Search Results (29)

Slash-and-burn agriculture (SBA) is critical to maintaining rural peoples’ livelihoods. Yet, it causes environmental degradations that challenge its sustainability. Such degradations are often underestimated, as they are usually assessed at the local (stand) scale, overlooking larger-scale impacts. Here, we drew upon existing SBA and landscape ecology knowledge to assess the multiscale abiotic and biotic effects of SBA. This agroecosystem involves four stages (slashing of vegetation, burning of vegetation, farming, and forest recovery) but the SBA research is biased towards biotic impacts, especially during forest recovery. Despite its importance for key abiotic (e.g., soil fertility) and biotic (e.g., species richness) attribute recovery, this stage is typically too short (<10 years) to compensate for the environmental degradation caused by the previous stages. Successional and landscape ecology theory suggests that such compensatory dynamics can promote SBA sustainability in landscapes dominated by old-growth forests. Yet, when old-growth forest loss exceeds certain boundaries, abiotic and biotic SBA impacts may compromise the conservation value and sustainability of this ancient agroecosystem. We highlight that SBA sustainability should be comprehensively assessed by including landscape-scale variables (e.g., percent old-growth forest cover) that may be key for maintaining biodiversity patterns and processes in landscapes where SBA is practiced. Full article

Swidden agriculture has been practiced historically by communities in SE Asia, but as the population grows and other land uses expand, the areas available to swidden farmers are decreasing. Government environmental policies discriminate against swidden farming. Opportunities for off-farm employment are increasing, and this is attracting young people to abandon swidden farming. We explored the link between access to land and migration in three forest landscapes in Indonesia, Lao, and Vietnam. We analyzed the impacts of the push factors within the swidden systems and the pull factors from non-agricultural activities on young people’s decisions to migrate or continue in swidden agriculture. We found that stable cash incomes from non-farm jobs were a major driver of young people’s out-migration. Other factors included the desire to have broader experience, better education, as well as peer influences. We also found that land was becoming less accessible to young swidden farmers, but this was not a major reason to migrate as suggested by many studies. Government and private sector investments in plantations, mining, or infrastructure are reducing land availability. Government restrictions on land clearing also reduce areas available for swidden farming. Full article

Shifting cultivation is widely practiced in many tropical mountainous watersheds. Agricultural practices are changing with the intensification of activities and the development of industrial monocultures associated with increasing land use and the use of pesticides and fertilisers. These changes have consequences for the evolution of sediment transfers in watersheds, resulting in new vulnerabilities for the inhabitants. This article shows the evolution of structural connectivity over 5 years in the village of Houaylack-Vangven, located in northern Laos, and its potential links with agricultural diffuse pollution. To develop a structural source-to-sink model to understand sediment transfers, our method was based on open-access data and various geographical tools. Field surveys were conducted to identify areas vulnerable to erosion and sediment transfers. The sources and sinks were then located using remote sensing techniques and image interpretation to then characterise connectivity rates. Finally, the relationship between the sources and sinks was analysed by graph theory to explore the potentialities for assessing the connectivity and exposure of sediment sinks. The main results are twofold: sinks coincide with areas at risk of contamination by pesticides and fertilisers, and the structural connectivity increases with the increasing of the source surfaces (swidden plots) due to the ongoing agricultural transition. Full article

Based on recent insights about intensive soil husbandry by some Neolithic farmers combined with the required techniques for efficient use of stone tools, this research questions the emphasis in the experimental archaeology literature on felling of large trees by stone-axe-wielding males working alone. To reflect conditions after the short fallows now thought to have been favored by farmers using stone tools, young (8–12 years) and small (3.5–5.6 cm diameter) Quercus hemisphaerica (laurel oak) trees were felled in this study by both male and female participants. Felling with a stone axe required an average of 75 more strokes than for felling a similar sized tree with a steel axe. One novel finding in this study is that when the Quercus hemisphaerica (laurel oak) saplings were bent over/tensioned by a co-worker, the predicted numbers of felling strokes declined by 123 (73%) for stone axes and by 15 (72%) for steel axes. We also observed no effect of sex on felling efficiency with stone axes. These results suggest that stone-tool wielding farmers of both sexes worked together to clear trees from their fallowed fields. Full article

