The Social Science for Conservation

Fellowship Programme

Working Paper Series

Jill M. Belsky and Stephen F. Siebert Department of Society & Conservation Department of Forest Management

jill.belsky@umontana.edu steve.siebert@umontana.edu

College of Forestry and Conservation The University of Montana

Combining Political Ecology and Ecological Disturbance Theory

to Understand an Historic Forest Land Use and Livelihood

in Bhutan:

Lessons for Contemporary Forest Conservation and Development

Working Paper 1 (July 2016)

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank our colleagues at the Ugyen Wangchuk Institute for Conservation and

Environment, Lamai Goempa, Bumthang, Bhutan for their research collaboration and

institutional support over the last decade, and to Gernot Brodnig, Alison Greenberg and Nathan

Bennet who provided critical review to assist in the development of this paper and for their

insightful questions, comments and editorial assistance.

About the SSCFP Working Papers

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Abstract

In this report we document how traditional (or historic) long-fallow swidden farming created and

maintained desirable social and ecological conditions, and offers principles that can be built upon

or adapted to promote biodiversity conservation while also providing goods, income and

employment to rural households in the future in Bhutan and other countries. We are not suggesting

that traditional practices can or should be recreated; that is impossible due to dramatic changes in

agrarian conditions, political economy and culture around the world. Rather, we are suggesting

that the social and ecological attributes and effects associated with traditional swidden practices

provide important lessons that can and should inform future conservation and development

policies and programmes. In particular, landscapes that incorporate swidden-like disturbances,

along with closed canopy forests, exhibit greater species and structural heterogeneity than

undisturbed primary forest alone and thus can increase overall biological diversity.

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Table of Contents

Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………. 2

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………4

2. Socio-ecological framework: Insights from historical political ecology

and disturbance theory

Historical political ecology………………………………………………………6

Ecological Disturbance Theory...……………………………………….….……8

3. Forest Transition: Bhutan, the Contested Socio-Nature of Swidden

and Learning from the Past……………………………………………………………..10

Swidden (Tseri)………………………………………………………………….11

Mimicking Traditional Swidden Disturbances for Conservation and

Development…………………………………………………………………….16

Policy and regulatory changes………………………………………………….17

4. Conclusions and Recommendations………………………………………………….18

5. References…………………………………………………………………………….21

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1. Introduction

Historic or traditional land use practices comprised the basis of complex, linked socio-ecological

systems throughout much of the world for centuries (Balée, 2013; Bird et al., 2008; Cairns, 2007;

Xu et al., 2009). In South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central and South America, hundreds

of ethno-linguistically and culturally unique societies developed and managed perennial-based

farming systems (i.e., long-fallow swidden or shifting cultivation) that involved site and context-

specific environmental (e.g. climate, soils, slope and vegetation) and social conditions (e.g.

cultural beliefs, governance institutions and socio-economic resources) (Brookfield, 2015;

Conklin, 1957; Fairhead and Leach, 1996; Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006). These practices

provided households with food, fibre, building materials, medicines and other valuable products

and, in the process, created and sustained floristically diverse and structurally complex

vegetation mosaics across landscapes (Fox et al., 2009; Mertz et al., 2009; Padoch and Pinedo-

Vasquez, 2010; Siebert and Belsky, 2014; Xu et al., 2009). In recent decades, traditional land

use practices and the societies that created and maintained them have disappeared or been

radically transformed due to various forces including modernization, nation-state formation and a

globalized economy (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006; Fox et al., 2009; Mertz et al., 2009; Xu et al.,

2009). The bio-cultural losses associated with these changes are well documented, as are

changes in traditional agricultural knowledge and practices (e.g. replacement of diverse,

nutritionally rich subsistence food systems with risky cash crop monocultures dependent on

petrochemical inputs) (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006; Xu et al., 2009; Maffi and Woodley, 2010;

Pilgrim and Pretty, 2010; Wangchuk and Siebert, 2013). We suggest that what remains poorly

understood are the advantageous social, economic and ecological attributes of diverse traditional

systems, their ongoing socio-ecological legacies, and how knowledge of traditional land use

practices might inform contemporary conservation and development efforts.

In this report we document how traditional (or historic) long-fallow swidden farming (i.e., one of

the world’s oldest and formally most widespread form of agriculture/forest management in

which sites were cleared and cultivated for a few years and then fallowed or rested to restore soil

fertility and suppress weed growth; swidden systems were typically adapted to site-specific

environmental and socioeconomic conditions, and produced both annual and perennial crops)

created and maintained desirable social and ecological conditions, and offers principles that can

be built upon or adapted to promote more effective biodiversity conservation while also

providing goods, income and employment to rural households in the future in Bhutan and other

countries. We are not suggesting that traditional practices can or should be recreated; that is

impossible due to dramatic changes in agrarian conditions, political economy and culture around

the world. Rather, we are suggesting that the social and ecological attributes and effects

associated with traditional swidden practices provide important lessons that can and should

inform future conservation and development policies and programmes.

Our analysis highlights two key themes: (1) the continued under-appreciated socio-ecological

benefits of long-fallow swidden farming by forestry authorities and conservationists in Bhutan

and elsewhere around the world, and (2) the valuable insights that analysis integrating historic

political ecology and ecological disturbance theories can provide. With regard to the first theme,

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we noted that long-fallow swidden was an historic and widespread livelihood and land use in

Bhutan that government policies sought to eliminate. However, the practice of swidden had the

effect of influencing contemporary forest composition, structure and functions by increasing

forest landscape heterogeneity. Consequently, we suggest that current conservation efforts could

benefit from promoting managed, intermediate-level forest activities (previously provided by

swidden), in addition to protecting some dense, unutilized forest stands. Most contemporary

forest conservation efforts prohibit utilitarian uses and anthropogenic disturbances Our second

theme demonstrates that combining historical political ecology and ecological disturbance

theories elucidates an alternative understanding of long-fallow swidden that challenges

conventional privileging of unpeopled, densely forested landscapes as sufficient to ensure

biodiversity conservation, and fosters rigorous socio-ecological analyses that can contribute to

more effective forest policies and conservation. Reviewing what has happened within and to

forests from this perspective makes visible activities and the complex knowledge systems and

institutional practices governing these activities from the perspective of forest users who

managed these environments for centuries. It also identifies the politics and ideologies which

wrested control of forests from them (or used the situation to wrest control from other elites)

through casting swiddeners and their forest farming systems as inferior to modern, western

understandings; the latter includes scientific ecologists who have been unwilling to view human

activities as potentially beneficial ecological disturbances. While Bhutan is celebrated today for

providing a uniquely holistic approach to conservation and development, our analysis suggests

that it has generally followed global forestry trajectories – that is to centralize forest ownership

and control, to privilege scientific forest management, and to overlook opportunities to build

upon and reinforce the wisdom of traditional resource management practices and institutions.

