Abstract:

Taking Wenshan County, a karst mountainous area in southeast Yunnan Province, for example, this paper has analyzed its land use changes from 2000 to 2008 driven by the project of converting farmland to forest. The result shows that during the eight-year period, the land use changes in Wenshan County had the following characteristics: areas of farmland, garden plot, woodland, and construction land all in the increase and areas of the unused lands such as waste grassland and bare land in the obvious decrease. The project achieved some good results: woodland increased and some steep slope farmlands being ecologically converted. However, some good farmlands were also converted to woodland, garden plot, and waste grassland. The lands converted were mainly farmlands on gentle slopes at less than 25°, which did not comply with the national policy on farmland protection. What is noteworthy is that the amount and rate of increase of woodland are far lower than those of farmland. Meanwhile, we should also notice the phenomenon that while some farmland being ecologically converted, some woodland is transformed into farmland and the amount of the latter is obviously greater than the former.