The Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, located in southwestern China is an area of great biological and cultural diversity. While the region has long been a dynamic one, the past 50 years have witnessed changes in the state of the biodiversity of Xishuangbanna at an unprecedented pace and scale. Due to a number of trends including demographic growth, as well as abrupt shifts in land use and economic policies, agricultural patterns have changed substantially. These shifts have resulted not only in a decline and fragmentation of forest areas, but also in changes in the practice of swidden-fallow agriculture. This paper employs a variety of published data, combined with original information derived from field research in Xishuangbanna villages, to draw attention to these trends and discuss their implications for biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity.