This presentation by Lars Løvold from the Rainforest Foundation Norway was given at a session titled "How indigenous peoples use landscapes approaches to conserve forests: Good practices and challenges for food security and livelihoods" at the Global Landscapes Forum in Lima, Peru, on December 6, 2014. The panel focused on the roles and contributions of indigenous women in landscape forest management. Also, the experiences from REDD+ in Asia were shared, linking it with the land use of indigenous peoples.

1. Shifting cultivation and forest landscapes in the Amazon
Lars Løvold
Rainforest Foundation Norway

2. Shifting cultivation
• A widely misunderstood agricultural
system: “Primitive, inefficient,
environmentally destructive, major
cause of GHG emissions” – “Slash
and burn”!
• Reality: Highly productive per labor
unit, high product diversity, provides
food security, well-tested, maintains
biodiversity, may enrich forests
• Centuries of shifting cultivation =
the Amazon rainforest
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3. Examples
Yanomami:
• 16 types of banana
• 9 types of manioc
Xingu – Kaiabi field:
• 27 crops,149 varieties
• 22 types of ground nuts
Baniwa, Upper Rio Negro:
• 75 types of chili
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5. Some characteristics:
• Not a static system. Adapted to
circumstances, modified over time
• Integrated with hunting and gathering
– with living in and of the forest
• Extreme diversity of foodstuffs
through the year: Flexibility is key
• Cautious selection of locations for
cultivation
• Plots from shifting cultivation
regenerate faster than other clearings
• Abandoned gardens enrich the forest
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6. Some characteristics (2):
• Collective management of territory,
individual management of plots
• Sometimes long-term ties to
abandoned plots, but no individual
ownership
• Long fallow periods, shifting plots and
village relocations (after decades)
The only agricultural system with
proven long-term compatibility with
tropical forests and biodiversity
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7. Challenges – external:
• Privatization of land (fallows
expropriated as “not in use”)
• Expansion of permanent cultivation
• Misconceptions and negative myths
• Government policies – stimulating
agricultural commodities, not
forest/food production systems
• Misguided environment and climate
defenders (key drivers elsewhere)
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8. Challenges – internal:
1) Limited territories, increasing
population
o Why? Expropriations  recognition
2) From subsistence to market focus
o But combinations possible!
3) Sedentarization
o Schools, health, infrastructure..
4) Changing lifestyles and
expectations
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9. To meet challenges:
• Integrate with agroforestry for
sustained production (RFN example)
– nitrogen fixation, rotation of
annual crops, green manure …
• Meet monetary needs through sale
of honey, vegetable oils, spices, …
• Develop rewards / benefits for
maintaining ecosystem services
– “Payment” for ecosystem services
must be part of the system
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11. Recommendations
• Stop demonizing the shifting
cultivators
• Acknowledge the rationality and
benefits of the system – for forest
landscapes, culture, food security
• Work with local communities to
develop alternatives, when the
traditional system is no longer viable
• Respect communities’ customary,
collective land rights and their right
to free, prior and informed consent
– Collective rights protect forests
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THANK YOU !