BOX
2. ALTERNATIVES TO SLASH-AND-BURN AGRICULTURE (ASB)
The problems of slash-and-burn
agriculture and rural poverty in the tropics are enormous
and complex. They threaten not just farmers and forests
in the tropics; ultimately they affect every person on
the planet. Approximately 15 million hectares of the
world's primary rain forests are destroyed each year and
about 60 per cent of this destruction is caused by
slash-and-burn agriculture. This practice is the greatest
threat to the biodiversity of our planet. The challenge,
then, is to develop a viable alternative to this form of
agriculture.
UNDP has been a major facilitator,
helping to establish the ASB project with encouragement
and funds from GEF. This project could serve as a model
flagship programme in the area of sustainable
agriculture and environmentally sound technologies, with
particular emphasis on jobs and income-generation for the
poor. ASB, the first of many system-wide initiatives
being launched by the Consultative Group for
International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), is currently
being looked upon as a model for their development.
The project is operational in three
regions of the world. In Africa, the site in Cameroon,
represent the equatorial Congo Basin rain forest, a
zone of rapid demographic, social and environmental
change. In Latin America, the site is in the Amazon rain
forest region of Brazil, which is subject to rapid
development through government-sponsored resettlement
schemes. In Asia, the site selected in Sumatra,
Indonesia, exemplifies various types and stages of
deforestation and degraded lands.
The ASB project is working to reduce
deforestation caused by unsustainable slash-and-burn
agriculture by providing technology alternatives and
policy options that eliminate the need to clear
additional land and that encourage the reclamation of
degraded and abandoned lands. It is evident that the
option to link environmentally oriented strategies with
economic ones provides a practical, realistic approach.
The long-term aims are to contribute to the reduction of
global warming and the conservation of biodiversity and
help to alleviate human poverty by promoting the
development of lasting alternatives that are ecologically
sound, economically feasible and culturally acceptable.
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