Min Qingwen

Responding to common questions on the conservation of agricultural heritage systems in China

Although the urgency of their conservation has been recognized, Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) since 2002 and China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS) certified by the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) of China since 2012 are faced with questions as to why to conserve them, what is to be conserved, who should conserve them, and how? This paper attempts to clarify and respond to such questions focusing on the conservation of agricultural heritage systems in China based on a review of both theoretical and practical progress. Agricultural heritage systems exhibit a multitude of values for sustainable and equitable development and therefore should be conserved for both present and future generations. Unlike most conventional heritages, the conservation of agricultural heritage systems is a complex, systematic “engineering” in which both physical and biological components and associated socio-cultural processes should be conserved in a dynamic way. Farmers and heritage sites must benefit from the continuance of traditional agricultural production under the premise of ecological functions being sustained and traditional culture being inherited. For a more effective conservation, a multi-stakeholder process should be established involving governments at different levels, multi-disciplinary scientists, communities and farmers, and business enterprises as well as social organizations. As has been demonstrated, the conservation of agricultural heritage systems aims to promote the regional sustainable development, to improve the livelihood, food security and well-being of farm people, and to provide references for the development of modern agriculture in China.

Residents’ Attitudes Towards Tourism in a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Pilot Site: a Case Study in China

Abstract Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) is a wide program to promote the conservation and adaptive management of such systems and their associated landscapes, biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures. Rice-Fish Systems (RFS) in Longxian village of China, as a traditional agricultural system, was selected as one of the five pilot sites of GIAHS in 2005. Researchers have paid more attention to the dynamic conservation and adaptive management of RFS because it is under severe threats from global development challenges. Tourism is suggested to be brought into the RFS conservation program as an alternative industry. This paper presents a comparative study of residents in three types of farm household in Longxian, seeking attitudes to the RFS conservation and tourism development and ways in which such information may guide future strategies. Results show residents, belonging to the household type in which most family members are abroad, have the most positive attitudes to RFS conservation and tourism development; while residents, as other household type in which less than 50% of family members are abroad, are the least sensitive group in these three household types, due to the motivation of moving abroad weakening their enthusiasm to participate in the local activities. Implications are discussed in the context of how resident attitudes will affect the future management of GIAHS conservation and tourism development, and then measures are put forward to foster tourism cooperation and multistakeholders process establishment.

Understanding Agricultural Heritage Sites as Complex Adaptive Systems: The Challenge of Complexity

Abstract: In rural life, everything is connected to everything else. Seen as a complex adaptive system, the “rural” in most regions of the world has evolved over many centuries and is well known to have endured invasive predations and conflicts and to have adapted to changing conditions, both physical and human, many times. Such changes are recorded in the culture and in the landscapes which have continuously evolved and which characterize rural places today. These features of contemporary rural life—economy, culture and landscape—are the key elements of rural systems. Interestingly, they have also become the elements that attract tourists to rural areas. This theoretical paper, starts from the position that the rural world as a whole is complex and that systems adjust in the face of uncertainty, and a type of dynamism that is generated externally in the form of shocks and stresses. Complex Adaptive Systems theory provides an excellent opportunity to examine living systems such as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in China that can provide new perspectives on resilience and self-organizing capabilities of the system. The paper suggests that adopting such approaches in contemporary research will produce new insights of whole systems and stem the tide of mainstream scientific research that reduces systems to their component parts and studies them with micro-techniques, while mostly failing to reintegrate the component parts back into the system as a whole. By reviewing this approach in relation to GIAHS and by introducing tourism into the rural village system, as a perturbation, we can create new ways to understand the effects of rural development interventions in ancient landscapes such as those which cover many parts of rural China today.

Evaluation of water resources conserved by forests in the Hani rice terraces system of Honghe County, Yunnan, China: an application of the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model

The Hani Rice Terraces System, based on gravity-flow irrigation, is one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) pilot sites selected by FAO in 2010. The water resource plays an important role in the sustainable development of this system. The value of water conserved by the forest is influenced by natural, economic and social factors. In this paper, the water quality, per capita water resources, per capita GDP and population density are chosen as indices to construct an index system for a comprehensive evaluation of water resources value. The weights of these indices are 0.443, 0.31, 0.141 and 0.106 respectively, which are determined by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. The water resources value has been assessed by the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model. The results show that the water resources value in the Hani Rice Terraces System is 4.25 RMB/m3. Evaluating the value of water resources in the Hani Rice Terraces System can provide a reference for ecological compensation, for raising public awareness of the importance of protecting the system, and ultimately achieving its sustainable development.

