Economic development, land use and biodiversity change in the tropical mountains of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, Southwest China

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.