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Shifting Cultivation or Slash and Burn (Jhum): Slash and burn followed by mix cropping for a year or two and fallowing for an average of 9 years are the basic morphological elements in shifting cultivation. Shifting cultivation therefore, is an agricultural practice with a long forestry phase and to its practitioners a way of life. Put simply, Mr. A.M. Gokhale, Advisor to Planning Commission and former Chief Secretary of Nagaland describes jhum as:
“…..(First) there is a jungle, then people cut it, let it dry, set fire to it, then clear the land and sow seeds of paddy and other food crops, then harvest the paddy, then once again take a mixed paddy crop. After this, the land is given over to nature, for the next few years it starts gathering vegetation cover of various species (fallow period). After a few years, people come back to this land, cut the jungle, and then resume the activities once more…..”
This practice of forest-cultivation-forest-cultivation is Jhum. If there be about 10000 villages in the hilly areas of northeastern states, of the size of about 100 families per village, then there are about a million families to reckon with . Almost all of these practice Jhum. The Task Force on Shifting Cultivation, Ministry of Agriculture while quoting the NEC: Basic Statistics of NER-2002 estimates that a minimum of 1913 Sq Km of land in Nagala nd is under Shifting Cultivation at a given time and that it is practiced by 1,16,046 families in Nagaland. Jhum cultivation in many ways is woven into the culture and traditions of the Nagas.
Jhum continues to draw serious attention from policy makers, development practitioners and academicians and continues to be viewed as environmentally not sustainable. It has thus been subjected to policies that do not take into consideration the socio-cultural and livelihood implications for the poorest of the poor. Insufficient land availability and inadequate time for land replenishment and recovery (through forest re-growth) in the current situation suggests that options have to be found within the existing constraints for strengthening jhum and evolving ways to ensure better forest regeneration.
[edit] Traditional governance in shifting cultivation
The Naga tribal customs and traditions are diverse and governance varies from tribe to tribe. Some tribes have autocratic systems where chieftains enjoy hereditary status, while others have a more democratic system. Based on these traditional backgrounds, the Government of Nagaland enacted the Village Council Act of 1967 through which the Village Councils of each village are recognized. The Village Council members consist of representatives of clans and sub-clans in the village. The primary responsibilities of the Village Council are besides traditional roles and responsibilities, to also administer law and order and to coordinate with other villages and the government. For academic understanding, the following classifications of governance systems are briefly described: 1. Tribes or Villages with Chiefs or Anghs (Kings): This system is peculiarly evident amongst the Sema Naga and Konyak Naga tribes and is an autocratic system where chieftains and kings enjoy hereditary status. 2. The Putu Menden: This is a system unique only to the Ao Naga tribe and the word Putu Menden can be literally translated as the seat or reign of a generation. In this case, the peers of a generation – equally representing all clans in the village - rule over the village state republic for 30 years, until the next generation takes over. For the Ao Naga’s the Putu Menden is the traditional village council of elders which is empowered for internal administration, external diplomatic relationships, security and general welfare of all community members. 3. Federal democratic system: In this case, the Village Councils are made up of democratically elected members representing the different clans of the village. The elected Village Council is the supreme institution in the community for all important matters from agriculture, resource management, law and justice to security.
Within all cases will exist private land holdings but when it comes to the issue of jhum cultivation, the Village Council decides - the Village Council’s decision is supreme. Based on customs and traditional practices, shifting cultivation areas are divided into many large ‘jhum blocks’ by the community. A typical Naga village will normally have six to twenty such jhum blocks depending on the availability of land by that particular village. Jhum in Nagaland is practiced in contiguous areas and so jhum lands are divided into jhum blocks to enable the communities to sustain the practice by allowing only one block to be used per year, thus maintaining appreciable jhum cycle . Within the jhum blocks are the numerous individual plots for different families to farm. In cases where a family does not own any land, they are allocated one either by the chieftain, the village council or land owner.
- In the “Village Chief” scenario, a family has no assurance that after the entire Jhum cycle of whatever period, it would get the same plot of land that it got earlier. - In the other villages, the family owns its plot, so it is sure of coming back to the same plot after the cycle.
