With a history of 50 years in rubber plantation, Xishuangbanna has become a very important field base for natural rubber supply. However, no concise data have been available for the impact of rubber plantation on the area of tropical rainforest.

  Prof. Ma Youxin and his research team members, through analysis of remote sensing data, have determined the interrelationship between the natural forest and rubber forest and got evidence that the forest cover has been decreased from 70% in 1976 to 50% or so in 2003. About 400, 000 ha of tropical seasonal rainforest have been degraded or converted to monoculture of rubber forest. The increasing demand for rubber has actually intensified the expansion of rubber plantations and resulted in deforestation of mountain rain forest and subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest. Entitled “Demand for rubber is causing the loss of high diversity rain forest in SW China”, this research result has been published in Biodiversity and Conservation.   

Land use/land cover change is an important driver of global change and changes in carbon stocks. By combining detailed land-use change over a 27-year period based on satellite images and forest inventory data, Prof. Ma and his team members estimate changes in biomass in Xishuangbanna. The study demonstrates that the uncertainty of biomass estimates can be greatly reduced if detailed land-use analyses are combined with forest inventory data, and that slight changes in future land-use practices can have large implications for carbon fluxes. The research result, entitled “Past, present and future land-use in Xishuangbanna, China and the implications for carbon dynamics”, has been published in Forest Ecology and Management.