slash-and-burn agriculture
slash-and-burn agriculture, method of cultivation in which forests are burned and cleared for planting. Slash-and-burn agriculture is often used by tropical-forest root-crop farmers in various parts of the world, for animal grazing in South and Central America, and by dry-rice cultivators in the forested hill country of Southeast Asia. The ash provides some fertilization, and the plot is relatively free of weeds. After several years of cultivation, fertility declines and weeds increase.
Then, as traditionally practiced by indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers, the area would be left fallow and reverted to a secondary forest of bush. Cultivation would shift to a new plot. After about a decade the old site could be reused. Such practices can be considered sustainable, as they do not require outside inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, and small clearings can recover as forest over time. (See also shifting agriculture.)
By the early 21st century, however, cleared areas were typically maintained in a deforested state permanently, causing habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss. Although traditional practices generally contributed few greenhouse gases because of their scale, modern slash-and-burn techniques are a significant source of carbon dioxide emissions, especially when used to initiate permanent deforestation. Forests sequester carbon in the form of wood and other biomass as the trees grow, taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When forests are burned, their carbon is returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas that is altering global climate (see global warming), and the trees are no longer present to sequester more carbon. In Southeast Asia, slash-and-burn agriculture for oil palm cultivation has been a major source of annual air pollution from smoke. Although this form of agriculture is strongly associated with the deforestation of tropical rainforests such as the Amazon, slash-and-burn practices are also responsible for the loss of large areas of tropical dry forests, where the dry season permits a better burn.