Researchers increasingly investigate ecosystem services to assess their role in supporting livelihoods, well-being and economic value in order to inform decision-making. Many studies have explored links between ecosystem services and community-based livelihoods, with a very narrow focus on the importance of land use to well-being. We evaluated the value of ecosystem services from various land uses supporting livelihoods and the overall well-being of local communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. By applying a participatory habitat valuation approach with the ethnic communities from eight villages, we explored their preferences for, and perceptions of, ecosystem services and their sources in a multi-functional landscape under different land use, i.e., forest, swidden and low-land agriculture, fruit orchard and water bodies, and three land ownership contexts (state, private and mixed ownership on forest lands). Our findings revealed that community land use preference for ecosystem services supports ten different well-being needs. Among others, forests were valued land used for two-thirds of well-being needs, including the provision of shelter, nutrition, primary health care, an adequate supply of potable water, a lower level of ecological stress (i.e., protection from associated landslide soil erosion), cultural and spiritual benefits and livestock foraging. People commonly valued the food, income and nutrition contributions of all land uses. However, different forest and land ownership contexts and rights within the landscape influence people’s preference for ecosystem services from land use in supporting their well-being. People with secure ownership (i.e., private and private-community) showed a broad and positive appreciation for ecosystem services to meet their well-being needs. Our study highlights that local and ethnic people’s land-use preferences and ownership contexts are critical factors in assessing well-being in the context of multifunctional landscapes. We recommend that ecosystem services be considered in future decision-making related to forest and land use to support human well-being. Full article

Swidden agriculture or shifting cultivation is still being widely practiced in tropical developing countries and Laos has spared no effort to eradicate it since the mid-1990s. So far, the development of swidden agriculture in this land-locked mountainous country during the 2000–2020 bi-decade remains poorly examined. Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time-series products have shown potential in monitoring vegetative status; however, only extremely limited cases of remote sensing of swidden agriculture landscapes have been reported. Taking northern Laos as a study area and using 2001–2020 MODIS vegetation indices products, the Savitzky–Golay filter, the Mann–Kendall trend test and a threshold method were employed to delineate and monitor annual patterns and dynamics of swidden agriculture landscape at the village level. The results showed that: MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series perform better in delineating the temporal development of swidden agriculture. The swidden agriculture landscape has shown a general descending trend in the past decades, especially in the 2010s, with an annual average of 14.70 × 10⁴ ha. The total number of swidden-practicing villages (or districts) also displayed a declining trend and there were 957 villages or 91 districts practicing it continuously between 2001 and 2020. An average of 32 villages per year or two districts per decade highlights the difficulty in ending swidden agriculture in Laos, although the government of Laos has established a number of policies for the eradication of swidden agriculture by 2020. This study provides a necessary methodological reference for monitoring a two-decade evolution and transformation of swidden agriculture in the tropics. Full article

The Malay World has been home to a range of social formations, from nomadic hunter-gatherers on land and sea, through (semi-)sedentary swiddeners and forest traders, to state-incorporated peasants and aristocrats. In their religious and secular musics, these populations display differing performance manners and organisation that reflect their distinctive socio-cultural and religious orientations. The musics serve to embed those orientations as aesthetically felt rather than conceptually talked about. The differences are encoded mainly onto contrasts between, on the one hand, highly heterophonic and/or starkly non-melismatic performance and, on the other, more homophonic and/or melismatic styles. Full article

This article examines access to an economically important forest product (Brazil nuts) and its relationship with livelihood strategies in the Cazumbá–Iracema Extractive Reserve (CIER), Acre, Brazil. The objective is twofold: (i) to clarify how social mechanisms regulating access to Brazil nuts operate and (ii) to analyse the relationship between differential access to Brazil nuts and livelihood diversification in terms of cash income. For this, we conducted 55 semi-structured interviews with household heads in three rubber tapper (seringueiro) communities. Our findings indicate that Brazil nuts are important to seringueiro livelihoods, although both access to Brazil nuts and livelihood strategies are highly variable between households and communities. Limited access to Brazil nuts is partly overcome through informal arrangements and investment in wage labour, swidden agriculture, and cattle raising, as part of highly diversified livelihood portfolios. However, restrictions to agriculture and cattle raising generate considerable tensions between many seringueiros and environmental managers. We highlight the importance of viewing livelihood diversification and adaptability as important components of the long-term viability of the extractive reserve model, particularly in the context of the growing uncertainties and risks associated with accelerating climate and socio-environmental change as well as amidst ongoing political dynamics in Brazil. Full article