Nonetheless, socio-political and ecological conditions in Bhutan are uniquely well-positioned to

demonstrate and pursue alternative approaches.

The organization of the paper is as follows: in section (2) we discuss the socio-ecological

approach used in the analysis, one that combines historical political ecology and disturbance

ecology. Section (3) applies the framework to examine drivers of forest change in Bhutan,

especially those that led to the prohibition of swidden, and to elucidate the role that it played in

sustaining biodiversity and food security under specific conditions. The final section (4)

provides recommendations to reorient forest management in Bhutan based on the social and

biodiversity contributions made by traditional management systems, how this understanding

informs contemporary forest transitions and potential conservation and development policies and

practices in Bhutan and elsewhere.

The data for this report come from a variety of sources, including published literature, newspaper

reports, and collaborative field research conducted by the authors with Bhutanese scientists from

2007-2014. We gratefully acknowledge the value of collaboration with Bhutanese colleagues,

but the interpretations and recommendations offered here are ours alone.

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2. Socio-ecological framework: Insights from historical political ecology and disturbance

theory

Historical Political Ecology

Political Ecology emerged in the 1970s and today is recognized as a key social science approach

in understanding socio-ecological change and managing conservation (Bennett and Roth 2015).

Political ecology resets the analytical lens characteristic of earlier conservation and development

planners and policy analysts to examine environmental transitions and perceived problems from

in-depth, historical and especially political perspectives (Blaikie, 1985; Blaikie and Brookfield,

1987). Political ecology analyses highlight that current environmental problems frequently begin

in entrenched and often invisible and systemic conditions involving conflicts, claims and

changes in the control and use of environment and natural resources. A multi-scaled approach

that involves tracing “chains of explanations” is promoted to understand environmental

transitions, problems and future possibilities. This includes analyzing the interactive or “nested”

ways multiple social-economic forces interact, from macro structures such as colonialism,

capitalism, bureaucracies and nation-state building, to micro or household and individual levels

where concerns focus on livelihoods, identity and social relations. As noted in Mathevet et al.

(2015, 17), historical political ecologists are committed to the “study of past and present, as well

as past-in-present, in analyzing the causes and outcomes of environmental conflicts”. In this

way, political ecology shares a link to critical environmental history (Neumann, 2005).

Political ecological methods are particularly well suited to illuminating which types of people

and political processes are involved in natural resource activities (i.e., different classes, genders,

ethnicities, age groups, as well as institutional actors and stakeholders across regions, nations and

global scales of action); and how their personal goals, cultural values and economic interests

may be in competition. Political ecology arose in response to earlier apolitical approaches in

order to provide analytical concepts and “middle-range theories” to understand how politics are

involved in negotiations over resources; as middle-range theories they demand explication of

contextual dynamics at particular historical moments to see how these understandings shape

action on the ground (Neuman, 2005; Robbins, 2011). Of particular importance to political

ecologists are property rights and governance institutions that set the rules and conditions under

which natural resources are used and managed.

These studies have illuminated transformations under different regimes (e.g., colonial, modern

nation-state building, global conservation), including the rise of “coercive conservation” and the

injustices resulting from physical displacement, resource exclusion and purposeful elimination of

non-Western cultural and knowledge systems which supported indigenous resource management

in the past (Peluso, 1993; Vandergeest and Peluso, 1995; Hecht et al., 2014). Political ecologists

have provided many of the studies and rationales for participatory and more decentralized modes

of forest use and protection (including community forestry and community-based conservation

more broadly), and the “local” wisdom of traditional practices and accumulated socio-ecological

knowledge. While making the case for participatory, decentralized and community-based

conservation practice, political ecologists also have provided some of the most trenchant

critiques of these practices, such as why and how they have been appropriated and simplified by

7

professional organizations and governments to reflect the latter’s interests, knowledge and

priorities, rather than those of resources users themselves (Mosse, 1995; Brosius, et al. 1998;

Belsky, 1999, Li, 2002).

Much environmental analyses and contemporary conservation programs continue to both ignore

complex, historical dynamics and to blame local producers and communities for causing

environmental change and destruction. Political ecology researchers have documented many

accounts involving “misreading” landscapes (Leach and Fairhead, 2000; Hecht, 2014). These

studies have utilized mixed methods including in-depth qualitative methods to unpack dominant

narratives, discourses and the interests they serve, as well as methods from the environmental

sciences to document soil and forest characteristics. These studies provide strong evidence that

many “pristine” or “natural” looking environments actually reflect significant anthropogenic

forces and legacies (discussed below). Many terms have been used to capture the mutual socio-

ecological causation, including cultural landscapes (Balée, 2014), social natures (Braun and

Castree, 1998), nature-society hybrids (Zimmerer and Bassett, 2003), and socio-natures

(Swyngedouw, 1999); interdisciplinary scientists increasingly refer to “coupled social/human

and natural systems” (Berkes et al., 1998). The particular label is not as important as the

growing recognition that human actions and environmental processes dynamically shape each

other, or co-evolve over time; and that their long-term interactions have been missed, occluded

or purposefully ignored, in understanding historic livelihoods and land uses. This is particularly

true of accounts that argue that specific ecological conditions, especially ones characterized as

resilient or high in biodiversity, have actually been produced, in part, by managed human

activities (Leach and Fairhead, 2000; Robbins 2012; Hecht et al., 2014).

Informed by critical social science, political ecologists pay close attention to material conditions

and resources and how they are shaped by culture and struggles over ideas and meaning

(Neumann, 2005; Robbins, 2011). That is, how landscapes are viewed, understood and managed

are importantly influenced by specific configurations of political, economic and cultural forces

coming together in specific settings at particular points in time, and which are highly dynamic.

