Regional Environmental Technical Assistance 5771
Poverty Reduction & Environmental Management in Remote Greater
Mekong Subregion Watersheds Project (Phase I)

Annex to RRA Report Xishuangbanna

RRA REPORT OF NAXIU NATURAL VILLAGE, MENGLA COUNTY,

XISHUANGBANNA DAI NATIONALITY AUTONOMY PREFECTURE

Watershed Profile

By

Bo Zhou

1. General Description

Naxiu natural village, a village of Aini Nationality, is located inside Mengla Nature Reserve, to the southeast of Mengla County, adjacent to Laos. The management of this village appertains to Jingpiao administrational village, Mengla Township, Menghai County. It is 65km far away from the capital town of Mengla County, where the Mengla Township is located in. The neChinese mut market place is Mengban Township, 28km far away from the village. The road to the village is very rough and wandering. It is difficult to get to the village in rain season by car or by jeep. There is a small river called Napiao River to the south of the village, which is the 3^rd level branch of Langcang River (Mekong River).

The village occupies a total area of 3.1 km². There are 24 households and 144 persons in the village (male: 79, female: 65). The villagers are all Aini Nationality, a branch of Hani Nationality. The annual average revenue of the villagers is just 478 Chinese yuan, lower than the absolute poverty line.

The Aini Nationality is the 3^rd nationality in Xishuangbanna Dai Nationality Autonomy Prefecture. Most of them settle in the mountain area, where the communication is very inconvenience. Because the education in the mountain area is very bad, and some villagers can't afford their children to reading in the school, the children have few opportunities of education in their lives.

2. Resource Base

The village has a total area of 25hm² natural forest, which is collective own. The vegetation of the natural forest mainly belongs to the mountain rain forest. The villagers can collect the non-timber forest product (NTFP) in the forest, such as bamboo shoot, herbal medicine, and wild vegetable, etc.

The villagers haven't plant any trees in the hill or around their village.

There is a small river near the village, which origin is in the territory of Laos. The rate of flow is very small in dry season. The villagers irrigate their paddy with the water in the river. There are some mountain springs near the village. They channeled the mountain spring water with bamboo into the village to drink for themselves and their livestock.

The villagers' harvesting of fish from the river is about 800kg each year, but the amount is less than before. The male does fishing with net or by blocking up the river to get fish. They don't sale the fish. And they don't raise the domestic fish too.

There are 95 livestock (including 91 buffaloes and 4 horse), 200 pigs, 4 goat and 170 poultry in the village. The villagers plough their paddy with buffaloes. All of these animals are not stable breeding, so the pigs are very thin. The villagers raise their buffaloes in the hills around their village. When they plough their paddy in spring, they look for the animals, find them and drive them home to plough paddy. Livestock murrain often occurred in the village. All the pigs died in 3 years ago. And in 1997, 13 buffaloes died and about 180 pigs infected by murrain.

3. Land use pattern

There is a total area of 100 hm² rotational cultivation land in the village. The villagers rotationally till the upland rice or corn each 5 or 7 years. They cultivate crops and cash crop in the shifting land, such as upland rice, corn, cotton, soybean, peanut and tobacco, etc. The cultivated area and product of the crops or the cash crops are sawn in Table 1.

Table 1: The Cultivated area and Unit Product of Crops or Cash Crops

There is a total area of 12.5 hm² (about 187.5 Chinese mu) paddy, and the unit product of the paddy rice is 298kg/Chinese mu. The villagers only cultivate the paddy rice once a year from May to September, for lack of irrigation water. During the spare time, they graze their livestock in the paddy.

Some villagers cultivate the amomum fruit under the forest. The total cultivation area is 66 Chinese mu, but the production is very low, it is just 0.16kg/Chinese mu.

All these crops or cash crops are cultivated for self-use. Some people weave cloth with the cotton they cultivated, and smoke tobacco they planted. They don't sale any crops or cash crops except for amomum fruit.

4. Land and Resource Tenure

After 1980, Naxiu natural village, as same as all around of China, has implemented the contract system of crop-yield responsibility, i.e. the contract of farmland using. Every household in rural area has several Chinese mu of farmland, including irrigated field, dry land and some woody-hilly land, which being controlled by farmer. The term of the contract of farmland using is extended for 30 years from 1998. Farmer or villager can plant any kind of crops as his or her wish and gain any profit from the land of responsibility.

5. Summary of Environmental Condition

Because the villagers till their rotational fields once two or there years without using any fertilizers, the period of slash and burn agriculture is shorter than the before, about 580 Chinese mu of shifting land of the village has grown with Eupatorium odoratum and Imperata cylindrica, which are indicators of soil degradation. It is difficult to cultivate any crops in the field. Due to the deforestation, the soil erosion often occurs in rain season. The fertility of the hill land decreased, and the production of the crop decreased too.

