About the Book
This book, the third of a series, shows how shifting cultivators, from the Himalayan foothills to the Pacific Islands, have devised ways to improve their farming systems. Using case studies collected over many years, it considers the importance of swidden agriculture to food security and livelihoods, and its environmental significance, across multiple cultures, forest and cropping systems. There is a particular focus on soil fertility and climate change challenges. It is a 'must read' for those who realize that if the lives of shifting cultivators are to be improved, then far more attention needs to be directed to the indigenous and often ingenious innovations that shifting cultivators have themselves been able to develop. Many of these innovations and best practices will have strong potential for extrapolation to shifting cultivators elsewhere and to farming systems in general. This book: - Highlights innovations of shifting cultivators. - Combines solid science with accessible language and outstanding artwork. - Provides a collection of case studies unprecedented in its scope. This book will be suitable for students and researchers of agriculture, anthropology, sociology, agricultural economics, human ecology, ethnobotany, forestry, agroforestry, agronomy, soil science, farming systems, geography, environmental science and natural resource management.
Table of Contents:
1: Movers in the Mountains: Swiddeners as a Force for Change in a Changing Environment. 2: Innovation in Shifting Cultivation: A Bibliographic Review of a Lasting and Accelerating Process. 3: Responding to a Changing World: Discovering Mixed-Livelihood Strategies. Striving to Overcome Vulnerabilities and Uncertainties. 4: Making the Invisible Visible: The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in the Sustainability of Shifting Cultivation. 5: Traditional Ecological Knowledge in Shifting Cultivation among the Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, India. 6: Changes in Fallow Periods and Land Use Intensity of Swidden Agriculture in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) during 1988-2016. 7: Stripping the Strips: The Failure of Soil-and Water- Conservation Technologies in Northern Thailand and Eastern Indonesia. 8: Why Philippine Foragers Still Haven’t Become Farmers: Two Decades of Research on Agta Swidden Cultivation (1983-2004). 9: Our Farms are as Good as Theirs: From Hunters and Gatherers to Shifting Cultivators in Sarawak, East Malaysia. 10: How do the Iban of Sarawak Select Farming Sites for Shifting Cultivation? A Comparison of Soil and Vegetation Conditions of Fallow Forests under Different Land-Use Pressures. 11: Spatial Taboos and Ethnic Brao Swidden Agriculture in Northeastern Cambodia and Southern Laos. 12: Change and Permanence in Swidden Agriculture among the Tampuan in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. 13: Practices and Traditions of Bio-resource Management in the Tay Cultural Area: Between Uplands and Lowlands. 14: Topsoil, Innovative Equipage and Shifting Cultivators in the Asia-Pacific Region. 15: Nutritional Importance of Swidden Cultivation. 16: Shifting Cultivation as an Important Source of Food and Dietary Diversity. 17: Domestication of a Forest Plant to Modify Swidden Cultivation: A Response to Labour Shortage and the Advancing Age of Shifting Cultivators in Southern Chin State, Myanmar. 18: Innovations in Seed and Crop Management by Indigenous Groups in Nghe An, Vietnam. 19: Cropping Pattern Practices of Jhum in Nagaland. 20: Shifting Cultivation under Transition: Land Use Changes and Adaptive Capacity Shaped by Social and Technological Innovations in Highland Communities of Northern Thailand. 21: Fallows, Weeds and Adaptive Lahu Swiddeners: Vegetation Change and the End of Upland-Rice Based Subsistence in Northern Thailand. 22: When Shifting Cultivation becomes a Refuge: Farmers’ Innovations Beaten by Market Risk in West Sumatra, Indonesia. 23: Swidden Cultivation: A Strategy to Increase Revenues amidst Pressures from Policies Prohibiting Burning the Forest and Limited Farm Land. 24: Green Manure/Cover Crops: How Farmers Increase Soil Fertility and Drought-Resistance at (Almost) Zero Cost. 25: Farmer-Derived Soil Conservation Measures in Northern Thailand Hill Fields. 