As such, they approach landscapes as products of complex social relations and accumulated

notions of who should or should not have access, control or benefits from particular places or

resources and which have been influenced by dominant management paradigms and governance

regimes, notably conservation and sustainability (Peets and Watts, 1996; Neumann, 2005;

Robbins, 2011). While political ecology as a sub-field has been difficult to define, what unites

its followers are commitments to particular theories (critical), methods (in-depth, mixed) and

political agenda (social-environmental change) (Perreault et al., 2015). Indeed, because of its

strengths in research and analysis, there has been less attention in the past to its commitment to

applying critical analyses to influence policy and practice, and especially towards promoting

change that nurtures social and environmental justice or “liberation ecology” (Peets and Watts,

1999; Robbins, 2011).

An emphasis on developing politically rigorous social analysis has led political ecology to be

criticized by some as lacking serious engagement with ecology and environmental science more

generally (Zimmerer and Bassett, 2003; Walker, 2005). However, in recent years there has been

8

an impressive increase in political ecological studies that directly engage ecological theory and

methods to understand what shapes landscapes, including their implications for conservation and

development. Scholars taking a combined approach to political ecology and environmental

science recognize disciplinary distinctions and tensions, but focus on their “fruitful frictions”

(Zimmerer, 2015). While drawing on literature discussed above, these studies directly take on

some of the leading approaches in ecological theory, notably resilience (Sturgeon, 2005;

Beymer-Farris 2013; Mathevet et al., 2015), and show how combining them with rigorous social-

political analysis can provide important insights and lessons for rethinking and potentially

remaking conservation and development policies and practices.

Ecological Disturbance Theory

A particularly relevant ecological theory that we suggest can complement political ecology

analyses is disturbance theory. Ecologists define ecological disturbance as “discrete events in

time that disrupt the ecosystem, community, or population structure and change resources,

substrate availability, or the physical environment” (White and Pickett, 1985). “Disturbance”

represents a change or disruption to the ecosystem. However, common usage tends to interpret

disturbance as having a pejorative connotation especially when the disruption is human caused.

Ecologists and conservationists typically differentiate natural from anthropogenic changes and

assume that human “disturbances” are unnatural, undesirable or destructive. This is likely a

legacy from one of the earliest and most prominent natural history writers, George Perkins

Marsh, who argued in the 19th century that human use inevitably results in forest destruction and

degradation:

“Man is everywhere a disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, the harmonies of nature are

turned to discords.” (Marsh, 1864, 33).

Marsh’s view persists. The ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’ is a

contemporary expression of this 150-year-old thesis and profoundly influenced conservation and

development perspectives, policies and practices throughout the Himalayas (Ives, 1987), and

continues to do so despite having been refuted by numerous studies (Fox et al., 2009; Kerkhoff

and Sharma, 2006; Xu et al., 2009).

Empirical studies around the world suggest that many, if not most, ecosystems previously

thought to be pristine or ‘natural’ exhibit significant anthropogenic legacies that influenced the

composition, abundance and distribution of contemporary flora and fauna, as well as general

ecosystem processes and functions (Barlow et al. 2012; Foster et al., 2003; Willis et al., 2004).

Humans have hunted, gathered, cut and planted trees, and burned landscapes for 10,000–12,000

years throughout much of the New World (Anderson, 2013; Arno and Fiedler, 2005; Vale,

2002), 50,000 years in Australia (Bird et al., 2008), and perhaps even longer in Africa (Fairhead

and Leach, 1996). Some landscapes and their biotic assemblages, including those of significant

conservation importance, clearly developed in conjunction with or as a consequence of past

human activity (Brown and Kothari, 2011; Grove and Rackham, 2001; Willis et al., 2004).

9

In a synthesis of ecological disturbance, Foster et al. (2003) concluded that: 1) at regional scales

both current and historical human impacts inevitably exist; 2) most ‘‘natural areas’’ have more

human history than previously thought; 3) land use legacies are remarkably persistent; and 4)

history contributes valuable explanatory power to understanding current ecosystem composition,

structure and function. This suggests that: 1) it is important to consider both natural and

anthropogenic disturbances and 2) when historic anthropogenic disturbances cease or change,

ecological conditions and biodiversity may change as well. Both disturbance theory and

political ecology emphasize multiple spatial and temporal scales, the importance of site-specific

and long-term, historical perspectives, and consider socio-ecological systems and landscapes to

be dynamic and unpredictable. Both perspectives also provide insights into ecosystem

composition, structure, function and services, and suggest that some traditional livelihoods, land

uses, and their associated disturbances may have contributed to biologically diverse ecosystems.

That human activities and land uses can adversely affect biological diversity is not in doubt.

Both scientific and popular literatures have catalogued the environmental destruction and

biodiversity losses inflicted by contemporary and prehistoric societies (Diamond, 2005; Gardner

et al., 2009; Terborgh, 1999). However, the specific effects that humans have had on a place

must be viewed empirically and contextually, rather than through generic ideological positions

(i.e., that human activities are either good or bad for biodiversity).

The proposition that some historic livelihoods and land uses, including agriculture, grazing and

forest management, might have enhanced biological diversity is contentious. For example, the

Mediterranean Basin contains the world’s greatest diversity of plant species outside of the upper

Amazon Basin and Southeast Asia (Brooks et al., 2006), yet few places on the planet have a

longer or more intense history of human use and disturbance. Grove and Rackham (2001) argue

that Mediterranean flora is adapted to and maintained by disturbances associated with historic

livestock grazing and agricultural practices that mimic prehistoric herbivory. Similarly,

managed burning by aboriginal women was found to have increased and maintained habitat

diversity and small mammal populations valued as a food for thousands of years in Australia

(Bird, et al., 2008; Codding et al., 2014). In nearby Indonesia, the Kodi people employed fire to

shape the structure and function of their environment for at least 14,000 years in what is

described as a close interlocking of social relations and ecological disturbances (Fowler, 2013).

It is important to note that all of these practices were controlled and regulated by local rules,

customs and institutions. Nevertheless, that socio-ecological systems and their associated

disturbances might enhance biodiversity is not widely accepted and only recently have

conservation scientists begun to recognize that some protected areas are rich in biology diversity

not in spite of, but rather because of, people and their historic land uses (Brown and Kothari,

2011).

