Abstract: Influenced by natural environment and human activities, rocky desertification in the karst region of southeast Yunnan is serious, degrade ecosystems have been restored to some extent through a series of ecological conservation projects that started in 2000. In the present study, based on MODIS-NDVI data, the pixel dichotomy model was used to extract fractional vegetation cover(FVC), spatio-temporal variation characteristics of vegetation cover and its climate and human factors from 2000 to 2016 was investigated. Results show that the FVC in the study area showed a general trend of increase in recent 17 years, the growth rate was as follows: spring (0.005 0/a) > winter (0.004 3/a) > autumn (0.004 0/a) > summer (0.000 3/a), and the annual growth rate was 0.003 6/a. Since 2000, the area with an increasing trend of FVC accounted for more than 85% of the total area of the study area, while in the central area of city and county, it was mainly reduced. FVC was positively correlated with temperature and precipitation. From 2000 to 2016, the area affected by human activities in the study area increased continuously accounting for 80.54% of the total area, decreased continuously accounting for 13%, and remained unchanged accounting for 6.46%. The influence of human activities on the change of FVC showed a trend of continuous strengthening. Overall, the rocky desertification control projects play an important role in increasing vegetation cover.