ABSTRACT
Swidden cultivation continues to be an important form of land use in Yunnan, where a virtual “swidden belt” encircles the southern, southeastern, and southwestern zones of the province (Ying 1991). This is despite local and central government attempts since the 1960s to eliminate swiddening (Liu and Hu 1990). Efforts to put an end to the cutting of natural forests reached a peak at the beginning of 1990, following a serious flooding disaster in the Yangtze River Basin that was attributed to forest clearing upstream. However, according to the Yunnan Land Administration Bureau (1994), there are still 1 million farmers who rely on swidden cultivation, and they cultivate about 1 million hectares, most of it in lower-lying tropical regions up to an elevation of 2,000 m above sea level (asl) (Guo 1995).