Conserving biodiversity in any particular locale requires discerning the effects of previous

human activities or disturbances and the implications associated with changes in historic

disturbance regimes. Ecologists have investigated ecological disturbance attributes and effects

for decades, and these provide a basis for understanding human-modified changes. In a

comparison of natural and anthropogenic disturbances in the Amazon, Uhl, et al. (1990)

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emphasized the role of disturbance type, size, duration and frequency or return interval to

understand and compare their effects. More recently, Mori (2011) argued that disturbances

could be characterized by their type (e.g., tree fall or swidden), spatial characteristics (i.e., the

area, shape and spatial distribution of patches created), temporal characteristics (i.e., the

frequency, return interval, cycle and rotation period), specificity (i.e., relationships between

types of disturbances and the characteristics of the disturbed site, such as species, size class and

seral stage), magnitude (i.e., disturbance intensity and severity) and synergisms (e.g.,,

interactions among different kinds of disturbances over time). Disturbances, both natural and

anthropogenic, can be characterized as “socio-natural disturbances” and studied through the

attributes described above. As previously noted, interpreting ‘‘the past’’ demands critical

attention to the dominant values and politics in contexts at particular times. With this in mind,

we turn now to examine forest transition in Bhutan. We are particularly interested in what drove

changes in traditional swidden farming in Bhutan and how its management and associated

disturbances might inform conservation and development policies and practices in Bhutan and

elsewhere.

3. Forest Transition: Bhutan, the Contested Socio-Nature of Swidden and Learning from

the Past

The Himalayan country of Bhutan has been celebrated for its commitment to biodiversity

conservation and pursuit of Gross National Happiness (GNH), a national policy emphasizing

good governance, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation and

environmental conservation (Ura, 2016).1 Forest conservation has strong political commitment

in Bhutan. The recently (2008) adopted constitution mandates that at least 60% of the country

remain in natural forest cover and a recent nation-wide land use/land cover assessment found that

forest cover increased from 72% in 1995 to 81% in 2010, while cultivated land area declined

from 7.9% to 2.9% (NSSC/PPD, 2011).2 Bhutan’s forest transition (i.e., increasing forest cover)

is widely applauded for its presumed biodiversity benefits (e.g., insuring the conservation of rare

and endangered species such as Bengal tigers) and for ameliorating climate change. Bhutan is a

net sink of greenhouse gases. Bhutan’s forests are estimated to sequester about 6.3 million tons

of CO2 annually while the country emitted only 1.6 million tons of CO2 in 2000 (Kingdom of

Bhutan, 2015).

Bhutan has also been celebrated for maintaining extensive forests without adversely affecting

local communities, and is increasingly devolving management authority to local communities.

Unlike many places around the world, residents in Bhutan have been permitted to continue to

reside in and pursue livelihoods in protected areas and national parks. This differs from many

1 The four pillars have recently been expanded into nine domains: psychological well-being, health, education, time

use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and

living standards (Ura, 2016).

2 While Bhutan is often thought to be economically based on agriculture, the contribution of agriculture to the

national economy is surpassed by hydropower, tourism and construction (Dukpa et al., in press).

11

other countries where protectionist or coercive “fortress conservation” approaches either

relocated people from parks and protected areas, and/or drastically reduced their access to and

control over historical resources (Brechin et al., 2002). While the trend in Bhutan (along with

other South Asian countries) since mid-20th century has also been to centralize forest ownership

and management, including eliminating indigenous community forests as well as other

indigenous resource management institutions (e.g. sokshing or woodlots), more recently Bhutan

has instituted efforts to devolve forest management. For example, it created a national

community forestry program which “hands over” management of small forest parcels to

community forest management user groups, albeit with strong national oversight and concerns

(Belsky 2015). Since the program was established in 2000, the number of community forests

increased from 0 to 500 (MOAF, 2013). Bhutan’s community forestry program emphasizes

poverty reduction and sustainable forestry, in addition to forest protection (Phuntsho et al.,

2011). Furthermore, official support for Buddhist-inspired resource management values and

practices, such as protecting sacred forests and indigenous resource management institutions, has

contributed to forest conservation (Allison, 2004; Wangchuk, 2005; Brooks, 2010; Kuyakanon

Knapp, 2012).

Forest cover has increased in Bhutan despite 3% average annual population growth and

80% of the population living in rural areas where they depend on agriculture. The increased

forest cover has resulted in large part due to a decline in traditional forest livelihoods and land

uses, particularly swidden and transhumant pastoralism, and is assumed by Government of

Bhutan officials and many international conservationists to contribute to biodiversity

conservation without adversely affecting rural populations (Meyfroidt and Lambin, 2010). We

review the history of swidden in Bhutan and suggest that forests and biodiversity were co-

produced over time by humans and non-human forces, and that this should inform conservation

and development efforts. We do so by using a combined lens of historical political ecology and

ecological disturbance.

Swidden (Tseri)

Swidden (or shifting cultivation) was widely practiced, particularly in central and eastern

Bhutan, for centuries. Prior to 1969 and the nationalization of forests, swidden occurred on land

registered as private or common property through a local (customary) governance institution

known as thram. After 1969 swidden was legally permitted only on land registered in the thram

as private. Two types of swidden were practiced in Bhutan: tseri, a tree or bush-fallow system at

low to mid elevations (500-2500m) and pangshing, a grass-fallow system at higher elevations

(2500-3500m) (Roder et al, 1992; Dukpa et al, 2007). In the early 1990s, tseri and pangshing

covered approximately 200,000 ha of Bhutan (Roder et al, 1992), but this declined to about

45,000 ha in the early 2000s (Dukpa et al, 2007).

While swidden continues to be practiced in remote areas in Bhutan, it has declined dramatically

in the last few decades. Studies in the Bumthang district of central Bhutan have linked its

decline to a variety of factors including enforcing laws that prohibit the practice of swidden,

numerous government policies that encouraged the conversion of former swidden fields to

intensive, permanent field-based agriculture, the development of roads, markets and

12

opportunities to produce more lucrative cash market crops (especially potato and fruit), and

farm-labor shortages resulting from rural-to-urban migration (particularly among young adults).

(Dukpa et al., 2007; Wangchuk and Siebert, 2013). These same forces have driven forest

transitions, including cessation of swidden, throughout the tropics and subtropics (Hecht et al.,

2014; Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006; Sturgeon, 2005; van Vliet et al., 2012). Nevertheless,

Bhutanese officials continue to permit tseri in some remote indigenous communities with limited

road and market access because they recognize there are few livelihood alternatives, that it is

integral to cultural traditions, and because traditional lifestyles and landscapes are attractive to

tourists (Dukpa et al., in press).

