ment relocation programs are important forces that may increase the tran-
sience of shifting cultivation landscapes. In addition, over much of the humid
tropics, fallow periods are shortening, and the relative extents of crop fields
and young fallow vegetation are increasing dramatically. These trends have dis-
maying implications for the continued agricultural productivity of shifting
cultivation systems and for biodiversity maintenance in the landscape as a
whole. Planted fallows are an important response to the crisis of agricultural
productivity, but unless their adoption is accompanied by measures to main-
tain or increase cover of old secondary and primary forest in the landscape,
they are not beneficial from the biodiversity point of view. Management of
shifting cultivation landscapes for biodiversity, along lines such as those we
have described and emphasizing forest-dependent species, could increase their
contribution to biological conservation, but clearly it faces major implemen-
tation challenges.
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