The decision for selection of the particular jhum block is solely with the Village Councils and so every year, the land for Jhum is selected and all the community members have to farm their jhum cultivation within that block. After selection of site, the Council fixes a date for the slashing of forests. Once the slashing is done, logs and woods collected and the derbies ready to burn, the Council ensures that fire-lines are made along the entire boundary of the jhum block and also around small patches of forests or trees that are purposely left standing for numerous reasons. In some tribes, during the period of burning, all able men and boys are required to stand watch so that forest fires and disasters like village fires are averted. The boundaries between family plots are not formally put down in “maps”, yet this has never been seen to become a matter of any serious dispute, except when two whole villages are parties to a dispute. In such cases the District Administration/District Judiciary looks into the matter according to traditional histories and formal legal systems.
[edit] Rights, privileges and concessions
Within the context of land tenure system and socio-legal aspects of shifting cultivation; the rights, privileges and concession enjoyed by the indigenous tribes on northeast India over matters relating to land ownership, use of forests and shifting cultivation must be understood. While many of the rights, privileges and concession are traditional and unwritten, they also enjoy constitutional sanction. Nagaland, for example has special provisions under Article 371A of the Constitution of India which bars the application of all Acts of Parliament dealing with “religious or social practices of the Nagas; Naga customary law and procedure; administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law; ownership and transfer of land and its resources; unless approved by the State Legislature to the entire state of Nagaland”. The Nagaland Jhumland Act, 1970 is perhaps one of the only pieces of legislation that talks of giving recognition to the customary laws and rights of the people.
Historical perspectives and framework of policy with regard to shifting cultivation In India, about 10 million hectare of tribal land is estimated to be under shifting cultivation covering 225 development blocks, 62 districts and 16 states (Eswaraiah, 2003). In Northeast India alone, an estimated 1.73 million hectares of land is under shifting cultivation (FSI, 2000) involving about 4.5 lakh families (MoEF, 1997). The practice of shifting cultivation first came up for administrative review during the enunciation of the Forest Policy in 1894 during the British Regime. It stated: “ ……..a system of shifting cultivation which denudes large area of forest growth in order to place small areas under crops costs more to the community than it is worth and can only be permitted under due regulation where forest tribes depend on it for their sustenance.”
In 1952, the National Forest Policy viewed the practice of shifting cultivation by stating that “the demand caused to forests by shifting cultivation in certain areas must be guarded against. To wean the aborigines who eke out a precarious living from axe cultivation, moving from area to area, away from their very age old and wasteful practices requires persuasion, not coercion, a missionary not an authoritarian approach. Possibilities for regulating shifting cultivation by combining it with forest regeneration (Tangya) to the benefit of both should be explored. Success in this direction largely depends upon enlisting the cooperation of cultivators and gaining their confidence and showing consideration to their needs and wishes.”
Such remarks perhaps had far reaching consequences on the way shifting cultivation had been viewed by policy makers and the type of policy interventions thereof. However, the overriding principle and spirit of policy intervention on shifting cultivation has always been to wean away the shifting cultivators to settled cultivation and to gradually reduce the areas under shifting cultivation. In fact the Indian Forest Act 1927 states that the “practice of shifting cultivation shall in all cases be deemed a privilege subject to control, restriction and abolition by the State Government”.
[edit] Thematic Issues
The present case is not just a review of the policy status but to highlight issues of local governance, their natural resource management practices and the complexities they exist in. Over the years, much has been said and written about the unsustainable and negative aspects of shifting cultivation, and so this paper highlights a series of perspectives as pointed out – not just by experts – but farmers, who the author met with during the course of research. These need to be observed and considered for further understanding and analysis of the case.
