East West Center Research Program Seminar

Understanding Dynamic Resource Management Systems and Land Cover Transitions in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia. Jefferson Fox, Senior Fellow, East-West Center.

Montane mainland Southeast Asia is a region of great biological and cultural diversity that has come under close scrutiny in the last several decades as a result of both real and perceived deforestation, land degradation, and most recently, the conversion of traditional agricultural practices to more permanent cash crop agriculture driven by regional and global markets. The causes and consequences of these changes are many—globalization of markets, wide diffusion of technical information favoring simplified production models, and similar agricultural and conservation policies concerning smallholder production are among the factors. This talk describes an ongoing research project that seeks to determine how resource management systems in montane mainland Southeast Asia are transforming in the wake of changing market dynamics in the region. We have selected a transect from southern China to northern Thailand as our primary focus because of the diversity of political, cultural, and economic influences on land use found here, and because of anticipated changes in land cover and land use caused by the expansion of an international highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand, to Kunming, China.

Jefferson Fox is Coordinator of the Environmental Change, Vulnerability and Governance study area and a Senior Fellow at the East-West Center. His research focuses on land-use and land-cover change in Asia and the possible cumulative impact of these changes on the region and the global environment. Ongoing projects include understanding dynamic resource management systems and land cover transitions in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia, funded by the National Science Foundation; the role of land-cover change in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia in altering regional hydrological processes under a changing climate, funded by NASA; and Co-management of Tropical Forest Resources in Bangladesh, funded by USAID.

Event Sponsor
East-West Center, Research Program

More Information
Laura Moriyama, 808-944-7444, moriyaml@eastwestcenter.org

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