The Expansion of Rubber in Southern Yunnan, China

IN THE LAST 30 YEARS, beginning in the late 1950s, a successful rubber industry has been established on steep slopes in the southernmost counties of Yunnan Province, bordering Burma, despite major environmental constraints. Yunnan's production of natural rubber is centred on Jinghong city, on the Lancang Jiang (Mekong), and in the three surrounding counties of Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, mostly at elevations of 500900 metres (Fig. 1). Away from this core area, rubber is grown to a small extent in many lowland localities: east as far as Hekou, on the Red River and the border with Vietnam, northwards in the Mekong River counties of Simao, Lancang and Lincang prefectures and, furthest north, near Ruili on the Burma border, well north of the tropic. Taking into account the latitude and elevation where about 50 million rubber trees have been