, pesticides and weedicides applied to field brought more pressure to the fragile mountainous environment. Ecological village construct, emphasizing the ecological roles of all pieces of land allotted to the villagers from the holistic point of view, is the environmental sound land use planning and practice at community level in order to maintain and /or improve the ecological and economic sustainability. 1. Introduction Shifting cultivation, a traditional landuse style, started more than ten thousand years ago in China and was replaced partly when the intensive irrigation agriculture emerged in 500 year BC. To the late 20 th century, the indigenous people succeeded it in some of the remote tropical mountain areas, for reasons such as the closed social and natural ecosystems, the poor facilities, and the preference of traditional life styles. But shifting cultivation meets much difficulty today, because (1) there is no suitable natural environment, (2) the social ecosystems in mountain areas have open to the outside world, and (3) cutting and burning forest is forbidden by laws. The example in southwestern Yunnan Province China is that the indigenous people have not enough land to maintain the shifting cultivation for the growth of population since the land contract initiated in 1980s. High ways or truck roads have extended into the deep mountains, making the indigenous people walk out of the mountains and work part time in towns and cities. It is easily for the exchange of goods needed daily and farm products between towns and countryside. The indigenous people are trying to abandoned the shifting cultivation, the hard and lower cash effect agriculture in a given land area. Governments, researchers and indigenous people started to look for the replacement of shifting cultivation in the late1980s. Agroforestry was believed to be the better one. The main reasons are that the introduction of trees and shrubs into farm and stockbreeding systems may (1) provide the indigenous people multiple output such as food, forage and other farm & forest byproducts, (2) increase soil fertility and reduce water and soil erosion, and (3) improve microclimate in farm land and stockbreeding systems. However, agroforestry managed by indigenous people in the real world is not that managed by scientific researchers in experimental fields. In practice, the farmer s agroforestry depended on chemical fertilizer, weedicides and pesticides, which causes more damage to the fragile mountainous environment compared with that from the traditional shifting cultivation. Some strange things emerged in Xishuangbanna, southwestern Yunnan Province China. In flat areas,

2 people used to applying more and more chemical fertilizer and pesticides to rubber plantation, paddy fields and vegetable fields. Some of them do not eat the vegetable they sell on markets for the more chemical fertilizer and pesticides. In upland, pineapple and passionflower and other fruit crops were encouraged to plant to replace shifting cultivation in the early 1990s but were cleared and replaced by rubber in the late 1990s because of the high cash output and stable market of rubber cultivation. Upland people have to buy vegetable in bazaars in towns, exchanging vegetable with rubber said the upland people. To be brief, agroforestry is a better way to replace the traditional shifting cultivation but not the best way to improve the quality of livelihood of the upland people. Based the study in the Nabanhe Watershed, Xishuangbanna, Southwest China, we claim that ecological village construct, regardless the suitability of the term, may be an advanced concept for the social and environmental sustainability in mountainous areas. 2. Study area 2.1 Natural environment and biodiversity Xishuangbanna is situated in the south of Yunnan Province. It is an Autonomous Prefecture of Dai with a total coverage of 19,125km 2. The prefecture, bordering on Laos and Myanmar in the east and south, has Jinghong City, Menghai County, and Mengla County in its jurisdiction. The Nabanhe Watershed is located in the north of Central Xishuangbanna, where Jinghong City connects with Menghai County. It lies on west of the Lancang River and is limited geographically within N22 04`~22 17 and E100 32`~100 44`, with total area of km 2. The Nabanhe Watershed consists of mountains within the basin of the Nabanhe River, and it slants from the northwest to the southeast. The Nabanhe River originates from the Daguditang Mountain in the Mengsong Town, Menghai. The river runs southwards through the central part of Nabanhe Watershed, and finally joins into the Lancang River, with a total length of 26 km. On west of the Nabanhe River, are high mountains, and most them are above the altitude of 1,200m. The highest point is the Luhuma peak in the southwest at the altitude of 2,304 m and the lowest point is where the Nabanhe River meets with the Lancang River at the altitude of 539 m. It is therefore indicated that the relative difference in altitude within the area is 1,756m. Most parts of the area are