ABSTRACT
The Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan province of southwest China is situated at the intersection of tropical Southeast Asia and subtropical China (Figure 15.1), and it contains the world’s northernmost tropical rainforest and high levels of biodiversity (Zhang and Cao, 1995; Cao and Zhang, 1997). Though Xishuangbanna covers only 0.2 per cent of China’s land area, it contains 18 per cent of China’s plant diversity and 20 per cent of China’s vertebrate species (Pei, 2010). However, Xishuangbanna’s rainforests are disappearing at alarming rates, dropping from 70 per cent to below 50 per cent between 1976 and 2003 (Li et al., 2007). This deforestation is predominately due to the expansion of monoculture rubber plantations (Li et al., 2007; Qiu, 2009).
