Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn 347Goal, hypothesis and objectives
The overall goals of the ASB consortium are to help reduce the rate of deforesta-
tion caused by slash-and-burn agriculture, rehabilitate degraded lands created by
slash-and-burn, and improve the well-being of slash-and-burn farmers by provid-
ing economically and ecologically viable alternative land-use practices.
The underlying hypothesis at the inception of ASB was that intensification of
agricultural systems on already cleared lands and rehabilitation of degraded lands
at the humid forest margins would reduce deforestation. Although this hypothesis
has since been shown to be too simplistic because the underlying behavioural
assumptions were wrong (Angelsen and Kaimowitz, 2001), it provided a frame-
work around which the programme focused its initial research objectives and
activities:
- Site characterization. Assess the principal socioeconomic and biophysical proc-
esses leading to deforestation, including government policy and decision-mak-
ing patterns of farmers practising slash-and-burn. - Environmental and agronomic sustainability studies. Quantify the contribution
of slash-and-burn agriculture and alternative land-use practices to global,
regional and local environmental changes such as climate change, biodiversity
loss and land degradation. - Socioeconomic studies and trade-off analysis. Integrated assessment of land-use
alternatives to identify appropriate technologies and develop improved pro-
duction systems that are economically feasible, socially acceptable and envi-
ronmentally sound alternatives to current slash-and-burn systems or to
understand trade-offs between land-use alternatives. - Policy research and implementation. Identify policy options and institutional
reforms that can facilitate the adoption of the improved systems and the bal-
ancing of trade-offs to attain a more desirable mix of outcomes and discourage
further deforestation.
Succinctly stated, are there alternative land-use systems to slash-and-burn that
reduce deforestation, poverty and global environmental changes such as green-
house gas emissions and biodiversity loss? What are the type and magnitude of the
environmental and livelihood trade-offs for these different systems? And, based on
that trade-off analysis, how can the systems be influenced to attain better out-
comes for a range of stakeholders, including farmers?
The slash-and-burn topic is complex, involving multiple agents, land-use
objectives and driving forces (Tomich et al, 1998b). In addition, slash-and-burn is
carried out in a diverse array of biophysical, socioeconomic and policy environ-
ments. To address the objectives of the ASB consortium requires an understanding
of the influence of these multiple factors and environments on the economic viabil-
ity, sustainability and environmental impacts of the alternatives. From the outset
ASB determined four key features to assist in this complex task: a cross-disciplinary