Papuan forests have been subjected to shifting cultivation for centuries by indigenous people affecting the ecological processes therein; during secondary succession, fallow forests recover naturally. However, the information on ecological succession after swidden practices remains poorly understood in Papuan lowland forests. This study aimed to examine the plant species richness and density of different plant lifeforms in fallows of increasing time after slash-and-burn cultivation along with basic edaphic factors. We performed data collection in the northern part of the lowland evergreen tropical forest near Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. The sampling consisted of 26 plots distributed in the primary forest (n = 6) and in secondary/fallow forests 2-, 4-, 7-, and 9-years after cultivation (n = 5 for each age class). The plant community in primary forest clearly differed from the secondary forests. The plant species richness was about twice as high in primary compared to secondary forests. The density of trees and shrubs increased during succession whereas that of lianas declined. The soil fertility declined in secondary forests, although soil organic matter was greatest two years after swidden and then decreased gradually over time. This research underlined that indigenous swidden practices alter ecological conditions and that secondary forests will take a long time to fully recover to resemble primary forest. Hence, the monitoring of vegetation during the process is necessary to inform conservation programs. Full article

Agricultural expansion has led to a significant loss of habitat and biodiversity in Ghana and throughout West Africa and the tropics generally. Most farmers adopt both organic and inorganic inputs to boost production, with the potential to slow agricultural expansion, but with relatively little consideration of related environmental impacts. In Ghana, where high-input modern farming is rapidly overtaking traditional organic agricultural practices, we examined five stakeholder groups in regard to their perceptions of the environmental, economic, and social costs and benefits of modern, mixed-input, and traditional farming systems. The stakeholder groups included farmers adopting different agricultural practices, as well as governmental and non-governmental natural resource managers. Our findings indicate that the overall perceived costs of modern farming, attributable to large quantities of inorganic inputs, are higher than the overall perceived benefits. Farmers are, however, still motivated to practice modern farming because of perceived higher returns on investment, regardless of environmental impacts, which they tend to discount. Traditional farmers do not use inorganic inputs and instead rely on swidden ‘slash-and-burn’ practices, resulting in declining productivity and soil fertility over time. Since traditional farmers are ultimately forced to encroach into nearby forests to maintain productivity, the perceived environmental sustainability of such farming systems is also limited. Mixed-input farming is not significantly different from modern farming with respect to its perceived environmental and economic traits, because it incorporates agro-chemicals alongside organic practices. Stakeholders’ perceptions and the apparent environmental outcomes of different farming systems suggest that reducing the use of inorganic inputs and promoting the adoption of organic inputs could minimise the negative impacts of agro-chemicals on the forest environment without necessarily compromising productivity. Campaigns to promote low-input or organic agriculture on environmental grounds in West Africa may falter if they fail to recognise farmers’ relatively favourable perceptions of the environmental implications of modern farming practices. Full article

With the impending threat of global climate change, the past decades have witnessed an increasing recognition of the potential contribution of indigenous knowledge to tackling global challenges of environmental sustainability. In this study, we used a qualitative analysis of data collected in September 2018 from key informant interviews and focus group discussion sessions in the Baduy communities in western Java to examine how their swidden cultivation, pest control and rice preservation techniques contribute to strengthening the sustainability of their livelihoods. The study also examines the potential for knowledge sharing between Baduy indigenous knowledge holders and outside scientific communities for mutual enhancement. Our analysis of collected data indicates that while the Baduy are open to sharing their ecological knowledge with outsiders for the sake of a greater environment protection, they remain wary of adopting external knowledge sources, as these external influences constitute a threat of disruption to their own epistemic system and way of life. Full article

