Livelihood and Conservation Aspects of Non-wood Forest Product Collection in the Shaxi Valley, Southwest China1

Livelihood and Conservation Aspects of Non-wood Forest Product Collection in the Shaxi Valley, Southwest China. The Shaxi Valley in Yunnan Province, P.R. China, is inhabited by Tibeto-Burman ethnic groups. We found a clear dichotomy between household strategies in the valley bottom and the mountain areas, with significantly lower household income in the mountains. The majority Bai people live predominantly in the fertile valley floor and cultivate rice, keep livestock, and commonly pursue off-farm work. Other ethnic groups live in more remote mountainous areas of the Shaxi Valley, where the collection of non-wood forest products, especially wild mushrooms, plays an important role in securing livelihoods. However, only households in the valley's central villages engage in the profitable non-wood forest product trade. Mushroom populations appear to be less vulnerable to commercial harvest than the rapidly declining wild medicinal plant populations. Due to this decline, local farmers have gained interest in cultivating medicinal plants, but only if risks are low and if financial and technical support is provided. Encouraging the cultivation of medicinal plants appears to be an appropriate means of sustainable community developmen

Plant knowledge of the Shuhi in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China

The Shuhi are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group of around 1,500 people living exclusively in the Shuiluo Valley, southwest China. We documented their plant knowledge concerning wild collected species, and analyzed food, medicine, and ritual uses. Overall, uses, collection sites, and use frequencies of 136 plant species were documented. The plants were divided in fodder (46 spp.), food (43 spp.), medicine (27 spp.), ritual plants (20 spp.), fuelwood (17 spp.), plants used for construction (8 spp.), ornamentals (2 spp.), and "others" (34 spp.). Food plants mainly consist of fruits and leafy vegetables, and the uses are comparable with those of other ethnic groups in the area. Knowledge about medicinal plants is relatively limited, since traditional Shuhi healers use ritual and other healing methods instead of medicinal plants. Ritual plants play an important role relative to human well-being. Villagers and ritualists use them to keep the environment clean of malevolent spirits and to maintain a good relationship with the deities. All habitats, from the dry shrub vegetation at the valley bottom up to the alpine shrub, are used for plant collection, but 87% of all species are collected in the near vicinity of the villages around the fields and in the dry shrub vegetation. Finally, we postulate two main factors influencing wild plant use among the Shuhi: cultural values and accessibilit

Sensitivity Analysis and Optimization of a Coal-fired Power Plant in Different Modes of Flue Gas Recirculation

AbstractIn a coal-fired power plant with flue gas recirculation, recirculation rate and coal input have a great effect on the performance of the power plant. In this paper, a 600 MW coal-fired boiler is taken as base case, the main parameters of the boiler are calculated at different recirculation rates and coal input conditions, an optimization is carried out and the optimum recirculation rate and coal input are reported. The results show that under optimum recirculation rate and coal input conditions, the net coal consumption rate can be reduced by 3.5g/(kW·h) at 575MW load; while it is 4.36g/(kW·h) and 5.11g/(kW·h), respectively, at 450MW load and 300MW load. Compared to the conventional flue gas recirculation system, the net coal consumption rate can be reduced by 2.31 g/(kW·h), 2.42 g/(kW·h) and 2.41 g/(kW·h), respectively, at 575MW, 450MW and 300MW load