THE NU RIVER - Dams and Development in China - page 85

Recent studies on the social impacts of dam construction around the world suggest that dis-
placement and resettlement, particularly by force or coercion, result in a cascade of subse-
quent negative impacts on employment and income, social networks, and health and well-
being (Tilt, Braun, and He 2009; Scudder 2005). Different social groups experience the
impacts of development in disparate ways, in part based on their vulnerability, which Ben
Wisner and his colleagues have defined as “the characteristics of a person or group that
influence their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a
hazard” (2004:11). In this section, I examine three key areas of vulnerability experienced
by local communities as they relate to the Nu River dam projects: economic vulnerability,
vulnerability related to governance and decision making, and vulnerability as it relates to
cultural autonomy.
First, from an economic perspective, the southwestern region is comparatively poor.
Noneoftheprovincesinwhichethnicminorities composemorethan10percentofthepop-
ulation is listed among the ranks of high-income or even middle-income provinces (Wang
andHu1999).UNDP(2008),forexample,usesanHDIthatincludesameasureofeconom-
ic productivity, life expectancy, and education to identify development needs. In a recent
HDI calculation, Yunnan ranks twenty-eighth out of thirty-one provinces and administrat-
ive regions. In Nujiang Prefecture specifically, minority nationality people account for 92.4
percent of the 520,600 residents, and all four counties in the prefecture have been desig-
nated as national-level impoverished counties ( pinkun xian ), which entitles their residents
to government subsidies. This is a common trend in reform-era China: measured a variety
of ways, income and wealth inequality has continued to grow throughout the reform era,
widening gaps between rural and urban communities as well as between individuals within
communities.
Both Fugong and Lushui Counties began implementing the Household Responsibility
System in 1982, dismantling collective land plots and leasing them to individual farming
families. Villagers grow rice and corn, potatoes, yams, rapeseed, tung trees, 7 sugar cane,
and walnuts. In household garden plots, they also cultivate smaller quantities of berries,
beans, cabbages, leeks, and other vegetables and fruits for local consumption. Villagers
raise oxen as draft animals to plow fields and level rice paddies, along with pigs, chickens,
and goats, all of which figure prominently in the local diet. In the upper part of the water-
shed, in Gongshan County and beyond, villagers routinely take their cattle to high-eleva-
tion alpine pastures to forage in summer.
Although these income sources are relatively easy to calculate, Nujiang villagers also
gatherwild-plantresourcesonforestedlandtosupplementtheirsubsistence,andthesenon-
monetary economic activities constitute an important part of local livelihoods. Many vil-
lagers collect mushrooms, herbs, and various plants, including Polygonatum , a genus of
edible, starchy plants, as well as Auklandia and Gastrodia , two genera of plants commonly
used in the traditional Chinese pharmacopeia (Wilkes 2005). They also gather firewood,