Southwest China .The upland is both a bio-geographic and socio-cultural term that refers to mountainous areas, its biological components, livelihood practices as well as cultural identity. This area is critical since any disturbance in the uplands may have a significant impact on ecological functions in the lowlands. Upland people are very vulnerable. Their livelihoods are often not well addressed in the formulation of government policies and development programs, and are also uncertain due to environmental, sociopolitical and economic vulnerability in the mountain region. Lowland decision-makings for environmental conservation and ecological services have direct impacts on them. For instance, one of the poorest counties, Luquan Yi and nearby , has resettled more than 10,000 local villagers in order to build Yunlong reservoir for the drinking water supply for Kunming city. The implementation of new state policies, the "Natural Forest Protection Program (called logging ban)" and "Upland Land Conversion Program", implemented in 1998, have threatened the traditional livelihoods of upland farmers. Therefore, how to achieve both ecological sustainability for the environment and livelihood sustainability for the upland people are major challenges for governmental officials as well as development practitioners.

The overall goal of this project is to in the mountain region of , . The project objective is to

The project aims at achieving the following specific objectives:

1) To improve farming systems productivity in a sustainable way

2) To improve sustainable and equitable access to forest, land and water resources for community based resource management

3) To strengthen indigenous knowledge and learning process for sustainable agriculture practices

4) To build-up CBIK partner''''s capacity for sustainable agriculture and resource governance

In order to address the diversity of ecological and cultural landscape, complex upland agro-ecosystems and environmental issues and the dynamics of indigenous people and livelihoods, two sites have been selected in Yunnan, which includes Mengsong Hani Community in Nan-e Watershed of Xishuangbanan, Southern Yunnan and Yunli community in the periphery area of Yunlong reservoir, Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County in Metropolitan Kunming, Central Yunnan. The Project, financially supported by MISEREOR (German), has been implemented by CBIK''''s Program on Community Livelihood, which is headed by Mr. Li Zhinan and coordinated by Dr. Xu Jianchu.