Hainan Island: Bare Hills Every "Eight"

Curving sandy beaches, row after row of gently swaying coconut palms, a couple of sailboats on the still, blue sea--is it Hawaii?

No, it's Hainan Island, the only place in China with a tropical coast.

Hainan Island, situated at the southernmost point of Chinese territory, is the country's second largest island, next to Taiwan. Two Chinese commanderies were established there as early as 110 B.C. but because of its remote location, the island was developed slowly. In the eyes of most Chinese, it was rather like a family's neglected stepchild.

This unprepossessing piece of real estate is actually, however, one of China's best agricultural areas. Hainan, like southern Taiwan and southern Yunnan, has tropical seasonal winds, year-round summer, and abundant rainfall, making it possible to achieve three or four harvests a year. And the south of the island is suited for growing coffee, rubber trees, and other tropical crops.

According to a gazetteer published in 1943, the island at that time still preserved a pristine natural appearance. It had a forest cover of 50 percent and over 4,000 species of plants, including one-fifth of all China's medicinal varieties.

Then, in 1954, this neglected stepchild was suddenly seen in a different light. That was the year Vietnam was partitioned into North and South. Rubber was a strategic material to the war there, and since no Communist countries could grow it, the Communist Chinese, at the instigation of the Soviets, began to cultivate it in Yunnan and on Hainan. By the 1970's, the land area devoted to rubber cultivation had jumped from 40,000 mu to 3.6 million, and Hainan had become China's largest rubber growing region.

But this shouldn't be taken to imply that Hainan is an ideal place to grow the plant. Rubber, native to tropical rain forests, requires high temperatures and high moisture to grow well. Frost, typhoons, drought, and drastic changes in temperature and humidity can all have a disastrous effect. Yet except for a few counties in the south and southwest, average temperatures on the rest of the island fall below 18℃ for several months a year, so the result of all the widespread cultivation has actually been rather meager harvests.

A 1985 study published on the mainland found that the chief reasons why Hainan is far inferior for growing rubber to places like Malaysia and Indonesia is its lower temperatures and stronger winds combined with the threat of drought. And the report stated that much of the blame for the drought could be attributed to the reduction of the island's forests.

The deforestation is due partly to clearance for rubber cultivation, and partly to "the great hewings of the three 'eights.'" The "three 'eights'" refer to 1958, 1968, and 1978, and the object of the "hewings" were the forests.

In 1958, the Communists began razing the forests to plant oil palms, covering some 600,000 mu by the middle 1960s. But, largely because of poor seed selection, most of the trees died before they could be harvested. In 1968, the "grain is the key link" fever was at its peak. Besides the forests, many cash crops like coconuts and sisal hemp were also razed in large quantities in an attempt to grow grain. And in 1978, the movement was to "cover the hillsides with sugarcane." The results were further destruction of the forests and a crop failure after two years of planting because of insufficient irrigation.

By 1982, a mainland publication admitted that the forest cover on Hainan had been reduced from its previous 50 percent to 12.5. And forests at altitudes under 900 meters were practically nonexistent.

The consequences have been grave. Because the island's soil consists largely of porous red loam, the part played by forests in water retention is vital. And because the island is 40 percent mountainous, without the forests to moderate the effect, the rivers are prone to flooding, making irrigation difficult. Statistics show that the quantity of flood waters increased by 40 percent in the 1970s over the 1960s, while the dry months were drier and droughts more frequent and longer.

The chief method of cultivation on Hainan has so far been "slash and burn": trees are chopped down or burned off to provide new areas for planting. As a result, from 1949 to 1979, the island experienced some 4,220 mountain fires, which burned an area of 2.2 million mu. As the forests were destroyed, the soil dried up and lost its fertility, and plant life has suffered. Of the 1,000-some medicinal plants on the island, 800 are nearing extinction.

In the final analysis, all Hainan Island's troubles have been produced in an often misguided pursuit of economic interests. "Development's not a bad thing in itself--unless the technology's wrong, unless you don't adapt measures to suit local conditions," Huang Jui-hsiang of the University of Hawaii notes.

Hainan's strong point is that it consists of areas variously suitable for forestry, for pasturage, for agriculture, and for rubber cultivation. Least of all is it suitable for single-crop exploitation.

In 1985 a mainland publication stated that the future development of Hainan Island would be on a cash-crop basis.

Will 1988 become the fourth 'eight'?

[Picture Caption]

Coconut palms and sailboats add to the picturesque atmosphere of Hainan's Wan-chuan River.

Hainan Island Forest Overview

(Sinorama files)

Because of cheaper substitutes, the value of rubber trees has declined. (photo by Vincent Chang)

After 3O years of development, Hainan's Haikou City has become quite built up.

Because of cheaper substitutes, the value of rubber trees has declined. （photo by Vincent Chang）

After 3O years of development, Hainan's Haikou City has become quite built up.