The recent environmental history of Tiger Leaping Gorge: Environmental degradation and local land development in northern Yunnan

Journal of Contemporary China

Volumn 16, Issue 52, 2007, Pages 499-516

  Hayes, Jack Patrick ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANTHROPOGENIC EFFECT; ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION; ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY; GORGE; LAND DEGRADATION; LAND USE;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; HUTIAOXIA; YUNNAN;

EID: 34547550152     PISSN: 10670564     EISSN: 14699400     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10670560701314461     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. This paper is based on original research, including field research in the summers of 1996 and 2002. I have particularly benefited from the paper by David Watts and Zhou Yue, 'Erosion in deep gorges: The Leaping Tiger Gorge on the upper Yangtze', in Terry Cannon, ed., China's Economic Growth (London: MacMillan Press Ltd, 2000), pp. 293-308, which is an excellent study of the impact of erosion on the biology and geology of the area. The present paper seeks to build upon their and other research by bringing in new data and by covering recent developments in tourism and hydropower in Yunnan, as well as by providing a more comprehensive analysis of historical and current social factors influencing the environment of Tiger Leaping Gorge. I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper, Dr Timothy Cheek, and Dr Andreas Wilkes for their input and insights while writing this paper.
2. This essay tries to take both scientific and socio-cultural studies into account in examining the environmental history of this region. While by no means exhaustive, this examination tries to accomplish what J. R. McNeill challenges environmental historians to do - show the ways that environmental history is shaped by political and cultural differences and show links between environmental history and other disciplines, especially geology and the natural sciences, in such a way that a richer and more comprehensive picture of the issues and problematic nature of human-nature interaction can be understood. See J. R. McNeill, 'Observations on the nature and culture of environmental history', History and Theory 42, (December 2003)
3. and J. R. McNeill, 'China's environmental history in world perspective', in Mark Elvin and Ts'ui Jung Liu, eds, Sediments of Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 31-51.
4. This essay is part of a larger project I am working on to compare similar geological and vegetative gorge zones in the PRC and Taiwan. Most of the research was done on two visits to the gorge area in the summers of 1996 and 2002.
5. See Emily Yeh, 'Forest claims, conflicts and commodification: The political ecology of Tibetan mushroom-harvesting villages in Yunnan Province, China', China Quarterly 161, (2000), pp. 264-278.
6. See Anne Osborne, 'Highlands and lowlands: Economic and ecological interactions in the Lower Yangzi region under the Qing', in Elvin and Liu, eds, Sediments of Time.
7. See Dai Qing or any of Vlacav Smil's works on the Yangzte River issues and Three Gorges Dam: Dai Qing, 'The Three Gorges project', in [compiled by] Dai Qing
8. John G. Thibodeau and Philip B. Williams, eds, The River Dragon has Come!: The Three Gorges Dam and the Fate of China's Yangtze River and its People (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1998).
9. In terms of environmental NGOs in China, the works of Judith Shapiro, Jun Jing, or the scholars writing for the China Environment Series at the Woodrow Wilson International Center are the most useful and up-todate discussions of their general impact in China. See Judith Shapiro, Mao's War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)
10. Jun Jing, 'Environmental protests in rural China', in Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden, eds, Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 143-160
11. Elizabeth Knup, 'Environmental NGO's in China: An overview', China Environment Series (#5) (Woodrow Wilson International Center [www.ecsp.si.edu], 1997)
12. Lu Hongyan, 'Bamboo sprouts after the rain: The history of university student environmental associations in China', China Environment Series (#6) (Woodrow Wilson International Center, 1997)
13. and Fengshi Wu, 'New partners or old brothers: GONGOs in transnational environmental advocacy in China', China Environment Series (#7) (Woodrow Wilson International Center, 1997).
14. McNeill, 'Observations on the nature and culture of environmental history', pp. 37-38.
15. Yunnan Provincial Government, Yunnan Shengzhi: Dili [Yunnan Province Gazetteer: Geography] (Kunming: Yunnan People's Press, 1989)
16. J. D. Ives and B. Messerli, The Himalayan Dilemma: Reconciling Development and Conservation (London: Routledge, 1990).
17. R. Lacassin, U. Schaurer, P.H. Lelopu, N. Arnaud, P. Tamponnier, X. Liu and L. Zhang, 'Tertiary deformatory and metamorphism southeast of Tibet: the Folded Tiger Leap Decollement of Northwest Yunnan, China', Tectonics 15, (1996), pp. 605-622 at p. 608
18. M. S. Li, 'Land resources and their rational utilization in the dry valleys', in Zhang Li, ed., The Dry Valleys of the Hengduan Mountain Region (Beijing: Science Press, 1992), p. 47.
19. Yunnan Shengzhi 1998.
20. Ibid; Lacassin et al., 'Tertiary deformatory and metamorphism southeast of Tibet', p. 620.
21. Li, 'Land resources and their rational utilization in the dry valleys'
22. Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges', p. 296.
23. Hou Xueyu et al., eds, A Brief Explanation of the Vegetation Map of the People's Republic of China (Beijing: Science Press, 1982).
24. Zhou Yue, 'A newly-discovered vegetation type in the Hutiaoxia Gorge, China, Nouelia insignis community', Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 2, (1992), pp. 126-132.
25. Wu Zhengyi and the Editorial Board of the Kunming Institute of Ecology, eds, Vegetation Ecological Landscapes of Yunnan (Beijing: Forestry Press of China, 1995).
26. Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges', pp. 301-302.
27. J. Rock, The Fieldnotes, Letters and Documents of Joseph Rock, 1884-1962 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000), pp. 98-99
28. see also, J. Rock, The Ancient Nakhi Kingdom of Southwest China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947)