Although swidden-based farming has traditionally been practiced by the people in Lao PDR, this system is considered to result in significant environmental degradation. Thus, rubber-based farming was introduced as an alternative to food crops grown under swidden farming, thereby affecting household food security. Thus, this study aimed to compare the impacts of traditional swidden-based farming (SBF), rubber-based farming (RBF), and swidden–rubber-based farming on food security in Luang Namtha province, Laos. Two villages were selected for a case study. A total sample of 195 households was selected using the stratified random sampling method. A face-to-face household (HH) questionnaire was used for interviews. The results showed that households practicing RBF alone showed the lowest level of food security and highest vulnerability in terms of food security. No households in this group reached the food security level. The SRBF group exhibited a greater level of food security than that of either SBF or RBF alone. Two dimensions of food security—food availability and food access—were used to investigate the household food security level associated with the three farming types in this paper. Full article

Forests and woodlands remain under threat in tropical Africa due to excessive exploitation and inadequate management interventions, and the isolated success stories of tree retention and tree cover transition on African agricultural land are less well documented. In this study, we characterize the status of tree cover in a landscape that contains forest patches, fallows, and farms in the southern part of Uluguru Mountains. We aimed to unveil the practices of traditional tree fallow system which is socially acceptable in local settings and how it provides a buffering effects to minimize forest disturbances and thus represents an important step towards tree cover transition. We assessed land cover dynamics for the period of 1995 to 2020 and compared tree stocking for forest patches, fallows, and farms. We found that tree biomass carbon stocks were 56 ± 5 t/ha in forest patches, 33 ± 7 t/ha in fallows, and 9 ± 2 t/ha on farms. In terms of land cover, farms shrank at intensifying rates over time for the entire assessment period of 1995–2020. Forest cover decreased from 1995–2014, with the reduction rate slowing from 2007–2014 and the trend reversing from 2014–2020, such that forest cover showed a net increase across the entire study period. Fallow consistently and progressively increased from 1995–2020. We conclude that traditional tree fallows in the study site remain a significant element of land management practice among communities, and there appears to be a trend towards intensified tree-based farming. The gains in fallowed land represent an embracing of a traditional land management system that supports rotational and alternate uses of cropping space as well as providing a buffering effect to limit over-exploitation of forests. In order to maximize tree cover and carbon stocks in the farm landscape, this well-known traditional tree fallow system can be further optimized through the incorporation of additional innovations. Full article

Road expansion has played a prominent role in the agrarian transition that marked the integration of swidden-based farming systems into the market economy in Southeast Asia. Rural roads deeply altered the landscape and livelihood structures by allowing the penetration of boom crops such as hybrid maize in remote territories. In this article, we investigate the impact of rural road developments on livelihoods in northern Laos through a longitudinal study conducted over a period of 15 years in a forest frontier. We studied adaptive management strategies of local stakeholders through the combination of individual surveys, focus group discussions, participatory mapping and remote-sensing approaches. The study revealed the short-term benefits of the maize feeder roads on poverty alleviation and rural development, but also the negative long-term effects on agroecosystem health and agricultural productivity related to unsustainable land use. Lessons learnt about the mechanisms of agricultural intensification helped understanding the constraints faced by external interventions promoting sustainable land management practices. When negotiated by local communities for their own interest, roads may provide livelihood-enhancing opportunities through access to external resources, rather than undermining them. Full article

Swidden or shifting cultivation is a widespread yet controversial land-use in the tropical forest–agriculture frontier. In recent years, the extent of land under swidden and the people who rely on it for subsistence and income have declined. We report swidden land-use changes in two central hill districts of Nepal by indigenous Chepang communities—a stronghold of swidden cultivation in mountainous Nepal. Despite a common trend of swidden decline, as in other parts of South and Southeast Asia, we found that swidden is important in the life and livelihoods of smallholder rural Chepang farmers in the area. Swidden cultivation was found to be more important to farmers with limited off-farm opportunities and in areas where alternative land-uses were scarce. We discuss biophysical, socio-economic, institutional, and other key drivers affecting farmers’ decision to shift away from or continue with swidden in the area. Using linear mixed effect models, we also examined households’ attributes that may expedite swidden decisions in the area. Our study recommends greater access to alternative land-use(s) and other income-generating options for the wellbeing of smallholder indigenous Chepang farmers, as well as the sustainability of this age-old land-use practice. Full article