Agriculture ; Biodiversity ; China ; Deforestation ; Forest ; Land clearing ; Mountain ; Shifting cultivation ; Village ; Yunnan
A study of 1965 air photographs and 1993 satellite imagery for Hani village of Mengsong showed that swidden cultivation did not nead to permanent forest loss, but to a conversion of relatively homogeneous secondary closed-canopy forest into a more
heterogeneous land cover of different stages of forest succession. After farmers allowed (in 1979 Household Responsability System) to make their own decisions on swidden/fallow/forest use, they decreased land farmed and intensified farming. - (SLD)