This policy was mainly responsible for transforming massive areas of forest for agricultural purposes, an average of 100,000 hectares per year from 1959 to 1963. (Boado 197) This extensive practice of shifting cultivation affected the natural forests. The land cultivators came in two types, Uplanders and Lowlanders. The Uplanders made their living by clearing and cropping forestlands and observing fallow periods. This practice seemed sustainable until the number of Uplanders became so high that long fallow periods could no longer be maintained. On the other hand, Lowlanders clear and crop on a part-time basis, and because of decreased amounts of land and a high poverty rate in rural lowland areas; these people are forced to clear patches of forest for themselves to live and not for a salary. Additional clearing resulted from land speculators who pay the Uplanders and then apply for reclassification of cleared forestland as alienable or disposable. The slow pace of land classification has led to the preemption of vast forestlands for agriculture by this spiteful pace. Land cultivators did not go unpunished, but mere jail time or fines also did not deter them. It was not until 1985 that the government finally realized that illegal land cultivation was not a matter of law enforcement, but a rather a social, economic, and environmental problem. (Boado 198).
In China, the environmental degragation is similar in nature but more catastrophic in result. For many years China has suffered from an acute shortage of forest resources. China ranks 6th in the world in total forested area, but in relation to China's huge population and large surface area, the number gets smaller. Only 12% of the country's area is covered in forest, which is barely half the global average of 22%. (Ross 210) The response to the shortage has been an increase in imports to over 9 million cubic meters a year in 1985. The effects on the average family were more substantial.
