Slash-and-burn
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Slash and burn consists of cutting and burning of forests or woodlands to create fields for agriculture or pasture for livestock, or for a variety of other purposes. It is sometimes part of shifting cultivation agriculture, and of transhumance livestock herding. Slash and burn agriculture typically uses little technology and other tools, and is almost always done for subsistence activity. It is also commonly called swidden agriculture. Most slash and burn agriculture is subsistence agriculture done by farmers who plant crops and raise crops for local consumption. Very little is done for market.[1][page needed]
In slash and burn agriculture, forest will typically be cut months before a dry season. The "slash" is permitted to dry, and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes the soil, and the burned field will then be planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crop such as upland rice, maize, cassava, or other staple crop. Most of this work is typically done by hand using machetes, axes, hoes, and other such basic tools.
Slash and burn fields will typically be used and "owned" by a family or clan for a number of years. Such rights which are normally respected by their neighbors. Such use rights are knowns as usufructary property rights. However, when the soil becomes exhausted, and the family or clan abandons the land, rights to the land are also abandoned. In places where their is plentiful land, the plot then reverts to forest, and the nutrients in the soil are replenished naturally. After a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructary rights. In such a system there there is typically no market in farmland, and land is not bought and sold.
Historically, slash and burn cultivation was practiced throughout most of the world, in grasslands as well as woodlands, and known by many names. In industrialized regions, such as Europe and North America, the practice was abandoned over the past few centuries as market agriculture was introduced. FOr example, slash and burn agriculture was initially practiced by European pioneers in North America like Daniel Boone and his family who cleared land in the Appalachian Mountains in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.[2] However, the land of such slash and burn farmers was eventually taken over by modern systems of land tenure which focus on the long-term improvement of farmland, and discourage the older subsistence practices associated with slash and burn agriculture.
Today the term "slash and burn" is mainly associated with tropical rain forests. Slash and burn techniques are used by between 200 and 500 million people worldwide.[3]
Older English terms for slash and burn include assarting and fire-fallow cultivation.
Slash and burn is a specific functional element of certain farming practices, often shifting cultivation systems. In some cases such as parts of Madagascar, as well as many other places, slash and burn may have no cyclical aspects (e.g., slash and burn activities can render soils incapable of further yields for decades), or may be practiced on its own as a single cycle farming activity with no follow on cropping cycle. Shifting cultivation normally implies the existence of a cropping cycle component, where as slash-and-burn actions may or may not be followed by cropping. Slash and burn is typically a type of subsistence agriculture, and not focused by the need to sell crops in world markets. Rather, planting decisions are made in the context of needs of the family or clan for the coming year [4].
Historical background
During the Neolithic Revolution, which included agricultural advancements, groups of humans who had been hunter-gatherers domesticated various plants and animals, permitting them to settle dhown and practice agriculture which provides more nutrition per hectare than hunting and gathering. This happened in the river valleys of Egypt ahnd Mesopotamia. Due to this decrease in food from hunting as human populations increased, agriculture became more important. Some groups could easiily plant their seeds in open fields along river valleys, but others had forests blocking their farming land. In this context, humans used slash and burn agriculture to clear more land, and make it suitable for their plants and animals. Thus, since Neolithic times, slash and burn techniques have been widely used for converting forests into crop fields and pasture.[5] Fire was used before the Neolithic as well, and by hunter-gatherers up to present times. Clearings created by fire were made for many reasons, such as to draw game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants such as berries.
Ecological implications
Although a dilemma for overpopulated tropical countries where subsistence agriculture may be the tradional method of sustaining many families, the consequences of slash-and-burn techniques for ecosystems are almost always destructive. This happens particularly as population densities increase, and as a result farming becomes more intensively practiced. This is because as demand for more land increases, the fallow period by necessity declines. The principal vulnerability is the nutrient-poor soil, pervasive in most tropical forests. When biomass is extracted even for one harvest of wood or charcoal, the residual soil value is heavily diminished for further growth of any type of vegetation. Sometimes there are several cycles of slash-and-burn within a few years time span; for example in eastern Madagascar the following scenario occurs commonly. The first wave might be cutting of all trees for wood use. A few years later, saplings are harvested to make charcoal, and within the next year the plot is burned to create a quick flush of nutrients for grass to feed the family zebu cattle. If adjacent plots are treated in a similar fashion, large-scale erosion will usually ensue, since there are no roots or temporary water storage in nearby canopies to arrest the surface runoff. Thus, any small remaining amounts of nutrients are washed away. The area is an example of desertification, and no further growth of any type may arise for generations.
The ecological ramifications of the above scenario are further magnified, because tropical forests are habitats for extremely biologically diverse ecosystems, typically containing large numbers of endemic and endangered species. Therefore, the role of slash-and-burn is significant in the current Holocene extinction.
References
- ^ Tony Waters, The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture. Lexington Books (2007).
- ^ Tony Waters (2010) "Farmer Power" at http://www.ethnography.com/2010/12/farmer-power-the-continuing-confrontation-between-subsistence-farmers-and-development-bureaucrats/
- ^ Slash and burn, Encyclopedia of Earth
- ^ Tony Waters, The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture." Lexington Books (2007).
- ^ Jaime Awe, Maya Cities and Sacred Caves, Cu bola Books (2006)
Bibliography
- Karki, Sameer (2002). "Community Involvement in and Management of Forest Fires in South East Asia" (Document). Project FireFight South East Asia.
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