swidden

In Asia, the Karen villagers of Hin Lad Nai in northern Thailand, in partnership with researchers, have demonstrated that that their millennia-old traditions of swidden agriculture are an invaluable resource for sustaining biodiversity and carbon stocks.

Switching from field to field to field, swidden farmers live in the forest without destroying the ecosystems they depend on: a supple, balanced harmony.

In the Amazon, the turn to swidden was unfortunate.

Although swidden does permit the forest to regrow, it is wildly inefficient and environmentally unsound.

More important, the very existence of so much healthy forest after twelve thousand years of use by large populations suggests that whatever Indians did before swidden must have been ecologically more sustainable.