6. Demographic features

There are 144 persons in the village. Each family has 3 to 5 children exceeding the permission of family birth control policy. Though the birth rate is high, the population growth rate isn't high for the high mortality. The population growth rate keeps 0.6% during the past 20 years.

The status of Aini nationality female is lower than the male. They haven't the chance of education, and they have to obey the orders of their fathers or husbands in their lives. They are hardship than man, they not only labor as man, but also raise children and looking after the old, do cooking and washing.

Most of Aini people settle at the mountain area, they farm with traditional cultivation method --slash and burn agriculture. For the recovery of vegetation in Xishuangbanna Dai Nationality Prefecture is quicker than in other place in China, if the period of rotation were long enough, for example, more than 7 years, the use of land resource would be sustainable. But now, for the case of population pressure and the policy of natural forest protection, the villagers have to cultivate their shifting land once two or three years. The traditional cultivation method -- slash and burn agriculture isn't sustainable any more.

7. Poverty Indicators

7.1 Education

The education in the mountain area is underdeveloped in China, especially in the remote mountain area. There is an uncompleted primary school in the village. The classroom is simple, there are one blackboard, 6 desks in the room. Only one informal teacher teaches the 12 pupils the courses of Chinese, Maths, and History of China in 'putonghua' (standard Chinese pronunciation). The pupils are all boys, and the girls have no chance to be educated. So, almost all of the women or the girls are illiteracy.

7.2 Housing

The villagers' housing are made of wood, the floor board is scraggy soil. There are little furniture, such as table and stools. There isn't any durable consumer goods or household appliances.

7.3 Health

There isn't any clinic or health worker in the village. The main disease found among the villagers is malaria that is infected by mosquitoes. If they were very sick, they had to go to clinic of Mengban Township or to the hospital in the capital town of Mengla County. The health worker from the clinic of Mengla Township vaccinates the children once a year. Some villagers collect herbal medicine to cure small disease, such as cold, cough and tummy.

7.4 Employment Opportunities

The Aini people consider that it is a disgraceful thing to go out to do odd jobs. On the other hand, they have no chance to work due to their low degree of education.

8. Development Priorities

Naxiu natural village is really an absolute poverty village. There are many problems need to be solved, such as the water supply, health and treatment, electricity, and education, etc. But the important thing is the education, especially the education to the female. Another thing is to solve the water supply condition. A pond should be built to purify the water and piped to the household.

9. Conclusions and Recommendations for Phase II

1. Building a classroom for the pupil;
2. Building a pond and piping the water to the family;
3. Promote the status of women by propaganda and education;
4. Carry out agricultural extension to adopt advanced agricultural technology to promote the yield of crops.

Profile Chart of Naxiu Village

Annex: Checklist for Village Interview

Naxiu Village (Altitude: 1133m, inside Mengla Nature Reserve, adjacent to Laos)

Name of Village:

Date: Apr. 1, 1999

Prepared by: Meng Guangtao, Fang Bo, and Dai Yiyuan

In discussion with: Jin Baiyang, position: villager and with Ma Gaxiu, position: villager, and with Wang Lansan, position: villager, etc.

Native language(s) of informants:

1. Village Location including distances from neChinese mut paved road and from neChinese mut markets town.

2. Village Population: no. of families (with approximate ethnic breakdown), no. of people including male/female, age groups breakdown, and the number of immigration and out if available to get the trend of population

3. Resource base (ask key informants to sketch a map)

-Total area of paddy land (rainfed, wet-season irrigated, dry-season irrigated)

-Total area of natural forest land (now and 30 years ago)

-Total area of plantation forest land, if any

-Total area of slash and burn agriculture in a most recent year

-Water supplies, access to drinking and bathing water, to water for irrigation

-Availability of fish (domestic and wild)

-Total livestock figures for village

4. Resource Tenure and Management Incentives

-Is forest state-owned, community owned, or household owned?

-What incentives for rapid/pre-emotive extraction of forest resources exist?

-What incentives for sustainable management of forest resources exist?

-Describe traditional tenure and management practices and how these may have broken down.

5. Availability of government/private sector services

-Health service

-NeChinese mut school, to what level, use of indigenous languages in primary school

-Veterinary services

-Agricultural extension

-Agricultural credit

-Availability of electricity

6. Livelihood Strategies (time may allow only brief coverage of these topics)

-Occupations (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

-Labour patterns for meeting basic needs (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

-Use and control of resources and benefits (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

-Income and expenditure patterns (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

7. Development Priorities

-Key problems (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

-Proposed development activities (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

-Best Bet Action Plans (by gender, by socioeconomic group)

Problem Analysis Chart of Naxiu Village