Swidden remains a highly contentious land use and livelihood in Bhutan (as well as elsewhere).

First, traditional, integral swidden systems, such as tseri, should not be confused with “slash and

burn” practices employed by recent migrants and landless cultivators who lack generational

knowledge and experience; a distinction noted decades ago by Conklin (1957) and confirmed by

subsequent researchers. Second, numerous studies have documented the social and ecological

benefits of long-fallow systems around the world (e.g. Conklin, 1957; Kerkhoff and Sharma,

2006; Spencer 1966; Padoch and Peluso 1996; Cairns 2007, 2015, in press). These studies note

that swidden systems were productive and sustainable adaptations to site-specific environmental

and socio-economic conditions (e.g., steep slopes and infertile soils), provided low, but reliable

yields without external inputs (e.g., petrochemical fertilizers or herbicides) and required less

labor than modern, sedentary agricultural alternatives. Third, traditional swidden practices

created and maintained heterogeneous forest and landscape conditions, and supported local

livelihoods and biodiversity in ways that uniform, dense forests cannot. Swidden farming was

historically managed by local governance institutions and norms that emphasized equitable

access to land and fallow products, and collection of a variety of forest products for food, fodder,

fuelwood, medicinals and cultural resources. And finally, at landscape levels, swidden increased

the number and frequency of gaps and the proportion of secondary vegetation with wide-ranging

effects on the abundance and distribution of flora and fauna (Siebert and Belsky, 2014). A re-

evaluation of the social-ecological role of swidden in the Eastern Himalayas concluded that

shifting cultivation transformed many “natural” landscapes of the eastern Himalayas into cultural

landscapes with their own unique biodiversity, that it is now impossible to distinguish between

“natural” and human-influenced or secondary forests, and that people are probably at least partly

responsible for the wealth of biodiversity that now exists (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006).

Yet despite the benefits of integral, historic swidden farming governments around the world

including Bhutan took major steps to eliminate it. The Royal Government of Bhutan began to

phase out swidden in 1969 because “it (was) recognized then that shifting cultivation…results in

clearing of forest – hastening topsoil loss and erosion and causing haphazard and inappropriate

regeneration” (Upadhyay, 1988, 2). When fallow periods shorten and cropping periods lengthen,

swidden can become unsustainable. For example, fallows less than 8-10 years result in soil

degradation and increased erosion in eastern Bhutan (Wangdi, 2010). While the sustainability of

swidden may have been a concern in some areas, it was not a problem everywhere it was

practices and its prohibition ignored desirable biodiversity effects. To prevent what was viewed

as land degradation, several policy decisions were taken to encourage the conversion of swidden

13

to other land uses. For example, the Government of Bhutan began levying a tax on the practice

in 1969. With the Forest Policy Act 1974 the government asserted that swidden was depleting

forest wealth, and offered to compensate those who adopted alternate livelihoods or more

intensive forms of cultivation, though it remained legal. Throughout the 1980s, government

edicts urged tseri farmers to convert to permanent dryland or irrigated farms, and explored

schemes to purchase swidden lands. The latter was viewed as necessary because tseri was often

practiced on steep slopes unsuitable for sedentary agriculture. In 1993, the National Assembly of

Bhutan took more dramatic steps asserting that tseri resulted in forest destruction and poverty,

was used only by those who had no other options, labeled those who practiced it “landless”, and

stipulated that government development plans could not help tseri farmers because of their

repeated movement. The 1995 Forest and Nature Conservation Act introduced language

prohibiting tseri, and in 2006 the Forest and Nature Conservation Rules explicitly stated that

“tseri is banned and shall not be permitted.” The rules also stated that those who leave their tseri

uncultivated for 12 or more years will have their thram ownership cancelled on the assumption

that they do not need it. There was no means to register either tseri or pangshing as dryland

farms.

While governments around the world continued to defame and outlaw historic, integral swidden,

political ecologically oriented social scientists highlighted the politics surrounding the practice.

Anthropologist Michael Dove (1983) argued that swidden was widely denigrated and eliminated

by colonial and post-colonial governments (in Indonesia as well as elsewhere) by deliberately

perpetuating myths about its destructiveness to benefit economic and political elites’ interests.

Dove labeled this the “political economy of ignorance”. That is, perpetuating myths about

swidden served colonial and later day governments and large landowners by justifying their

efforts to replace swidden with modern, market farming and other extractive activities that

produced economically profitable commodities over local subsistence, and sedentary populations

more amenable to governmental systems of land and labor control, as well as taxation.

The negative environmental narrative about swidden persists in Bhutan and throughout much of

the world, particularly among government and international conservation officials. However, its

influence on Bhutanese Government policies and actions is not easily discernable. Factors

influencing the viability of swidden are varied and site-specific, and the studies cited above

suggest the system may have been breaking down in some areas in Bhutan and thus raising

legitimate concerns regarding forest conditions and farmers’ well-being. However, the

Bhutanese Government did not address these concerns on a site-specific basis, but adopted a

“one-size fits all” policy to phase out and eventually ban the practice everywhere in the country –

an approach consistent with global policies.

The Government of Bhutan also failed to (perhaps could not) anticipate the consequences of

alternative livelihoods and land uses that arose in place of swidden (i.e., market-based farming

systems involving petro-chemical inputs) and which have significant adverse environmental and

social effects. In addition, Penjore (2008) notes that the establishment of protected areas limited

the land available for swidden and created rules antithetical to historic, traditional swidden

management, specifically not respecting and protecting (with legal backing) traditional resource

14

management institutions and norms. The creation of parks and protected areas, a model inherited

from outside, but now pervasive across Bhutan, not only shifted governance to distant

government officials, but contradicted historic Bhutanese-Buddhist ideals regarding the

integration of people in nature. He writes:

“(These have) introduced lines of demarcation between humans and nature that formerly never

existed. The introduction of rules and regulations that must be respected have stripped some

locations of their mysticism and prevented the communion with nature that was once common.

Our beliefs that we should manage our biodiversity and environment in accordance with

international standards may have unwittingly contributed to a hardening of traditional attitudes,

perception and values.” (Penjore, 2008, 66-67).