Spatial Variability Analysis of Soil Nutrients Based on GIS and Geostatistics: A Case Study of Yisa Township, Yunnan, China

Abstract: Hani rice terraces system is one of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) pilot sites selected by FAO. Soil nutrients are an important symbol of soil fertility, and play an important role in the sustainable utilization of land. Based on geo-statistics and GIS, the spatial variation of pH, organic matter, total nitrogen, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium in the soil in Yisa (a town in Honghe County, Yunnan Province) was studied. The results show that the spatial variability of pH, organic matter, total nitrogen, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen and available potassium exhibited medium spatial variability, and the coefficients of variation are 12.54%, 40.14%, 40.00%, 34.89%, and 40.00% respectively. Available phosphorus exhibited strong spatial variability, and the coefficient of variation is 102.13%. The spatial variation of pH, organic matter, total nitrogen, alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen and available potassium fit the index mode, however, the spatial variation of available phosphorus fits the spherical model. Total nitrogen, available phosphorus and available potassium were greatly affected by soil structural factors, while pH, organic matter and alkaline hydrolyzable nitrogen were affected by both structural and random factors. The spatial distribution of soil nutrients in Yisa was intuitively characterized by Kriging interpolation. It is very important to understand the spatial distribution of soil nutrients, which will provide the guidance for adjusting agricultural management measures such as fertilization.

Conceptual Framework for Economic Evaluation of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS): Case of Rice-Fish Co-Culture in China

Abstract: The Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) initiative was launched by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2002 with the aim of establishing the basis for the global recognition, dynamic conservation and adaptive management of outstanding traditional agricultural systems and their associated landscapes, biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures. There is anecdotal evidence that designated GIAHS are economically better than non-GIAHS sites. However, there have not been done an economic analysis to prove this. Nor are any sophisticated economic performance criteria for GIAHS in place for a continuously monitoring of the functioning. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to conduct an economic valuation for a GIAHS system versus a similar non designated GIAHS system. For this, a Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is chosen. The major constraint is the data availability. Therefore, a framework for economic analysis shall be developed with the intention to provide directions, assumptions, and data requirement to carry out an economic analysis and so give guidance on future inclusion of economic valuations of GIAHS. Theconceptual framework for economic assessment will use the Rice-Fish pilot site in China as a case study. The example calculations on the rice-fish co-culture (RFC) have to be taken cautiously due to data availability on different activities (tourism, marketed products on local and international markets) as well as comparison to similar systems.

Driving force and development strategies of agro-tourism in China.

Agro-tourism is a form of tourism related to agricultural resources and rural landscape which integrates the agro-demonstrations, pastoral sceneries, folk experiences, leisure travels and holiday entertainments through proper planning and development of tourism. In recent years, agro-tourism has sprung up all across China and has gradually become not only a new form of agro-business but also a new force of development in tourism. The development of agro-tourism was critical for enriching agro-industry, increasing farmer income, promoting optimization and upgrading rural industrial infrastructure and expanding the scope of tourism. There are currently 359 national agro-tourism demonstration sites approved by the ministry of agriculture and tourism administration. This implies that China now has 1.5 million happy farm houses within its borders. In 2010, agro-tourism achieved an operation income of 120 billion Yuan, received 400 million tourists and led the employment of 15 million farmers. This paper reviewed domestic and international agro-tourism research and development in China for a more comprehensive knowledge about this sector. Foreign scholars have done so lot on the theory and empiricism of agro-tourism, community participation of women, diversification of operations, role of multi-functional agriculture and agro-heritage in tourism, impact of climate change on agro-tourism, sustainable development of agro-tourism, etc. Domestic scholars have focused mainly on empirical analysis of the concept of agro-tourism, state of development and countermeasures of agro-tourism, impacts of agro-tourism and festive tourism. This paper also analyzed the development of China’s agro-tourism from the perspective of market demand, urbanization and rural economic restructuring. It discussed the driving forces of tourism demand, tourism development, accelerated urbanization, “return-to-nature” drive, rural economic restructuring, agriculture, and tourism breakthrough achievement. Based on analysis of developments in China’s agro-tourism, four driving forces were identified. The nation-wide tourism was driven by regional transportation, city development, scenic spot and resource monopoly. It was clear that the more driving factors there were, the more beneficial was the development of agro-tourism. The paper emphasized that under the concept of market economy, the development of agro-tourism always required a variety of external conditions for the jointly promotion of agro-tourism. Also with changing internal and external conditions, the driven factors for agro-tourism development changed. In conclusion therefore, development strategies were presented 682 中国生态农业学报 2012 第 20卷 as the driving force of China’s agro-tourism industry. Traffic-driven strategy and characteristics of product and urban development influenced strategic in-depth theme development of hot spot tourism sites. Link-driven development and unique-resource driven strategies were the brands of development for integrated mode of agro-tourism development. The development of agro-tourism also needed the involvement and coordination of various stakeholders, including government, community and tourism operators. The analyses in this article were in the hope of accelerating healthy and sustainable development of China’s agro-tourism.