above the altitude of 1,000m, and mountains above 1,000m, occupy 55% of the total area. In the lower basins of the Nabanhe River and it tributaries there are long-narrow highlands, and they make up 15% of the area. The rest of the area is mountains below 1,000m. Generally, the climate of Nabanhe Watershed belongs to the humid north tropics climate. The annual average temperature is 18~22 C, with mean temperature of 12~16 C in the coolest month and 22~26 C in warmest. The annual average minimum temperature remains higher than -1 C for many years. There is a distinct presentation of a dry season and wet season. There is abundant rainfall with the annual rainfall ranging from 1,100mm to 1,600mm. The annual sunshine duration is 1,800~2,300 hours. Due to a large range of variations in altitude, there is also a distinct vertical variation of the climatic zones. Below the altitude of 800~900m, it belongs to the north tropical climate. From 800~900m to 1,400~1500m, it belongs to south subtropical climate. Above 1,400~1500m, it belongs to mid subtropical climate. Entered in the Nabanhe Watershed, leaps in into one s eyes first are the green and luxuriant vegetations. Vegetation types include tropical rainforest, monsoon tropical rainforest, subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest, deciduous broadleaf forest, warm coniferous forest, bamboo forest, sandbank shrubs, and secondary vegetations. Moreover, there is as distinct presentation of vertical variation of vegetations from the sandbank shrubs up to tropical rainforest, and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest. 2

3 In the Nabanhe Watershed there are 1,953 species or variants of high plants, and they are referred into 896 genera and 219 families, of which, there are 50 national protected species. Among the 829 genera, 79% or 658 genera belong to those only distribute in the tropics. There are 378 species, 97 families, and 34 orders of vertebrates, of which, there are 47 species of vertebrates that are nationally protected, including giant lizard (Varanus salvator), python (Python molurus), grey peacock (Polyplectron bicalcaratum), grey leaf monkey, leopard, and gaur. 2.2 Ethnic groups and communities The Nabanhe Watershed is an area with communities of multi-ethnic groups. Nabanhe Watershed involves 2 administrative villages in two townships of Jinghong City and Menghai County. There live six ethnic groups of Lahu, Hani, Han, Dai, Yu, and Bulang. Up to 2002, there are 32 natural villages, 1,219 households and 5538 persons with a population density of persons/km 2. Among them, there are 16 Lahu villages (52% of total number of the villages) and 2764 Lahu persons (49.9 % of the total population in the area); 6 Hani village and 1,303 persons (23.5%); 4 Han, and 621 people (23.5%); 3 Dai villages, and 597 people (10.8%); 1 Bulang village, and 68 persons. The sizes of most of the villages are within the range of (18) 51~100 (825) persons. There is considerable difference in sizes of the villages due to the variations in the history and distributions of the villages. The villages with population ranging from 51 to 100 take the majority and account to 21% of the total. There are 8 schools, 52 teachers, and 847 students in the area, and the schooling rate of school-aged children is 82%. According to statistics in 2002, in the area there are 166 tractors, 1 car, 3 light trucks, 2 minibuses, 14 diesel-powered rototiller, 28 motorcycles, and 28 bicycles. It is very common that farmers drive motorcycles to fields for farm works. There were 28 villages with electricity supply, and 21 households with telephone. The numbers of domestic electric appliances have also increased year by year. Up to 2002, in the indigenous people there have been 285 color TV sets, and there are 153 households with CD player, 29 households with refrigerator, 25 households with gas stove, and 1 household with video recorder. There have been 29 villages with running water supply, and their life has identically improved. 3. From shifting cultivation to agroforestry Up to 1950s, the indigenous people still lived on traditional self-sufficient agriculture. The Dai people lived in low-altitude areas, and relied on cultivating paddy rice, collecting wild plants and fishing. The Lahu people settled in mountain forests, living on hunting, collecting wild plant and cultivating dry-land rice and corn. Water buffalos were the essential production material, and the number of water buffalos of a household became the symbol of wealth. Paddy field, tilling water buffalo and food were the pursuits in life of the inhabitants in the Nabanhe Watershed. Quite a few communities used to repeat shifting cultivation with very old methods of cultivating and an extremely low efficiency of agricultural production. They lived very poor and could hardly manage enough food and clothes to keep warm. Since the foundation of the new China, the agriculture production of the communities in the area has experienced a fundamental change. Shifting cultivation as out-of-date method has basically been ceased, and farmland of the communities have been stabilized. New cultivation of paddy rice and corn has enabled most people solving their problems with food and clothes, and laid a good foundation for further development of the villages. 3