29. J. Rock, The Life and Culture of the Na-khi Tribe of the China-Tibet Borderland (Weisbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963).
30. Statistical data from Qiaotou Township officials, from an interview, 2002. County Compilation Committee, eds, Lijiang Xianzhi [Lijiang County Gazetteer] (Kunming: Yunnan People's Press, 1993). Also, Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges', from survey data c. 1994, p. 301.
31. Lijiang Naxizu zizhixian gaikuang [Survey of Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County] (Kunming: Yunnan People's Publishing House, 1986), p. 415.
32. Select interviews, 2002
33. Lijiang Xianzhi 1993.
34. Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges', p. 295; local interviews, 2002; local hand-drawn maps.
35. Most of this information comes from a series of Chinese language articles and a short editorial piece. See: South Weekend [Nanfang zhoumo], (29 September 2004)
36. New Beijing News [Xin jingbao], (27 September 2004)
37. China Youth Daily [Zhongguo qingnian bao], (26 September 2004)
38. and Jasper Becker and Daniel Howden, 'The secret dam: China begins huge project in World Heritage Site', AFP-New York Times, (16 October 2004).
39. The South Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumou], (29 September 2004).
40. See Jim Yardley, 'Chinese groups seek to halt a dam and spare a treasured place', New York Times, (20 October 2004)
41. and Becker and Howden, 'The secret dam'.
42. Li, 'Land resources and their rational utilization in the dry valleys'
43. Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges'
44. Zhou, 'A newly-discovered vegetation type in the Hutiaoxia Gorge'.
45. Li Wen, Forests of the Himalayan-Hengduan Mountains of China and Strategies for their Sustainable Development (Kathmandu: ICIMOD, 1993)
46. Wu, Vegetation Ecological Landscapes of Yunnan.
47. Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges'; personal observations during late spring 2002.
48. See Watts and Zhou, 'Erosion in deep gorges', tree planting/slope protection project by Yunnan Institute of Geology and description of recent measures following this section.
49. See Shapiro, Mao's War against Nature.
50. Yunnan Management Bureau of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park, Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Area Nomination for World Natural Heritage Status (npb, 2003)
51. Yunnan Province Department of Construction, General Management Plan for Three Parallel Rivers National Park (Kunming: Report to World Heritage Convention, 2001).
52. Dr Nu Zhi, an environmentalist with the Chinese non-governmental organization Protection International, has argued that it is not simply a question of whether to build a particular dam at a certain spot, but a matter of how decisions on large-scale engineering projects are made. Representatives from nine Chinese environmental NGOs met in Beijing in September 2004 and sent a letter to project authorities urging them not to proceed with the plan to dam Tiger Leaping Gorge: 'We call for a halt to the project to prevent damage to the cultural and natural heritage, causing social instability and economic loss', they wrote. At the same time, a number of scholars, environmentalists and journalists - from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Qinghua University, the State Seismological Bureau, the State Forestry Bureau, Xinhua News Agency and China Central Broadcasting Station - also issued a joint statement calling on policy-makers to put long-term interests ahead of short-term gain and to leave Tiger Leaping Gorge untouched, for future generations and the world. See Mu Lan, ed., 'Tiger Leaping Gorge under threat', Three Gorges Probe (in Chinese), (8 October 2004).
53. Richard Louis Edmonds, 'China's environment', in China Briefing 1994 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), p. 168.
54. Several of the best discussions of China's environmental administration concerning local and national systems and their interaction are: An overarching view, see Kenneth Lieberthal, 'China's governing system and its impact on environmental policy implementation', China Environment Series (#1), (Woodrow Wilson International Center (http://www.ecsp.si.edu], 1997)
55. Abigail Jahiel, 'Organization of environmental protection in China', China Quarterly 156, (1998), pp. 757-787
56. Michael Palmer, 'Environmental regulation in the People's Republic of China: The face of domestic law', China Quarterly 156, (1998), pp. 788-808
57. for Yunnan, see Emily Yeh, 'Forest claims, conflicts and commodification'
58. for Tibet, see Melvyn Goldstein and Cynthia M. Beall, 'Change and continuity in nomadic pastoralism on the western Tibetan Plateau', Nomadic Peoples 28, (1991), pp. 105-122
59. and for the northern Chinese grasslands, see Peter Ho, 'The clash over state and collective property: The making of the rangeland law', China Quarterly 161, (2000), pp. 240-263.
60. A large number of recent discussions of the fractured nature of environmental management systems in China at the national, provincial and local level can be found in a variety of sources. Some of the best sources for understanding the PRC system of environmental management can be found in the works of Kenneth Lieberthal, Abigail Jahil, Michael Palmer, Peter Ho and Lester Ross (see previous footnote).
61. Perhaps the best overview of the implications of Develop the West programs (Xibudakaifa) can be found in Li Shantong's Develop the West [Program] and Coordinated Regional Development.
62. This text not only gives a comprehensive overview of the goals and outlines the chronology of the program, it also breaks down major initiatives by province - including a significant section on Yunnan (pp. 399-431), hydropower development (pp. 400, 403-404, 414, 416, 426), and subsidiary economic initiatives that include tourism and cultural initiatives (pp. 401, 407, 416, 420-423). See Li Shantong, ed., Xibudakaifa yu diqu xietiao fazhan [Develop the West [Program] and Coordinated Regional Development] (Beijing: Shangwuyin shuguan, 2003).
63. See, for instance, the work of William Cronon on shifting agricultural systems in the northeastern US under Native Americans and early Europeans among others. William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983).