Our third household interview in Xijiang (see Xijiang Landscape) was with this delightful 88-year-old Miao man. He only spoke Miao, but this was not really a problem because Mr. Yu Yong Fu from the Leigongshan Nature Reserve (see First Plot) was with us and could translate. More problematic was that the gentleman was extremely hard of hearing and all the questions had to be shouted - repeatedly.
In spite of these difficulties, we learned that 30 years ago all of the local forests were collective forests and that management decisions and harvest allocations during this period were made by a village committee. Most of the decisions about what happens in the forest are currently made by the provincial Forestry Department. We also learned that there had been no big fires during the last 30 years (see Fire Hydrant).