Description:
"In the age of global climate change, resource use and management
practices that rely on the use of fire and thus emit carbon are coming
under increased pressure. This is particularly the case with shifting
cultivation.
Because shifting cultivation is so different from the forms of agriculture
practiced in the lowlands and by the majority populations, it is one of the
most misunderstood land use systems. Thus, in the name of forest
conservation and development, colonial and post-colonial governments in
Asia have since more than a century devised policies and laws seeking to
eradicate shifting cultivation.
The reasons usually given for such restrictive state policies are that shifting
cultivation is
• Technologically primitive, inefficient and wasteful, prevents
development and thus keeps people in poverty
• Destructive to forests and soils
Decades of research on virtually every aspect of shifting cultivation have
generated sufficient evidence to prove that its sweeping condemnation by
government bureaucrats, politicians or professionals is based on insufficient
and erroneous information, or quite simply myth. Notwithstanding all
evidence, however, attitudes by decision makers and, consequently, state
policies have hardly changed..."
Source/publisher:
International Workgroup on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)
Date of Publication:
2009-00-00
Date of entry:
2015-01-03
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English
Local URL:
Format:
pdf
Size:
1.32 MB