Why a presentation about Sumatra at a symposium on mainland Southeast Asia Aparalle1 rešearch programme is about to be replicated at sites in Northern Thailand and this is a good Ópportunity to share experience that may be relevant. The first phase of research in Sumatra has certainly deepened our appreciation of the complexity of the driving forces of land use change and forest conversion. This paper discusses the issues that have emerged from the initial work on these ‘driving forces’.Conversion of tropical forests, regardless of the technique used, leads to a loss of biodiversity and release of stored carbon. Slašh and burn agriculture contributes to a portion of this global problem of tropical deforestation (Bandy and others, 1993). The Alternatives to Slash_and_Burn project (ASB) was formulated to address these issues in various parts of the tropics, since slash-and-bum is practiced by different actors and deforestation is driven by different forces in different places.
Publication year
1996
Authors
Language
English
Geographic
Indonesia
