Swidden Change in Southeast Asia: Understanding Causes and Consequences

Change from swidden cultivation to other land uses may indeed be desirable for some farmers, but in other cases such factors as prohibitive legislation, land reform, logging, large-scale land development, exclusionary conservation zoning, and resettlement are driving change towards new land use systems with consequences that are still poorly understood. Finally, the role of swidden cultivation in carbon storage is still poorly understood, partly because the carbon cycle of the soil-vegetation system is not well researched.