4 Chemical fertilizer(t) Year Figure 1: Amount of chemical fertilizer applied to agricultural fields increase from 1991to 2002 In 1960s, local governments started to bring people in neighbouring areas to settle down for reclamation while supporting indigenous people to development their agriculture. As a consequence, some people from far or densely populated places gradually moved in and settled down to open farmland in the Nabanhe Watershed. Fifty-eight per cent of the villages accounted in 2002, are those established after 1958, and their population is more than 50 % of the total population in the area. Like other areas in Xishuangbanna, the rural reform that was symbolized by land contract was initiated in the Nabanhe Watershed since 1982, in which contract volume was determined according to the total population and paddy field available in the village. Along with changes in the socio-economic policies, uses of the land contracted by farmers have also considerably changed. In early years, the main source of income for indigenous people came from selling grains such as paddy rice, and corn. Later, food crops including peanut, tobacco, sunflower seed, and vegetable, fruits including mango, banana, orange, pomelo and watermelon, and cash crops including mainly rubber, tea, and Sharen (Amomum villosum) become the main source of income. In the word of indigenous people, the farm and stockbreeding systems with tree and shrub crops were called agroforestry. Due to poor management of the farmers, expansions of cash crop plantations that are dominated by rubber have driven the farmland to expand and the forestland to shrink. In the Nabanhe Watershed, the area of the cash crop plantations has grown from 356 hm 2 in 1991 up to 1202 hm 2 in 2002, with an incensement by 3.37 times. The rubber plantation is the one that has expanded fastest. It has grown from 169 hm 2 and trees in 1991 to 712 hm 2 and trees in 2002, with an increase by 4.2 times within 11 years. Crops like rubber and Sharen are applicable only to partial areas in the Nabanhe Watershed. According to studies conducted by professionals in 1950s, the areas below the altitude of 800 m are suitable for planting rubber. But it is found that quite a few villages have developed large area of rubber plantations in higher altitude. The production of the rubber plantation in Huimahe village, for example, was very poor due to a higher altitude. 4

5 4. Emerged environmental problems The common goal of people moving from mountains down to lowland or resettlement in the area from places far from here is to seek for arable land to grow food. The more tree and shrub crops introduced, the more land were used for agriculture purpose. However, after a short period of few years there were burnings all over the Nabanhe watershed. The main environmental problems are the fast spread of chemical agriculture (fig. 1 and fig. 2) and the water and soil erosion. The Nabanhe Watershed that had been clean the whole year round began more and more roily, and flooding in the rainy season became more and more fierce. The indigenous people have to pay more for the increasing amount of chemical fertilizer, pesticides and weedicides. More income they gain does not mean high quality livelihood they have Pesticides (kg) Year Fig. 2 Amount of pesticides applied to agricultural fields increase from 1991to Ecological village construct It is obvious to see that shifting cultivation and agroforestry are different but with close relation agricultural means for indigenous people in mountain areas. Agroforestry managed by scientific researchers in experimental fields may be a better way for the production of food, forage and other farm & forest byproducts, with many advantages. But in practice, agroforestry managed by indigenous people could be fade if the pursuits are only the high output and multiple product, because the high output depends on the large amount of chemical fertilizer, weedicides and pesticides used. To improve the livelihood t quality of indigenous people, high output is not enough. It needs high quality of living environment. Before a suitable term was developed, the author uses the concept of ecological village construct to express the desire to improve the livelihood quality of indigenous people. It includes four points: (1) the limited use of chemical fertilizer, weedicides and pesticides per head or her unit area of land; (2) the environmental sound land use planning to reduce disasters, improve water source use and maintain /or improve the ecological and economic sustainability; (3) suitable production patterns for special communities, including cultivation, stockbreeding, or recreation; and (4) the good village scenery with some special traditional culture. Example is the Feng Shiu culture in the Chinese village. 5