Shifting Cultivation and Deforestation in Tropical Africa: Critical Reflections

Abstract

Shifting cultivation is the agricultural technique employed by the majority of farmers in the tropical regions of Africa. The dominant narrative recited by policy experts, non-governmental organizations and many scientists is that this practice is a principal cause of deforestation in tropical Africa. This article unpacks the various elements of this narrative and explores whether there is any evidence to substantiate it in West and Central Africa. The results challenge the conventional wisdom that shifting cultivation is leading to accelerating deforestation in tropical Africa.

Carbon emissions from dryland shifting cultivation: a case study of Mexican tropical dry forest

“…Despite the fact that during the last 25 years many scientific articles have vigorously contested the negative effect of shifting cultivation (Rambo 1990;Fox et al 2000;Ickowitz 2006), this point of view is still very common. Shifting cultivation has been blamed as a leading cause of tropical forest cover loss Lambin 2001, 2002) and thus, in the context of climate change, for the associated carbon emissions (Houghton 2012;Nigh and Diemont 2013).…”

Saving Slash‐and‐Burn to Save Biodiversity

“…Shifting cultivation is an integral part of many, if not most, tropical forest landscapes that are crucial to biodiversity conservation in all the remaining large tropical forests: Amazonia, Borneo, Central Africa (Ickowitz 2006, Padoch et al 2007). Most often, it is a central component in landholdings and livelihoods that also include the agroforests, homegardens, and permanent plots that have gained favor.…”

Avances y perspectivas del manejo forestal para uso múltiple en el trópico húmedo

“…No obstante, este es principalmente un sistema de uso agrícola, cuyo propósito es cubrir las necesidades alimenticias y de ingresos de los agricultores locales, si bien crea paisajes que podrían sustentar altos niveles de biodiversidad (Finegan y Nasi, 2004). Aun así, este tipo de uso de la tierra ha sido acusado de ser una causa primordial de la deforestación en los trópicos; algunos estudios (por ejemplo, Ickowitz, 2006) sostienen que hay escasas pruebas que respalden esta afirmación en África Central. Si transformar bosques naturales en mosaicos de cultivo itinerante genera una pérdida permanente y significativa de las reservas de carbono , la transformación en otras plantaciones mecanizadas de monocultivo provocaría un deterioro aún mayor (Bruun et al, 2009).…”