15
Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn:
Challenge and Approaches of an
International Consortium
Pedro A. Sanchez, Cheryl A. Palm, Stephen A. Vosti,
Thomas P. Tomich and Joyce KasyokiThe Challenge
The world has lost about half of its forests to agriculture and other uses, and 78 per
cent of what remains is heavily altered, bearing little resemblance to the original
forests (Bryant et al, 1997). About 72 per cent of the original 1450 million ha of
tropical forests have been converted to other uses (Myers, 1991; FAO, 1997).
Deforestation rates for the humid tropics were estimated to be 6.9 million ha/yr at
the end of the 1970s (Lanly, 1982) and doubled to 14.8 million ha/yr by 1991
(Myers, 1993). More recent studies indicate that deforestation rates decreased by
about 10 per cent in the 1990s (Durst, 2000). These values are fraught with meth-
odological problems. Achard et al (2002) asserted that previous methods overesti-
mated tropical deforestation rates by as much as 25 per cent. Brazil, the country
with the largest area of tropical forests, reports that deforestation rates in the Bra-
zilian Amazon increased by as much as 40 per cent from 2001 to 2002 (INPE,
2003). Despite these limitations, it is obvious that tropical deforestation and sub-
sequent ecosystem degradation continue at alarming rates. They remain a major
worldwide concern because of the high levels of plant and animal biodiversity these
forests contain, the large carbon (C) stocks stored in them, and the many other
ecosystem services tropical forests provide (Myers, 1993; Laurance et al, 1997).
Small-scale farmers often are viewed as the primary agents of deforestation
(Hauck, 1974), accounting for as much as 96 per cent of forest losses (Amelung
and Diehl, 1992). Myers (1994) reported that the aggregate actions of small-scale
farmers resulted in greater deforestation than the activities of large-scale operations
Reprinted from Slash and Burn Agriculture by Palm C A, Vosti S A, Sanches P A and Ericksen P (eds).
Copyright © 2005 Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.