26: The Practice of Laying Wood Across Slope Contours to Reduce Soil Erosion in Nagaland, India. 27: Fallows, Weeds and Adaptive Lahu Swiddeners: Trading the Axe for the Hoe and Herbicidal Salt Sprays in Transitional Upland-Rice Swiddening Systems of Northern Thailand. 28: Imperata cylindrica Infestation in Northern Lao PDR: Spatial Distribution and Farmers’ Management Strategies. 29: Shifting Cultivation as an Innovation against Climate and Political Uncertainty in Myanmar. 30: Shifting Cultivation for Food Security: Resilience Strategies in the Pacific Islands. 31: Crop Diversity Management in a Changing Shifting Cultivation Landscape in Miao, Arunachal Pradesh, India. 32: Impacts of Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies of Shifting Agriculture in a Wa Village in Yunnan, China. 33: The Spiritual Ecology of Vi Olak Village and the Ecological Livelihood of the H’re People of Vietnam’s Central Highlands. 34: Knowledge Co-creation for Agrobiodiversity, Gender Equity and Enhanced Well-Being in the Village Development Committees (VDC) of Khatarshnong, Meghalaya. 35: When Shifting Cultivation Ensures the Sustainability of an Agrarian System: The Kasepuhan Pasir Eurih Indigenous Community, in West Java, Indonesia. 36: Swidden Cultivation Practices in Sahu, Eastern Indonesia: Forty Years of Experimentation and Adjustment. 37: Indonesian Land Laws and Small-Holder Rights: Changing Attitudes to Land ‘Ownership’ in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. 38: Shifting Cultivation within Customary Resource Governance: Pressures and Adaptation in Shan State, Myanmar. 39: Jhum and the Customary Tenure System in the Naga Village Republic. 40: Without Fire: Turning Forests into Agroforests on Siberut, Indonesia. 41: Fireless Shifting Cultivation: A Lesser Known Form of Shifting Cultivation Practiced by Tangkhuls in Selected Pockets of Ukhrul District, Manipur, India. 42: Elements of some Unusual Agricultural Systems in Papua New Guinea: Dropping Trees onto Growing Food Crops and No Burning of Fallow Vegetation. 43: Fallow Management in Transforming Shifting Cultivation Systems. 44: Fallowed Swidden Fields in Vietnam: Floral Composition, Succession Dynamics, and Farmer Management. 45: Dahas: The Innovations in Shifting Cultivation by the Dayak in West Kalimantan to Fight Deforestation and Climate Change. 46: Muyong: A System of Assisting Forest Regrowth for Water and Food Security. 47: Inventory of Tree Stands in Forest Fallows of Nagaland. 48: Shifting Cultivation and Rehabilitation of Natural Forest Ecosystems in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. 49: Calculating the Carbon Balance: Questioning the Contribution of Shifting Cultivation to Climate Change in Kayah State, Myanmar. 50: Carbon and Biodiversity Outcomes under Divergent Management Scenarios in Shifting Cultivation Landscapes in the Upland Philippines. 51: Pakukui: The Productive Fallow Agricultural System of Hamakua, Hawai’i. 52: Composite Farming Systems in an Era of Change: Nagaland, Northeast India. 53: Successful Farming on Precipitous Slopes: A 170-Year-Old Indigenous Improved-Fallow System at Naalad in the Philippines. 54: Traditional Use of Macaranga Trees for Soil Fertility: By Naga Shifting Cultivators in Northeast India. 55: Maintaining Soil Fertility and Sustainable Swidden Cultivation with Albizia Trees: An Innovation of the Outer Baduy Community, South Banten, Indonesia. 56: Sentinels of the Past: Conservation Status and Cultural Importance of Koka (Java cedar, Bischofia javanica) as a Multipurpose Tree in Shifting Agriculture in the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. 57: Household Energy Security through Fallow Management by the Wanchos of Arunachal Pradesh, India. 58: Smallholder Teak Systems: Indigenous Innovations in Improving Fallow Management. 59: 'Rattan is Sick': Exploring the (Dis)continuity of Kalimantan's Rattan-Swidden Complex. 60: Drawing on Past Practices to Secure the Future: Innovative Applications of Traditional Lac Rearing in the Fallows of Karbi Farmers in Assam, North East India. 