Researchers in Bhutan suggest that outlawing tseri contributed to reducing rural food security

especially in remote, mountainous areas with few livelihood alternatives (Penjore, 2008; Dukpa

et al., in press). That eliminating historic swidden results in food shortages has been observed

elsewhere around the world, including among Dayak in Kalimantan, Indonesia, and where

Dove’s theory of the “political economy of ignorance” arose in the context of government-

sanctioned commercial logging and seizure of historic swidden agricultural lands (Dove 1983;

Belsky, 1992). In Bhutan, Penjore (2008) notes that it was not swidden cultivators, but

Bhutanese government-sponsored forestry activities in the mid-20th century that were

environmentally destructive (e.g., commercial logging, development of plantations and

reforestation with exotic species) and that The Bhutan Forest Act of 1969 was enacted mainly to

curtail these activities. Nonetheless, the 1969 act nationalized all forestland, except legally

recognized private land, and designated them Government Reserved Forests (GRF). Local rights

to pursue forest-related livelihoods, including swidden, grazing livestock, and collecting

firewood, timber and leaf-litter (for cattle fodder and organic manure), were retained, but not for

long.

The history of forest ownership and management in modern Bhutan reveals tensions over how to

protect forests while improving rural livelihoods. The trend has been towards greater

Government centralization of ownership and control while devolving some management

authority to local communities (Dorji, 2003). Over time, the Government of Bhutan revised

forest policies and laws to re-open opportunities for local participation in environmental

governance through decentralization. However, current laws, institutions and practices do not

allow community ownership or management based on traditional experiential knowledge or

historic customary institutions. An illustrious example is the state-created community forestry

program. Following highly specified rules, a parcel of GRF forest may be “handed over” to a

“community forestry management group” who are authorized to pursue only those specific

activities outlined in state-approved management plans. Following the same general model

pursued elsewhere in South and South-East Asia, forest uses, management, and monitoring are

highly prescribed and based on modern silviculture and bureaucratic governance (Belsky, 2015).

Despite its symbolic attempt to show connections with community-based forest management of

the past, the program does not understand or build upon (authentic) historic socio-ecological land

management and governance systems. Bhutan’s community forestry program also confronts

15

other challenges and has temporarily been stopped. This signals tensions (and political

struggles) within the country regarding identifying forest conservation and development

strategies suitable to the country’s social and physical conditions, including what to utilize from

the rest of the world.

Our research in central Bhutan suggests that cessation of swidden-associated disturbances may

adversely affect biodiversity and compromise national conservation objectives. For example,

analysis of paired NDVI values from Landsat imagery (1989 and 2010) in 25 km2 areas

surrounding the former swidden communities of Nasiphel and Shingkhar reveals : 1) widespread

establishment of dense, +/- even-aged forests (i.e., blue pine in Nasiphel and broadleaf forest in

Shingkhar); 2) reduced grass, forbs, shrubs and other early successional vegetation; 3) a

reduction in forest-gap edges; and 4) less landscape-level heterogeneity due to the loss of

formerly widely dispersed swidden fallows of different species, ages and structures (Siebert et

al., 2015). These changes were corroborated by on-site observations and interviews with elderly

farmers in both villages. At landscape levels, a formerly diverse mosaic of vegetation types

associated with swiddens, including seral species up to 20 years age, along with uncultivated

mature forests, transitioned to dense, closed-canopy forests. These swidden-related disturbances

differ from common natural disturbances, specifically tree falls and landslides. Swidden gaps

are larger than tree falls, but smaller than landslides, exhibit intermediate-scale disturbance

intensities and were distributed across the landscapes in different patterns.3 (Siebert and Belsky,

in press).

The biodiversity implications associated with changing forest disturbance regimes, specifically a

reduction in open fields and secondary vegetation, have not been evaluated in Bhutan, but are

potentially profound. Dense, closed-canopy forests favor interior, forest-dependent flora and

fauna and provide limited habitat or food for species that prefer gaps or high-light environments.

While the habitat requirements of most of Bhutan’s diverse flora and fauna are unknown, Bengal

tigers, a species of international conservation interest, are habitat generalists whose populations

are strongly influenced by prey availability (Khan and Chivers, 2007; Kanagaraj et al., 2011;

Wikramanayake et al., 2011). In Bhutan, the preferred prey of tigers includes ungulates (e.g.,

sambar and musk deer) and wild pigs. Scat, track and camera-trap photos suggest that tigers are

more abundant in disturbed secondary forests associated with former swiddens than in

undisturbed forests in Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park in central Bhutan (Namgyel et al.,

2008). Tiger populations have been correlated with open grasslands, disturbed habitats and prey

availability in the nearby Terai of Nepal and India (Kanagaraj et al., 2011), Bangladesh (Khan

and Chivers, 2007), and Chitwan National Park, Nepal (Carter et al., 2012). A regional analysis

of potential tiger population densities concluded that open deciduous forests and

savannas/grasslands can support significantly higher tiger population densities than rainforests,

subtropical broadleaf, pine and other dense, closed-canopy forests (Wikramanayake et al., 2011).

Recent land use and forest cover transitions represent a significant departure from historic

conditions. For example, more than 28% of the area long inhabited by indigenous swidden

3 See the numerous case studies in Cairns (2015) for additional examples of swidden practices, disturbances and

change over time in South and Southeast Asia.

16

farmers in Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park was associated with swiddens in 1989, but

this declined to just 6% in 2005 (Namgyel et al., 2008). Similar transitions occurred in the

villages of Nasiphel and Shingkhar discussed above and are reported elsewhere in the eastern

Himalayas. For example, Salick et al. (2005) documented widespread abandonment of

agriculture and increased tree growth associated with government afforestation programs and

suppression of burning in Tibet, which resulted in trees encroaching into alpine meadows and an

influx of fire intolerant plant species that are unpalatable, indigestible or poisonous to domestic

and wild ungulates. Similarly, Xu et al. (2009) observed a shift from open to closed canopy

forests and a decline in biological diversity associated with swidden fallows in southwest China

between 1993 and 2006.

The contribution of swidden-associated disturbances to biological diversity is most evident at

landscape levels. While fallow vegetation and other early successional forests are structurally

less diverse than primary forest, landscapes that incorporate swiddens, along with uncultivated,

closed canopy forests, are more structurally diverse than primary forest alone and thus support a

more diverse flora and fauna (Finegan and Nasi, 2004).

