By Elizabeth Weinstein
Swidden agriculture — often called “slash-and-burn” — has been practiced on every inhabited continent throughout human history, and for decades it has been blamed for the destruction of the world’s rainforests. However, a new study of more than 18,000 forest patches around the world found that the environmental impact of swidden is more nuanced, and less destructive, than the term “slash-and-burn” suggests — and that unwritten social rules in small societies, not government oversight, often regulate land use closely enough to support both harvests and forest regeneration sustainably over time.
The findings have practical implications for conservation and climate policy.
“The takeaway for policymakers is that small-scale rural communities have the ability to manage community forests in sustainable ways, and they need to be supported to solve problems using their own customary practices,” said lead author Sean Downey, associate professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University. “It’s going to look different in Belize than it does in Africa or Indonesia.”
Swidden is one of humanity’s oldest farming systems, practiced in tropical and subtropical forests for around 10,000 years. In Belize, where much of Downey’s fieldwork has taken place, it involves several steps: Farmers clear a patch of forest and leave the fallen trees to dry out. Then the dried trees are burned, which releases the carbon stored in the wood back into the soil where it serves as fertilizer.
Source : osu.edu