[edit] I. General Policy
a. The numerous acts and policies to regulate shifting cultivation practices, have not been effective as the customs, traditions and culture of the communities cannot be compromised easily by a legal provision. Unless initiatives are started for a consultative and participatory process of finding solutions together with shifting cultivation communities, all the laws will continue to be mere paper tigers. b. Existing laws and policies that exist have been generally biased towards weaning away shifting cultivators from their traditional practices to sedentary market oriented farming. Rather than looking at the practice as a problem, it should be looked at as a solution because, ultimately, the solution lies within. c. There exists a lack of clarity in the system about the status of most tribal lands which have very conveniently been classified as ‘unclassed state forests’. People deny this and say, “These are our forests and the state has nothing to do with it”. How could governments be so vague about such large reserves of natural resources and deny it not just recognition but also funding for its development, maintenance and management? d. So many projects and programmes have been designed and granted by the Central government to stop or control shifting cultivation but there continues to be no clear database on the subject matter itself. There is no one clear data on the status of land, its use and practices. There also is an acute need for scientific data correlation for policy formulation. The box below clearly illustrates the confusing scenarios generated for policy makers, development practitioners and lay people alike. e. The classification of community resources as ‘unclassified state forests’ is not only misleading but an injustice to both the resources and its custodians. It is because of such a classification that there exists no clear data on how much is land actually farm land, forested, or whom it belongs to. On the other hand, the Village Councils have all these information albeit, in their own style, but it is reliable and acceptable to all. f. While there are a series of programmes and projects promoting sedentary forms of agriculture, horticulture and agroforestry, there are no specific government programmes to fund or support shifting cultivators in helping them improve what they do. Rather, all the development schemes at the core are actually designed to wean them away from shifting cultivation. This strategy must change and policy makers must involve activities to respect and appreciate shifting cultivators for their knowledge and practices. After all, the problem must be dealt with from within and not externally. g. Shifting cultivation must not be looked at in isolation but in the context of a wider variety of other agroforestry systems like home gardens and even wet rice cultivation. h. Governments must come up with comprehensive policies with regard to shifting cultivation rather than just toeing the line of the Central government for want of funds. On the other hand, the Central Government must also be willing to accept the complex heterogeneity that exist within farming communities across the states and different ecosystems of India. i. The main issue for discussions at the policy level seems to be “degradation of lands under Jhum” – It is true that Jhumlands are degrading, but then one must remember that the main determinant is the length of the Jhum cycle. In Mizoram and more so in the hills districts of Tripura and Assam, and some parts of Meghalaya; the jhum cycle lengths have unsustainably fallen to as few as three to five years. In Nagaland, Manipur (hills), and in Arunachal, about one third of the Jhum lands have now come under below 10years cycles, and thus the lands are degrading, though not as badly as in Mizoram and Tripura. Thus the Jhum domain of land is divisible into two – one where the cycles have fallen below 10 years, and one where the cycles are above 10 years. Any comprehensive strategy for shifting cultivation must recognize this as a core issue for future strategies. j. The “ten” years dividing line, as laid down above is not as arbitrary as it looks. Peoples experience and the observations of forestry and agriculture officers is that fast growing tree species not only grow up sufficiently in ten years but also given the soil and climatic conditions in this region, the vegetation can sufficiently regenerate and recuperate. k. Shifting cultivators conserve more forests on their land than any other farmers, and make it productive at the same time. Shifting cultivation is an agroforestry practice and the fallows must be recognized as forests on agricultural land, rather than farms on forest land.
[edit] II. Environment and Conservation
a. Since shifting cultivation is a mixed cropping system, biodiversity conservation is favoured both in forest and farm management. ‘The strength of shifting cultivation to contribute to conservation lies in its diversity. Shifting cultivation benefits biodiversity conservation through: o livelihood dependency creating incentives for conservation; o skill in mixed cropping and seed development; o different successional stages created because of rotation o IK, TEK and cultural practices’ b. Ecology & forest conservation is a way of life for shifting cultivators. The diversified cropping patterns and land use systems ensure multi-crop daily need requirements of even the poorest of the poor. Projects like NEPED (Nagaland Environment and Economic Development) has documented practices as shown in the box below. Even in rice paddy, there are over 30 recorded varieties grown in jhum areas. Such is the richness of the agro-biodiversity and germ-plasm in this system of cultivation.
