Policy and Population Dimensions of Ecosystem Change in MMSEA Watersheds (PODEC)

Dr. Horst Weyerhaeuser, The International Centre for Research in Agroforestry

Dr. Xu Jianchu, Kunming Institute of Botany, the Chinese of Sciences

Dr. Jefferson Fox, Environmental Studies, East-West

Mr. He Jun, Center for Biodiver sity and Indigenous Knowledge

Project description

The PODEC project objective is the systematic study of land use and land cover change processes as mediated by policies and population in alpine temperate, sub-tropical and tropical ecosystems of the Montane Mainland Southeast Asian (MMSEA) watersheds including , Laos, Vietnam Cambodia, and Yunnan of Southwest China.

MMSEA region is one of "hotspots" in the world for its biological and cultural diversity, and geographical complexity. The MMSEA is also very dynamic in terms of rapid economic growth, transboundary trade and migration, millions of people lifted out of poverty, decentralization of decision making process, a nascent democratic process, and the increasing awareness of and attention to environment and sustainability from all walks of life. The most fundamental change is the state government' vision and decision to transform the economy from command and control to market. Such rapid economic growth and dramatic social changes have also generated great impacts on the natural resources, ecosystems and livelihood of indigenous communities, particularly in upland watershed areas.

The PODEC research will apply the political ecology and political economy approaches for analyzing the impacts of development discourse on land use and land cover change in mountain ecosystems.

The research questions for the project are the following:

a. How have the state policies and identifications shaped land use and land cover changes in the region?

b. How is human behavior at household, community as well as watershed levels linked to regional change process?

c. How can macro-watershed scale bio-geophysical processes observed in region be linked to macro, meso and micro-level decision-making processes?

d. What are local institutional arrangements for coping with the impact of human driving forces, such as migration, road networks, logging and other livelihood activities on ecosystems?

The different theories and methods incorporating social sciences, political ecology and earth sciences, particularly GIS and satellite-derived remote sensing, will be developed and tested in the different geophysical scale, macro watershed (Lancang-Mekong); meso watershed (10,002) and micro watershed (302) level for understanding the dynamic interaction processes that go from household and communities to regional and global levels. The major objective of project therefore is to examine the causes, processes, and outcomes of land use and land cover changes, and its impact on ecosystems (provision, functions and services). We are primarily interested in how and why some forests have disappeared, are fragmented, are severely degraded, or in other cases, have expanded, regenerated, and improved at different scales in the past decades. The forest degradation and regeneration at micro and meso spatial scales and temporal scales will be ground truthed by GPS and participatory mapping, interview and further examined for its impacts on biomass and biodiversity, and further on livelihood and cultural aspects of local communities.