61: Managing Fallows as Bee Fodder by a Pgaz K' Nyau Village in Northern Thailand. 62: Negotiating the Forest-Fallow Interface: Benzoin trees in the Multifunctional Shifting Cultivation Landscapes of Lao PDR. 63: Borassus Palm Utilization as a Complementary Mode of Livelihood in Dryland Cultivation. 64: Innovations in Kemri Shifting Cultivation: Household Strategies, Land Institutions, and a Hedge against Official Policy in South Sulawesi. 65: Rotating Agroforests: Using Shifting Cultivation Practices to Construct a Sustainable Livelihood. 66: Fallow Management through Cultivation of Broom Grass: A Potential Cash Crop in Northeast India. 67: Kenyah Knowledge, Use, and Valuation of Plant Medicines Related to Forest and Swidden Succession: Apo Kayan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. 68: Toward Farming Sustainability: Innovations by Shifting Cultivators in the Uplands of North Vietnam. 69: Researching Tithonia and Other Daisies as Fallow Species in Southeast Asia. 70: The Effectiveness of Wild Sunflower as a Fallow Crop in Uma Cultivation. 71: The ‘Talun-Kebun’ System: Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Alleviation in West Java, Indonesia. 72: The Role of Bamboo in Fallow Vegetation Recovery: Viewed from the Land-Use History of Karen Swidden Cultivation in the Bago Mountains, Myanmar. 73: Bamboos Species and their Multiple Uses in Northern Laos: A Case Study of Luang Prabang Province. 74: Composting and Sweet Potato Mounds in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. 75: Taro to Yams: Changes in Crop Use and Agricultural Techniques among the Warta of Torassi River, Southwest Papua New Guinea. 76: Temporal Changes and Innovations in Raised-Bed Shifting Cultivation at Higher Elevations in Meghalaya, Northeast India. 77: Paludiculture and Improved Fire Management as a Key towards Sustainable Shifting Cultivation Practices on Peatlands. 78: Shifting Cultivation on Peatlands: Innovative Practices in Dealing with Floods and the Policy to Ban Burning in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. 79: Shifting Cultivation and Agroforestry Practices on Peatlands in Central Sumatra. 80: Mitigation and Adaptive Practices of Farmers in Response to Flooding along Liguasan Marsh, in the Southern Philippines. 81: Spaces, Memory and Loss: Feminist Interpretations of Shifting Agriculture Practices among Tribal Communities of Southern Rajasthan, India. 82: Jhum Practices and Innovations in the Naga Hills: Women's Stories of Resilience and Ecological Regeneration. 83: Concluding chapter.
About the Author :
Malcolm grew up on a dairy farm in eastern Canada, attended agricultural college, and then farmed in partnership with his father and brother before his interests in overseas development took him to Asia to work with a Canadian NGO. By 1991, he had decided that he was more interested in research, and left his job in Laos to return to Canada to complete a Masters degree in Environmental Studies. During his fieldwork for this degree, Malcolm worked under the auspices of IRRI in the Philippines and ICRAF in Indonesia, whilst studying shifting cultivation in both countries. After completing this degree, he returned to Indonesia to work as an Associate Scientist with ICRAF, continuing his work with shifting cultivation. During this time, he developed a keen interest in how shifting cultivators were adapting to increasing pressures on their farming systems, and began to focus on indigenous strategies for fallow management. This work continued until he left Indonesia in 1998 to begin work on a doctoral program at the Australian National University. Malcolm used his PhD fieldwork to undertake research on the most fascinating system of indigenous fallow management that he had found - the Naga's management of Himalayan alder in their swidden fields in Nagaland, N.E. India. He had barely completed his PhD studies in 2008 when a devastating stroke left him paralyzed on his left side and unable to continue fieldwork. Malcolm has since focused all of his attention on this series of volumes on shifting cultivation in the Asia-Pacific region.