Values and Conservation of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces System as a GIAHS Site

Abstract: Agri-cultural Heritage Systems (AHS) have not only various values but also important enlightening roles for modern agriculture. With agro-scientific and technological progress, the traditional agriculture that has lasted for thousands of years is declining gradually, thus is attached the importance of exploring and protecting our AHS. As a traditional agricultural system for 1300 years, the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces System (HHRTS) has many significant characteristics such as beautiful landscapes, distinctive rice varieties, ecologically clean agricultural production systems, systematic methods of managing water and soil and special ethnic culture. It was designated successively as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) in 2010 and as a World Heritage (WH) in 2013. In this paper, taking HHRTS as an example, we analyzed the economic, ecological, aesthetic, cultural, and social values, as well as the research values, of the GIAHS. We conclude that the restrictions on increasing peasant earnings and improving their living standards are difficult with the low efficiency of traditional planting patterns and the single-industry structure of farming in rugged terrain. However, these restrictive factors are beneficial for developing some industries like green agriculture, organic agriculture or ecological food production because of the clean farmland environment. In the end, we propose the basic approaches to protect the Hani terraces agriculture system should include the local governments to encourage the development of ecotourism, organic agriculture and featuring agriculture by multi-mode economic compensation. It is very important for protecting terraces to coordinate benefits among corporations, governments and villagers by making reasonable policies of compensation.

Progress and prospects in tourism research on agricultural heritage sites.

Abstract: Agricultural heritage is an important type of world heritage. The special features of this kind of heritage are that they are “living” or “real life” systems, in both the ecosystem and in the cultural sense. So, agricultural heritage needs to be conserved in a special way. In a well-reasoned approach to dynamic conservation of agricultural heritage, careful development of heritage sites can realize greater sustainability of the traditional agriculture by considering both conservation and development though tourism. This paper examines the Global Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) as designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and listed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as agricultural heritages sites. Currently, the research in China focuses on tourism resources evaluation and development, production design and marketing, tourism perception and the impacts of tourism development and so forth. There is less emphasis on research about benefit sharing of heritage tourism evolution mechanisms, environmental impacts of agricultural heritage tourism and study methods which should be analyzed in-depth, so as to illuminate the theories and practices of development in a living landscape.

The Role of Multi-functionality of Agriculture in Sustainable Tourism Development in Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Sites in China

Abstract: Population growth, loss of biodiversity, and climate change necessitate a new vision for the future of both agriculture and biodiversity. In order to safeguard and support the worlds agricultural heritage systems, in 2002 the FAO started an initiative for the conservation and adaptive management called Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). Tourism is suggested as part of the future as it is considered to be an alternative income source that will not only promote local economic development, but also provide the opportunity for tourists to learn about agriculture and ecology. However, inappropriate tourism in GIAHS sites will bring impacts on local culture and living styles, which not only threatens tourisms sustainable development, but also has the potential to damage these unique agricultural systems. This paper proposes that agriculture-based tourism is suitable for GIAHS and that Multi-functionality of Agriculture (MFA) can be the link between agriculture and tourism. This study constructs the framework for tourism development in GIAHS through MFA and applies it to the four GIAHS sites in China. Referring to the quantitative assessment for MFA and a qualitative analysis of the relationship between agriculture and tourism, we can give advice on agricultural tourism development in GIAHS sites. This framework also offers a universal methodology that allows stakeholders to communicate about the multiple functions of GIAHS across scales.