Sustainability of environmental use in rural China: Application of ethno-science in practice

本研究旨在弄清中国农村环境利用的特点。民族科学理论被用于生态和社会可持续性的调查。调查对象位于云南省金平县和海南省五指山市，在云南哈尼族、阿鲁族、瑶族、泰族、库中族5个民族的村落进行调查。QuickBird卫星图像被用来制作每个小村庄的土地利用地图。在大田中记录土地利用边界和各园内种植的农作物、次生生长演替阶段，并输入ArcGIS软件。最后，利用ArcGIS中的算法计算出各土地利用类型的面积。政府最近的政策迫使人们将他们的生计从泥土焚烧种植转变为经济作物种植，但进展因民族而异。这种生存方式的转变伴随着生活方式的变化，…这更加剧了种族间在经济地位上的不平等。该地区交通要道沿线正规市场的发展，通过各民族种植的作物交换，缩小了经济不平等。在海南，随着中国自20世纪80年代以来的经济发展政策，社区的本土粮食生产体系也向市场经济转型。经济作物的引进一直是中国农村的重大发展方针。尽管农民的经济地位在过去20年中得到了全面改善，但家庭之间的不平等已经成为一个新的问题。在本研究项目中，我们调查了一个黎族小村庄如何接受经济作物的过程，以及这如何影响人们的劳动和饮食模式。在审查这一过程时，我们把重点放在了家庭之间的差异上。我们还重建了1985年至2004年期间该村所有家庭的人口变化和土地利用模式。对收养过程的重建揭示了可能导致当前家庭间差异的两个重要因素：(1)开创性家庭的成功，这在触发村级经济作物采用方面发挥了重要作用；(2)1995-2004年期间劳动力资源的可获得性，这解释了2004年观察到的家庭间差异。成功种植经济作物的家庭似乎有能力进一步投资于经济作物，这可能进一步扩大了家庭间的差异。2004年经济作物种植的家庭间差异在一定程度上解释了家庭间食物消费和劳动时间的差异。加强和维持水稻种植可能会减轻采用经济作物带来的营养(初期)和工作负担。较少

The present research project aimed at clarifying the characteristics of environment use in rural China. The theory of ethno-science was utilized for the investigation of ecological and social sustainability. The target areas were located in Jinpin in Yunnan Province and Wuzhishan-city in Hainan Province, China.In Yunnan, the surveys were conducted in the hamlets of five ethnic groups (Hani, Aru, Yao, Thai, and Kuzhon). Quickbird satellite images were used for making land use maps in each hamlet. Land use boundary and the crops grown in each garden, the stage of succession of secondary growth were recorded in the field and entered on ArcGIS software. Finally, the area for each land use type was calculated by the algorisms in ArcGIS. The recent government policy has forced the people to transform their subsistence from slush-and-burn cultivation to cash-crops cultivations, but the progress Kvaried by ethnic groups. Such transformation in subsistence accompanied the changes in lifestyle, … More which enlarged the inter-ethnic inequality in economic status. The development of regular markets along the major traffic road in the region contributed to level the economic inequality through the exchanges of crops grown by each ethnic group.In Hainan, following the economic development policy of China since the 1980s, the indigenous food production systems of communities have also been transformed to a market economy. The introduction of cash crops has been the major developmental policy of China's rural areas. Despite the overall improvement of economic status among farmers over the last two decades, inequality among households has emerged as a new problem. In the present study project, we investigated the process of how cash crops were accepted in a Li hamlet, and how this has influenced the labor and dietary patterns of people. In examining this process, we focussed on inter-household differences. We also reconstructed the demographic changes and land use patterns of all the households of the hamlet for the period between 1985 and 2004. Reconstruction of the adoption process revealed two important factors that might contribute to current variation among households: (1) the success of pioneering households, which played an important role in triggering the hamlet-level adoption of cash crops, and (2) the availability of labor resources during 1995-2004, which explains the inter-household variation observed in 2004. The households that succeeded in cash cropping appeared to be able to afford further investment in cash cropping, which may have further enlarged inter-household variation. Inter-household variation in cash cropping in 2004partly explains inter-household variation in food consumption and labor hours. The intensification and maintenance of rice cultivation may alleviate the nutritional (initial phase) and work burden posed by the adoption of cash cropping. Less