It is important to note that swidden is only one of many formerly widespread historic land

uses/disturbances that influenced the composition, structure and distribution of flora and fauna in

Bhutan. Yak and cattle, regulated by religious practices, cultural norms and social traditions,

previously grazed from subtropical broadleaf forests to alpine meadows throughout much of the

country for centuries. Like swidden, extensive livestock grazing increased landscape

heterogeneity, reduced tree densities, and favored grass and other early successional vegetation.

The loss of floristic diversity and structural heterogeneity associated with changes in swidden,

extensive livestock grazing, and other traditional forest management practices also affects the

availability of wild food, fiber, medicinal, and other resources to rural households. Recent

changes in historic wood lot (sokshing) and communal pasture (tsamdro) historic governance

institutions may be even more significant than tseri because more land is affected. The 2007

Land Act of Bhutan transformed both sokshing and tsamdro to such an extent that not only their

historic management institutions are to be eliminated, but all written records of them as well.

Regardless of the laws, socio-ecological legacies remain in human memory and on landscapes,

and are highly relevant to future forest conservation and development.

Mimicking Traditional Swidden Disturbances for Conservation and Development

Recognizing the ecological conditions formerly provided by traditional swidden-associated

disturbances, but limited prospects for those systems and practices to continue, are there

opportunities to mimic ecologically desirable swidden-related disturbances in economically

productive ways? One possible land use worth evaluating is timber harvesting by group

selection or clear felling at intermediate-scale intensities in patchy landscape patterns. Group

selection or clear felling of small stands of blue pine (Pinus wallichiana) in cool temperate

forests and oak (e.g. Quercus griffithii) and other hardwood species in warm temperate zones for

timber and firewood could replicate some historic swidden-disturbance effects while generating

17

products for household use or sale (see: Siebert and Belsky, 2015 and in press). Blue pine, oak

and other economically valuable species have established in former swiddens throughout Bhutan

and are widely used for timber and firewood. Thousands of hectares of dense, even-aged, blue

pine stands now cover much of Bumthang District alone (Siebert et al., 2015). Yoder et al. (in

press) estimate that harvesting all pines greater than 16 cm dbh (diameter breast height) on 30-

year rotations could generate US$18,412 to $23,422 per ha in this district. This is an attractive

financial return compared to available alternatives, particularly as it requires low labour and

capital investments (Dukpa et al., 2007), and would also produce firewood for domestic

consumption and sale.

To mimic historic swidden disturbance effects, timber harvesting could be conducted in small,

scattered blocks (1 to 3 ha), followed by low-intensity burning of slash (i.e. tops, small branches

and leaves). If implemented across landscapes, this would create mosaics of open and

regenerating pine stands of different ages and sizes, along with unutilized, closed-canopy forests.

Seed trees could be retained to facilitate regeneration and to improve the growth, vigour, form

and value of subsequent stands. Parcel sizes, landscape patterns and other disturbance attributes

should reflect previous site-specific swidden practices that vary from one region to another.

Timber harvesting could be pursued on government reserve forests, including community

forests, and on private land. Harvesting could be regulated by government foresters and

conducted by private contractors who pay the government, community forest-management

groups or private landowners on the basis of stumpage values. These suggested forest enterprises

could potentially enhance community-level management and governance capacities as well.

The above approach could be explored in temperate broadleaf forests dominated by oak, chestnut

and other economically valuable species as well. Unlike blue pine, many hardwood species

coppice vigorously which eliminates the need to replant or retain seed trees. Potential market

opportunities and returns from clear felling hardwood stands in Bhutan are unknown, but would

provide timber for furniture and veneer, as well as high quality firewood, while increasing the

availability of grass, forb and other early successional species.

Policy and regulatory changes

The biodiversity effects and economic returns associated with clear felling trees in small parcels

for timber and firewood warrant examination under a range of socio-economic and

environmental conditions. Field trials should evaluate and monitor variable harvesting rates on

tree regeneration, residual vegetation, soils, wildlife, economic costs and benefits, labour

requirements, marketing and other factors. Including older farmers with experiential knowledge

of traditional swidden practices could help identify management approaches and evaluation

criteria. Pursuit of these efforts will require modifying existing government forestry and

agricultural policies and regulations to: 1) fund trials under a range of climatic, soil and

vegetation conditions (e.g. cool temperate blue pine and warm temperate oak stands); 2) modify

current timber harvesting practices which emphasize single tree and selective systems; 3) allow

increased timber harvesting, particularly around villages where timber and firewood can be

18

readily transported to market, where forest fires pose increasing risks, and where swidden was

formerly practiced; 4) evaluate market demands, returns to labour and opportunities for local,

value-added processing for domestic and export markets; 5) revise attitudes towards swidden

farmers and incorporate them in research and management efforts; and 6) document disturbance

effects in collaboration with knowledgeable older farmers.

4. Conclusions and Recommendations

Forest cover and density in Bhutan have increased in recent decades in response to a variety of

forces including government laws and policies; the availability of new crops, markets and

economic opportunities; and rural to urban migration. While Bhutan’s forest transition is widely

celebrated, we question the assumption that increasing forest cover contributes to biodiversity

conservation and rural livelihoods. Rather, we argue that forest landscapes created and

maintained by natural and anthropogenic disturbances, specifically swidden, enhanced landscape

heterogeneity; empirical studies and ecological theory suggest that landscape heterogeneity is

correlated with biodiversity (Connell, 1978; Odion and Sarr, 2007; Rees et al., 2001).

Furthermore, traditional swidden practices sustained livelihoods throughout the eastern

Himalayas for centuries (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006).

