XU Jianchu Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge cbik

1. Reward to the Upland Poor for Environmental Service, Food Security and/or Environmental Sustainability?  Case of Sloped Upland Conversion Program (SLCP) in China XU Jianchu Center for Biodiversity and Indigenous Knowledge http://www.cbik.org

2. Background • 1998, Floods in downstream of Yangtze • ……Logging Ban or “Natural Forest Protection Program” in 1998 • ……Sloped Upland Conversion Program in 1999 • Rational: logging and upland farming contribute to erosion and flooding

3. Timber Extraction in Diqing Prefecture, NW Yunnan1974-1999 (Unit: 1,000 m3)

4. Rational beyond State’ decision • No good forest to log, structure adjustment in state logging companies • Too much grain production, no rooms for storage

5. Incentive • Targeted farmland >25o • Planted forest or grass, mono-culture, state recognized species • 90USD/hectare for seedings • unprocessed “rice” 2250kg/ha/year, subsidized for 5-8 years • 36USD/ha/year for schooling and healthcare • Private ownership, whose land, who owns the tree

6. Farmland within major watersheds of Yunnan (Yunnan Upland Conversion Draft Plan, 2001)

7. “Snowball” Inquiry from Yunnan Provincial Government • From small-scale to large scale • Each year subsidy • What happen, if state no surplus grain? • At what extend, the state can sustain financially • Recently debate on food security

8. Environmental Services • What do environmental services mean for local farmers?

9. Environmental services (water, B, C) Area Spatial Mismatch • What are the most cost-benefit efficient scale for SLCP? • Where are the ‘hotspots’?

10. Time Mismatch Services Goods Time Payment for future

11. Competing Knowledge System:Scientific v.s. indigenous • Characterization of smallholder upland farming • Composite: mosaic of land use and landscapes • Diversity of crops: agrobiodiversity • Environment friendly technology • Even early stage of secondary vegetation has little soil erosion • Characterization of commercial large-scale plantation • Rubber plantation • Tea garden (heavy erosion in the first storm) • Large-scale land clearing (e.g. sugarcane plantation) • Tobacco (why not plantation?) • Misperception • Soil erosion: Forest < grass < crops • Land use practices is more important (e.g., sweet potato cultivation in swidden field in Ifugao, Philippines)

12. 3 year fallow fields

13. Hani (Akha) Swidden-fallow

14. Biodiversity indices in swidden-fallow succession vegetation

15. What drive land use/cover change? Conversion without compensation

16. Large-scale sugarcane plantation

17. Competing Objective • Household farmers (the poor vs. the rich) • Local environment goods and services • On-site and off-site • Upstream and downstream • National vs. international (e.g., GMS region) • Whose agenda and objectives accounted? • How are decisions made at which levels? (quota, where, which species, how)

18. Priority Setting • What are the proper incentives (opportunist farmers vs. converted farmers)? • Where are the critical areas (biophysical environment, land use practices and socio-economic demands) for SLCP? • At what scale, the collective action of small-sale farmers can contribute to environmental services? (e.g., 60% forest cover in Baoshan and NW Yunnan)

19. SLCP Forest cover Biodiversity Time Ecological Perspective:Forest Cover vs Biodiversity What are the impacts of these SLCP on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning? How do these translate into changes in ecosystem services in short-term and long-run? Does increasing forest cover contribute to increase biodiversity (specie richness)? What are forest cover and land use/cover change contribution to runoff and water/hydrological dynamics?

20. Technical Perspective How does SLCP affect the tradeoffs between gains and losses of ecosystems goods and services (e.g. carbon storage via plantations vs biodiverse secondary succession)?

21. Social Application • At what extend, does SLCP contribute to strengthen or weaken the customary or existing institutions between upland and lowland? • SLCP as a emerging institutions or another wave of commercialization of plantation or territorilization ?

22. Fairness and Equity • How to recognize the local and historical initiatives for SLCP? • e.g.: • Baoshan • Shifting cultivators • More than SLCP

23. Household Livelihoodand Decision-making • How does SLCP changes in ecosystem goods and services affect the capabilities, livelihoods and vulnerability of people and land use? • What are the effects of the spatial distribution of human systems: population density, economic resources, decision and power structures on the delivery and exploitation of ecosystem services? • How do farmers make decisions under changing conditions of risk and uncertainty, and what are the implications for the sustainability SLCP? • How do local institutions (governance, markets, property rights), policy, and social organization affect household decisions on adaptation of SLCP?

24. Pathways • What are possible pathways towards sustainable land practices? • What are the possible pathways towards sustainable livelihoods? • What are the possible pathways towards sustainable and responsible society? • SLCP: as social construction process rather than technical/economic solution • Social credit and creditability (farmers’ access to information, market and decision-making) • Financial credit and creditability (access to credit and financial support) • Access to social insurance system (healthcare, low-income security) • Access to training, education, job opportunities and alternative livelihoods