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Science 22 May 2009:
Vol. 324. no. 5930, pp. 1024 - 1025
DOI: 10.1126/science.1173833
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Perspectives

Agriculture:

The Rubber Juggernaut

Alan D. Ziegler,1 Jefferson M. Fox,2 Jianchu Xu3

Rubber plantations are expanding rapidly throughout montane mainland Southeast Asia (1–3). More than 500,000 ha may have been converted already in the uplands of China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar (see the figure, panel A). By 2050, the area of land dedicated to rubber and other diversified farming systems could more than double or triple, largely by replacing lands now occupied by evergreen broadleaf trees and swidden-related secondary vegetation (2). What are the environmental consequences of this conversion of vast landscapes to rubber?

1 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570.
2 East-West Center, Honolulu, HI 96848, USA.
3 World Agroforestry Centre, Kunming Institute of Botany, China.

E-mail: adz{at}nus.edu.sg

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)