In recent years, the global conservation community has advocated that greater attention be given

to community property rights and control over forests, indigenous knowledge systems, and

community-based forest management. However, programs formulated to reflect these agendas

tend to be based on generic models pursued by governments and NGOs, rather than site-specific,

bio-culturally-based knowledge and traditional practices. This is the case in Bhutan, where the

community forest program was developed by foreign consultants and based on models developed

elsewhere in Asia, rather than on its own, rich indigenous systems. In addition, recent forest

legislation will erase local registries (i.e., thram) of historic forest property ownership and

practices (i.e., 2007 Land Act). Nevertheless, Bhutan’s political commitment to GNH and its

protection of cultural traditions positions the country to acknowledge and promote its traditional

knowledge, practices, institutions and ecological legacies in conservation and development

policies and practices, should government officials wish to do so.4

Our primary objective in this paper is to develop and apply an integrated socio-ecological

analysis of historic swidden agriculture in Bhutan and consider how that might inform

contemporary forest conservation and development. Integrating political ecology and ecological

disturbance perspectives identified under-appreciated valued socio-ecological effects of some

swidden systems – specifically that historic swidden influenced forest composition, structure and

function (i.e., biodiversity) by increasing forest landscape heterogeneity – and that their cessation

may have significant negative ecological, as well as social, consequences. We also suggest that

the efficacy of current conservation efforts could be enhanced by identifying and developing

locally managed, intermediate-scale forest activities/ecological disturbances previously provided

4 A key trend to watch is the rise of an active civil society including NGOs with their own agendas and increasing

strength, including but not limited to electoral power in the new democratic Bhutan.

19

by swidden, along with dense, unutilized forests. Lastly, we provide examples of potential ways

to mimic desirable ecological disturbances in contemporary forest conservation and management

for greater conservation traction.

We recognize that incorporating these ideas into the planning and implementation of forest

conservation projects and policies could be challenging because it requires additional

information and comprehensively: 1) identifying the site-specific ecological effects associated

with traditional swidden practices, particularly the size, intensity, and landscape/spatial pattern

created; 2) documenting how traditional land uses were regulated and managed; 3) revising

government forest policies and regulations to facilitate explorations of novel forest management

practices that could mimic swidden disturbances; and exploring how they may support existing

government objectives towards 4) identifying and supporting rural land use practices that have

the potential to generate products or income while meeting ecological objectives.

The identification of experimental activities and land uses must be site- and context-specific and

involve local resource users and managers as (real) collaborators to evaluate land uses and

livelihoods that make sense in the light of local social, economic and environmental conditions

and concerns. This will not be easily implemented in Bhutan or elsewhere. The prohibition

against tseri may make those still practicing it unwilling to collaborate. Furthermore, the reality

that formal, western education is granted greater authority and status than traditional ecological

knowledge could make collaborations between professional foresters and tseri farmers extremely

difficult.

Another challenge to learning from and building upon traditional land use systems in Bhutan and

elsewhere is the need for government officials, elected representatives, environment and

development organizations and the general public to recognize that, counter to much of the

existing narrative, some traditional swidden systems contributed to the creation and maintenance

of biodiversity in Bhutan. This will require a dramatic shift in attitudes in some circles in Bhutan

– specifically to recognize that some swidden systems were well-adapted to local social and

environmental conditions – and to understand the factors that lead to their breakdown or

cessation. Perhaps even more challenging is the need for a critical perspective regarding

government policies informed by scientific forestry and conservation perspectives that

emphasize increasing forest cover and density alone, rather than maintaining productive and

diverse/heterogeneous socioecological systems, and the growing global and national Bhutanese

interest in carbon sequestration. With regard to the latter, it should be noted that young, rapidly

growing forests (i.e., that follow natural or anthropogenic disturbances) are capable of

sequestering more carbon than old, dense slow growing forests. If permanent use is made of

harvested trees (e.g., for timber or other wood products) or if harvested biomass replaces fossil

fuel uses (e.g., residential cooking and heating with fuelwood rather than LPG gas), high rates of

carbon sequestration can be maintained and contribute to Bhutan’s commitment to carbon

neutrality.

Attitudes towards swidden and increasing forest cover are already changing in Bhutan and

around the world. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

concluded that some swidden systems in the eastern Himalayas were not only productive and

20

sustainable, but preferable to the permanent (cash crop) agricultural practices that replaced them

(Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006). Moreover, the Bhutanese government, along with the

governments of Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal, acknowledged in the Shillong

Declaration (2004) that shifting cultivation is an agricultural and adaptive forest-management

practice that is based on scientifically sound ecological principles (Kerkhoff and Sharma, 2006).

More recently, Bhutanese foresters recently concluded that forest fires are increasing in

frequency, size and intensity due to increasing forest cover and density, and concern over wild

fires is leading them to critically assess forest policy goals and practices (MoAF, 2013).

Forest landscapes are the product of complex, interacting social and ecological forces. An

historical perspective is needed to understand these forces as they operate in particular places,

over time as shaped by local to global forces. Bhutan, despite its relative isolation and unique

GNH development philosophy, has been influenced by globally dominant, western knowledge

systems and forest conservation policies. Bhutan has adopted “sustainable” forest management

and conservation ideas promulgated by western institutions and paradigms that embrace

increased forest cover and density and denigrate historic livelihoods and land uses as

environmentally destructive. Shifting the focus to empirically evaluate the role and importance

of regulated and managed land uses offers new perspectives and possible approaches to reconcile

environmental conservation with socio-cultural well-being, with mutually beneficial results.

Conservation efforts in Bhutan have led to the establishment of a vast protected area system that

encompasses over 50% of the country’s land area and which has emphasized the importance of

Buddhist-inspired sacred forests. Critical socio-ecological scholars have noted problems with

this focus: formal protected areas increasingly separate people from nature, while sacred forests

are small, devoid of human labor or economic activity, and also separate culture from nature.

They argue for going “beyond sacred forests” to understand what happens to and within broader

forest landscapes (Dove et al., 2011; Hecht et al., 2014). Pursuit of this approach requires an

historical perspective that recognizes complexity and politics to understand how and why

traditional resource management systems, such as swidden, operated and evolved over time.

These perspectives are critical components to understanding and managing resilient socio-

ecological systems (Cote and Nightingale 2012), and need to be incorporated into research on

social-ecological system dynamics to improve the efficacy of the management of landscapes,

ecosystems and natural resources throughout the world (Dearing et al., 2015). As Li (2000)

argues, the sustainability of local resource-use systems depends not only on their economic and

ecological viability, but on the conceptual space for them in overarching systems of knowledge.

We offer this report to encourage further opening of this perspective at IUCN and other

institutions around the world.

21

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Figure 1: Swidden (tseri) influenced vegetation and landscape in south-central Bhutan. Note the open fields and

forest stands of different heights (i.e., age of swidden fallow). This region was cultivated and managed by swidden

farmers for generations, but agricultural practices have changed in recent years and the entire area is now inside

Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park.