Shifting Perspectives Continued...

One night, while dining over “sin-daat” (a form of Lao BBQ) with a colleague, we were discussing this very situation when my friend asked me a simple, yet poignant question, “How is it that a form of agriculture such as the shifting cultivation, which has practiced by the Khmu people in this area for the last 400 to 600 years, was suddenly deemed un-sustainable?” Of course, as usual, I had no answer. I knew one thing for certain: I needed to find out. For me this was the starting point when my perspectives and understanding of upland agriculture began to shift.

Shifting Cultivation in Laos-traditional and current circumstances
Shifting cultivation, as it has been traditionally practiced by the Khmu, and other ethnic groups in the north of Lao, is far more complicated than the simple images portrayed by slash and burn.

Firstly, it is important to understand why upland agriculture is necessary to begin with. Oudomxay, like the rest of the country, is a highly mountainous area, comprising around 80% of the total land area. The geography is characterized by steep sloops, rugged terrain, and very little lowlands and flood plains. The fact of the matter is that Oudomxay has very few options or viable alternatives to cultivating upland areas. Even if they cultivated every square inch of lowland areas for rice paddies (they would have to get rid of all the towns, roads, etc to do so) and managed to raise production levels by 20% or more, they would still be faced with rice shortages to meet the demands of a growing population. This means that upland cultivation, in one form or another, will remain apart of the agricultural landscape, and a crucial aspect of the people’s livelihood strategies for some time to come.

The fact that shifting cultivation has been stigmatized and associated with poverty and “backwardness” is a classic example of what has come to be called environmental racism: the placement of blame for environmental degradation on often marginalized ethnic minorities. There is a danger of course of oversimplifying or romanticizing the lives of shifting cultivators. Upland agriculture, though an effective livelihood strategy, is a difficult one. I once asked the Phorban (village chief) in Ban Tangnuey if he felt the village was better off living in the valley bottom doing sedentary agriculture as opposed to their traditional lifestyle in the nearby hills. He answered that yes, he did feel the village was better off. Why? Because living on a hill is difficult he replied. The fact is that many of the villages I have visited and worked in usually expressed a willingness to move away from shifting cultivation if provided the opportunity. They would like to practice different forms of agriculture; they would like access to schools, hospitals and infrastructure. The question is how the programs are carried out and what their true intentions are. I have come to suspect that the efforts to eradicate shifting cultivation have less to do with “improving” the people’s lives than getting them out of areas that are rich in other resource values such as timber, mining, and cash crop plantations. This leads us to another key point, that even if shifting cultivation was recognized as a viable form of agriculture, the fact is the Khmu people live in a very different socio-economic environment than they did in the past. There is a much higher degree of competition over land uses. Shifting cultivation, as practiced in the past, meant that people had to move around every 20 years or so…this may not be possible with a growing population and demand for cash crops and resources.

Seeking out the Environmental Culprits
So, if shifting cultivation isn’t the cause of all the environmental degradation, what is?

Well, let’s first clarify that there isn’t one single cause of environmental degradation. Secondly, it’s important also to clarify specifically what environmental degradation are we speaking of. My research with the Oudomxay Provincial Science Technology & Environment Office in the Ko River watershed, along with a growing body of secondary research being conducted by numerous domestic and international research institutes, has provided a fairly comprehensive picture of the state of the environment with respect to watershed functions and services. (Please see the inserted graph.)

As I stated before the only thing that matters in ecology is the rate at which something occurs and the timeframe in which it occurs. Shifting cultivation, as practiced in the past, with long fallow periods, has been shown to be either environmentally benign, or even beneficial. Currently however, the state of shifting cultivation is rapidly changing due to changes in land use policy, as discussed earlier there are much shorter fallow periods and increasing intensity in the use of land in increasingly fragile environments. One could accurately describe this form of agriculture as “pioneering” cultivation and it is a major source and cause of soil erosion, sedimentation, deforestation, and storm water runoff; a major source of environmental degradation in the province.

It is not the only culprit however. A growing consensus among agronomist, planners, and development workers and agencies, is that the most significant cause of environmental degradation in Oudomxay and Lao generally is the issue of land use change, the growing rate of conversion of forest and agricultural land to large monoculture cash crop plantations, particularly rubber. Throughout Oudomxay province we are seeing larger and larger areas of land being cleared and planted with massive plantations of rubber. The large majority of the investors come from China and they have very little interest in conserving the land for the long term. Quite often, the land is given away in concessions to investors, land that typically belonged to villagers—the land taken away and given to the investors without consultation or even the knowledge of the farmers. These plantations have incredibly high erosion and run off rates, and typically can leave the soil denuded and useless for many years afterwards. Other land uses that can prove damaging to watershed services include stripping the vegetation along rivers and streams to grow corn and other crops, and the destruction of and loss of wetlands and floodplains. Once you put all these issues together you are looking at a very severe degree of environmental degradation. Quite obviously the issue is very complicated and defies any simple explanation or solution.