Land systems are a key entry point for policies to achieve
progress towards the triple challenge of biodiversity conservation, climate
change mitigation and human well-being. One important land system is shifting
cultivation. Shifting cultivation remains an important land system in many
tropical landscapes, but transitions away from shifting cultivation are
increasingly common.
In resource-poor communities, shifting agriculture involves
alternating between cultivating and leaving a portion of land fallow. The bulk
of indigenous households rely on shifting agriculture practices for subsistence
living, employing millions of people. The need for more food and the growing
number of shifting cultivators have caused this practice to change in the
modern era. Like its neighbors, Bangladesh features hills that are degraded as
a result of deforestation exacerbated by shifting agriculture. There has been a
continuous debate on shifting cultivation. Soil erosion is to a large extent in
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) due to faulty cultivation in hill slopes, shifting
cultivation, change in land use and reduction of land cover. This paper provides
a review of shifting cultivation practices in the world with reference to
Bangladesh, with an insight into emerging land use transition, its impacts and
future priorities. Our review analysis shows that shifting cultivation
transitions are diverse in themselves, in their drivers and their consequences.
This calls for a critical and contextualised appraisal of the continuation of
shifting cultivation, as well as, the transition away from it when designing
land system policies that work for people and nature.
Author(s) Details
M. A. Hossain
Soil Resource Development Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Krishi Khamar
Sarak, Dhaka-1215, Bangladesh.
Please see the book here:- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/crpas/v3/1444
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