The upper reaches of Minjiang River is an ecological sensitive and vulnerable area in southwest of China. It is of great significance to the ecological pattern safety in China. In this study, we analyzed the landscape pattern change through the interpretation of TM imageries in 1986, 1995 and 2000. The results showed that the matrix landscape in this area was grass landscape. Forest landscape patches were embedded in the grass landscape. The forest landscape area increased from 1986 to 1995 and decreased from 1995 to 2000. However, the number of patches of forest landscape was increasing during all the time. This suggested that the intensity of anthropogenic disturbances including harvesting, forest landscape reclaiming and excessive grazing were persistently increasing from 1986 to 2000. The ecological driving forces of the landscape change in this area were the intensified anthropogenic disturbances as a result of the population boom including the predacious harvesting of forest and excessive grazing. The natural disturbances such as the global climatic change also partly influenced the landscape change in this area.