Research in Vietnam's uplands shows that poverty alleviation and environmental protection can be most readily achieved by communities building, protecting, and using their own assets more effectively. This approach starts by looking at what poor people already have, not what they lack. By contrast, government development policies often seek to modernize the rural sector through the introduction of new agricultural technology and improved marketing without taking existing local capacities into account. Such policies often fail to achieve their objectives. Traditional composite swidden agriculture (CSA), by contrast, may be more environmentally sustainable and better able to enhance household food security than many “modern” agricultural systems. Therefore, improvement of existing systems of composite swiddening in combination with adoption of new ventures, such as cattle raising, may achieve greater success than attempts to replace swidden agriculture with completely new “modern” farming systems.

As a mountainous country with a sparse population largely dependent upon agriculture and natural products, Laos must overcome many challenges to develop its economy and raise living standards. The geographical constraints are well known—rugged and inaccessible terrain which makes transport and large-scale agriculture or industrial development difficult. However, it is also important to recognize how recent history has shaped the country. War, social disruption, and insecurity have not only affected communities, but also the landscape and the ways in which agriculture and resources have been managed. As we pursue development projects in rural Laos, we must be cognizant of all these influences.

Upland communities in Laos have the benefit of access to relatively large tracts of land, compared with neighboring countries. Yet these communities use their resources mainly for subsistence production (Figure 1). Adding value to agricultural and forest products remains difficult: replacing products that are depleted in the wild with plantations takes time—often requiring a considerable initial investment in land preparation and maintenance—and there is little capital to invest in technology that could add value to products. In addition, poor road access keeps transport costs high and often it is difficult to store products and benefit from seasonal price changes. Underlying all these difficulties is a lack of information on markets: who are the customers, where are they based, how is the price set, what are the quality standards, how can we process, store, package, and handle products? Market awareness projects in northern Laos are showing that these sorts of challenges can be overcome.

In Southwest China, agricultural land and forestland are traditionally considered to be separate; but, rather than forestry plantations, there is tremendous potential to plant trees on farms to improve agroecosystem mosaics. Agroforests can increase agricultural productivity and supplement farmers' incomes through the sale of fruits, nuts, fuelwood, and timber. Trees on farms can also alleviate fuelwood and timber shortfalls. The potential erosion and runoff control benefits provided by a mix of appropriately selected and placed trees can help achieve watershed and biodiversity conservation objectives; on farms these benefits are more significant than on plantations. The World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF) is developing agroforestry with farmers and foresters in Southwest China at several levels by: helping select trees and providing high-quality seeds and saplings; training in management and marketing; documenting experiences to inform policy; and supporting environmental educational and rehabilitation programs.

Many upland communities in northwest Yunnan, China, are agropastoralist. Agropastoralist livelihoods in the region are characterized by close interactions between crops and livestock, and by seasonal transhumance. Agropastoralist communities are relatively marginalized by technical service agencies and policy making processes. The Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge (CBIK), a local NGO, has been working with communities and extension agencies to develop approaches to innovative technical and institutional interventions that support sustainable livelihoods. The present article describes the issues faced by agropastoralists in the region, the approaches promoted by CBIK (participatory technology development and co-management of rangelands), and issues faced in scaling up these approaches to influence local government policy and extension practices.

Biodiversity conservation programs rely on accurate knowledge about past rates of ecological change and patterns of human use. In remote areas of the world, empirical data on historical trends rarely exist to inform conservation planning. Such is the case in the mountains of Yunnan, where there are many perceptions about historical drivers of environmental change, but little direct evidence. Since 2001, The Nature Conservancy has employed repeat photography to develop a historical profile for northwestern Yunnan. This 100-year profile allows us to assess the true magnitude of threats to bio-diversity and the long-term contributions made by indigenous cultures to biodiversity maintenance. We found that many assumptions, often stated as fact, are wrong or do not apply universally. The magnitude and drivers of forest cover loss, arid shrubland dynamics, crop field expansion, and glacier retreat fall into this group. We also found that some threats have been ignored, such as a rapidly warming climate. The direct evidence of landscape change provided by repeat photographs has a range of conservation policy, investment, and management implications.

Changes in land cover patterns can be analyzed to improve understanding of macroscopic environmental change and impacts on landscape-level processes. However, analysis at only the landscape scale neglects the linkages between land use change and local livelihoods. In this paper we describe both land cover change from 1989–2001 and the resulting household impacts in a small upland watershed in western Yunnan, using remote sensing, spatial analysis, and interviews. Afforestation has substantially reduced farmland area over the past 15 years, affecting both ecological and economic patterns. Landscape fragmentation has decreased, as small scattered patches have been consolidated into larger patches. Household access to arable land has been reduced, total grain production has decreased, and households have become more dependent on cash income. The transition of farmland to non-agricultural, forested land marks a policy-driven shift in land use.

Contrary to the trend of rapid deforestation continuing across Asia, regional assessments point to recent increases in forest cover in China, including Yunnan Province, since the implementation of dramatic forestry policy changes. There is debate about whether the statistics that describe increasing forest cover adequately account for forest status and quality. In this context, the present article aims to quantify forest cover and land use changes in a Tibetan-dominated rural township in northwest Yunnan, China—an ecologically important region affected by recent forest policy changes. Three sequences of Landsat satellite imagery dating from 1981 to late 1999 and other digital datasets were used in a rules-based hybrid classification approach, achieving acceptable accuracy assessment scores.

The results show an average aggregate decline in conifer forests of 23%, mostly due to an active logging industry. Much of this forest has converted to shrubland, which increased in area by over 100%. Grassland also increased, mainly at the expense of cultivation, as a response to increasing dependence on livestock by the rural communities, although high elevation rangelands decreased in area due to changing livelihoods and restrictions by the government on grazing and deliberate burning. Using the accepted definitions of forest and shrub-land categories, it was difficult to depict forest and shrub-land dynamics due to variation in forest regeneration and afforestation, dieback-affected forests, secondary succession of disused rangelands, and a variety of other mixed community types. Conversion analysis revealed significant forest–shrubland exchanges occurring even during the 1990s when reduction in overall forest cover slowed considerably. The results support the view that the standard categorizations and representations of land cover only portray a partial picture of forest status, as they do not account for multiple conversions that occur between different land covers over time. Due to ongoing forestry programs and increasing utilization of forest resources by local communities, these conversion issues may be significant, with implications for forest quality and biodiversity.

Our understanding of China's forest status will be improved by correlating inventory data with finer-scale spatial datasets to enable conversion analysis in representative ecological regions. This will advance our knowledge of China's forest status and the effectiveness of forest policy for both local rural community needs, as well as for broader ecological conservation.

Landscapes in the mountainous north of Lao People's Democratic Republic (hereafter Lao PDR or Laos) are undergoing rapid transformation as road access is being improved and the area is integrated into the regional economies of Southeast Asia, particularly China. Rural livelihoods in the upland areas, long based on subsistence agricultural production, are changing as more households engage in the market economy. This study assesses land use changes from 1993 to 2000, as well as agricultural production in 4 northern provinces of Laos: Luang Prabang, Oudomxay, Bokeo, and Luang Namtha. The spatial data available for this region are limited, but several trends are apparent from 1993: the area of traditional upland agriculture and swidden farming (ie shifting agriculture) has decreased, while permanent intensive agriculture has increased. There is some evidence that forest cover has increased since 1997, probably as a result of the succession of abandoned swidden areas to secondary forest, but the quality and extent of this forest cover remains unclear. Agricultural sector analysis in the 4 northern provinces supported the land use data, showing a rise in commercial agricultural production of cash crops (including sugar cane, paddy rice, and maize) at the expense of subsistence agricultural production. All these changes reflect the government's policy of reducing shifting cultivation practices in the upland areas and promoting cash crop production. The new exposure to external market forces has begun to bring about changes in Laotian rural communities, with the development of village collectives to manage resources and negotiate with outside traders. However, it is also envisaged that this commercialization will increase the demand for privatization of agricultural land; this will require a renegotiation of current government land allocation policies.

