Abstract: "Over this past century the Philippine state has sustained a campaign to criminalize swidden cultivation among small- scale farmers in the uplands of Palawan Island. This paper focuses on how such state conservation agendas unfolded to negatively affect swidden cultivation among the Tagbanua people who occupy upland forests flanking Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park. Ethnographic methods were used to examine a specific case where the traditional linkages between swidden cultivation and honey collection— the basis of Tagbanua livelihoods and cultural beliefs—were devalued as coercive conservation proliferated at the nation- al park. Park managers upheld the state?s conservation dis- course that swidden disrupted ?equilibrium” between liveli- hoods and forest ecology and, upon enforcing such views, ne- glected the local embeddedness of swidden cultivation. The conclusion asserts that park management can be enhanced on both moral and practical grounds by building on the in- terrelated ecological and cultural value of swidden cultiva- tion"... Keywords: coercive conservation, swidden, honey bees, Tagbanua, Palawan