The Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn Consortium (ASB) works on twointerlinked global problems: the environmental effects of forest destruction and persistent rural poverty in the tropics. Of course, the rural poor are not alone in using slash-and-burn to clear forests. This method is used by virtually everyone – government agencies and private companies, large and small-scale farmers, rich and poor – who convert forests to other uses because fire is the most cost-effective way to clear land. Nor is it accurate to equate slash-and-burn with permanent forest conversion and unsustainable land use. Traditional shifting cultivation, which has been practiced in the tropics by generations of local people, is sustainable as long as population densities are low enough to allow long fallow rotations.
Publication year
2001
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
customary law, land tenure, land rights, trees, planting, agroforestry, agriculture, forestry
