LAND USE OF THE LI-SPEAKING PEOPLE IN A MOUNTAINOUS AREA OF HAINAN ISLAND, CHINA: IMPACT OF NATIONAL NATURE RESERVE ESTABLISHED IN 1986

摘要

An IKONOS image for 2001 was used to produce a georeferenced map of land cover and land usernfor a Li-speaking village territory in mountainous areas of Hainan Island, China. The entire island of Hainan wasrnestablished as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in 1988, when it became Hainan Province. Since then, it is onernof most rapidly developing Provinces where large money has been invested to tourism development and cashrncropping. The subject village is located on the foot of Mount Wushisan (the highest peak in the Island) where arnnational nature reserve was established and tourism development started in 1986. Indigenous subsistence of thisrnvillage consisted of rice cultivation in the paddy fields, cultivation of rice and other crops in slush and burn fields,rnhunting animals, and gathering plants. Since the establishment of national reserve, however, subsistencernactivities that included burning, hunting, and gathering were placed under the ban. Instead, the governmentrnencouraged the people to plant cash crops (e.g. banana, tea, and medicinal plants) for increasing the income levelrnof the villagers. Also, the grasslands around the villages that were maintained as sources of buffalo fodder andrnroofing materials have changed to secondary growth because regular burning was stopped. In the present paper,rnwe investigated whether IKONOS could supply (1) a land use map of the village territory that will be useful forrnanthropological research and (2) a map that shows the distribution of slush and burn gardens or grassland beforernthe establishment of the national reserve. For the latter purpose, the people's knowledge --secondary growthrndominated with Haname lidacea trees were the grassland in the past-- were used. Also, we could find severalrnindicator trees in the secondary growth that evidence the existence of slush and burn gardens in the past.rnLocations of such trees were recorded in the field so as to be used as training data for the classification. Thernresults showed that the land use map made with IKONOS was sufficiently detailed and the past distribution ofrngrassland could be identified, while identification of past slush and burn garden sites was not successful. Highrnresolution satellite could provide useful information for anthropologists, though simplified analytical framework ofrnsatellite images should be presented for the utilization by non-professionals.