Significant changes in land use and land cover have occurred in Menglun Township, Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China. This is a region of high agro-ecological diversity representative of the general biophysical and socioeconomic conditions of Xishuangbanna. An analysis of satellite images showed that from 1988 to 2003, rubber plantations increased by 324%; this expansion generally occurred at the expense of forests and shifting agriculture. Most rubber expansion was in the lowland areas, where suitable microclimates and proximity to roads favored the development of the rubber industry. Economically, all the villages showed an improved living standard; from 1988 to 2003, the total net income of the township increased from CNY 4 million (US$ 0.49 million) to CNY 44 million (US$ 5.49 million). The increasing population and rising living standard of the area will put greater pressure on the environment and available land resources. Although the government considers rubber and other plantations such as tea and sugar to be ‘green industries,’ the loss of tropical rainforest and agricultural lands (including diverse shifting agriculture) suggests that the potential impacts of policies to promote green industries should be considered carefully. Communities such as those in northern Laos, where the rubber industry is now expanding rapidly, are likely to experience a similar scenario.

Driven by economic and ideological policies, rubber plantations have been established in southern China since the early 1950s. Rubber was seen as a perfect way to modernize the “primitive” shifting agricultural practices of indigenous minorities and to “legitimize” the landscape according to new Maoist State ideals. However, large-scale rubber production was dogged by problems, and most rubber production now emanates from smallholders, challenging the state notion that “bigger is better.” In the transition to a free market, smallholder rubber farms, which grow a wider variety of crops, have greater flexibility and are better able to adjust to market changes. These small mixed farms also enhance ecological and cultural diversity.

Nested scenarios at 2 spatial levels were constructed to explore key uncertainties about how livelihoods and landscapes in upper tributary watersheds of montane mainland Southeast Asia might unfold in the coming decades. At the regional level the scenarios highlight the implications of different forms of market and political integration. At the upper tributary level the scenarios highlight changing dependencies on local natural resources and the extent of empowerment of local stakeholders in their management. The scenarios are intended as a starting point for discussions among stakeholders, as a framework for designing and interpreting land use and land cover change simulation studies, and as a tool to help identify resilient livelihood and regional development strategies. The multi-level approach to scenario building introduced here shows considerable promise for mountain regions, as it encourages analyses to be cognizant of broader-scale economic and social changes as well as the uncertainties specific to these upland environments.

The present article provides an overview of the status of land use and land cover change science in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia in the context of a Mobile Workshop. Outcomes of the Mobile Workshop highlighted the rapid changes in land use and livelihoods, largely driven by the development of transport links, increasing market access, and trade liberalization. While many of these changes are likely to be beneficial, they must be carefully monitored, and relevant policies should be inclusive of all stakeholders. This is why it is important that land use science be cognizant of the need to make information accessible to policy-makers and land users.

The domains of earlier Tai muangs—the social spaces governed by various Tai groups—in the highlands of montane Southeast Asia frequently incorporated both upland valleys and the flanking, sloping lands used by various Tai and non-Tai groups. The articulation of the land uses and livelihood activities of these two landscapes of the muangs served to reproduce these Tai polities. The ideas and actions of both the ruling Tai groups and the subaltern upland groups contributed to the construction of the highland muangs that typically incorporated status differences, ethnic diversity, and ecological variety. Muang polities achieved governance of both a diverse network of peoples and a diverse natural habitat. Since contemporary upland peoples and resources remain within administrative entities where lowland political and economic power is dominant, the shape of these regions continues to be influenced by lowland interests and actions but with consequential, and in some cases increasing, engagement by upland minorities.