[edit] Agrobiodiversity in Jhum fields
Traditional jhum fields are a rich depository of indigenous agro-biodiversity and must therefore be researched, documented and further improvised upon. The following points illustrate the richness of agro-biodiversity in the traditional jhum fields of Nagaland: 1. Crops grown in Chetheba area of Phek district in Nagaland in October 1998 revealed : - At least 167 crops (including 12 rice varieties); and - The species variety in each jhum field varied from 16 to 18 species. 2. Another study in January 1999 at Wokha village documented that 18 residual crops were being grown even after the harvest of main crops.
Source: NEPED and IIRR. Building Upon Traditional Agriculture in Nagaland. Nagaland Environment Protection and Economic Development, India and International Institute of Rural Reconstruction, Silang, Cavite, 4118 Phiippines.
c. Shifting cultivation and its fallow lands are chemical free by default. Policy makers must therefore capitalize on this and facilitate farmers grow organic niche products rather then forcing them towards cultivation of exotic crops. d. As one observer puts it, “If shifting cultivation is so destructive to forests, why is it that most of the standing forests continue to be in areas where shifting cultivation is practiced. After all, shifting cultivators cannot do without forests, and therefore the argument that they destroy forests is not correct”. This statement as funny as it seems has some valid points to be considered before one brush it aside. o Any keen observer will notice that traditional shifting cultivation is always practiced in dedicated jhum blocks and that they do not cut down into standing forests. The areas they slash and burn are secondary forests that have regenerated in the fallow lands in different jhum blocks. o Mr. Takatemjen Longkumer, a farmer from Mokokchung in Nagaland asserts that if the fallow is not good then it will harm the soil, and affect their harvest. This is the reason why the farmers never farm on the same jhum plot for more than two paddy harvests.
[edit] III. Social security and sustainable resource management
Social security is one of the main functions of local institutions of shifting cultivators. The fact that there are no ‘landless’ people in shifting cultivation areas, as every household has equal right and access to land for practicing shifting cultivation must be strongly noted. An important factor of community driven shifting cultivation is the principle of ‘cultivation for all’. a. The different categories of forests/land that an individual can depend upon for both farming and NTFPs is very wide and he/she can approach the different levels and institutions for permission: Village land: These are generally land and forest resources that are owned by the village and are often conserved as reserves. Community members may after permission from the Village Council, collect NTFP or timber to construct houses or other purpose. Clan land: Same as that of village land, except that these lands or forests belong to a particular clan. The management and control of such resources lie with the elders of the clan and any clan member may after due permission collect NTFP, timber or even farm on these lands. Family land: These are resources that may belong to a larger extended or immediate family. Individual land: Land or forest that has been purchased or gifted by or to an individual or land on which one develops and tills. However in the later case, once the user stops developing the land, it reverts to the village, clan, family, or to whom so ever it originally belongs.
b. Local institutions, particularly the Village Councils play an important role in the management of local resources and cultivation of jhum. Amongst others, some of them are: o Customary custodianship and control over community based resource tenure systems; o The knowledge bank for traditional knowledge systems; o Strategic management of community resources, particularly for fire management, land use allocation and communal action; and o Local governance and administration of justice, security and welfare.
Examples of initiatives and programmes for shifting cultivation:
[edit] Government initiatives
Starting from the 1st Five Year Plan (FYP) in the early fifties, the Government of India has view shifting cultivation as a problem and all policy decisions have been towards controlling it by encouraging plantation cash crops like rubber, coffee, black pepper and cashew. The jhum control programmes however only gained momentum from the 5th FYP with the introduction of the 100% grant Watershed Development Project for Shifting Cultivation Areas (WDPSCA). Unfortunately such programs have not yielded much success in weaning people away from shifting cultivation. Central government agencies like the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR), after much evaluation with regard to why shifting cultivators have not adopted to alternatives have summed up some important points such as: (i) Permanent cultivation cuts into their socio-cultural life. The peculiar community based land tenure system based on traditions and customs is a crucial factor and most models were designed for assets on permanent land occupancy; (ii) The alternatives as in terrace rice cultivation were not only low yielding but also input oriented in terms of seed cost and fertilizers, as well as, for irrigation; (iii) The low diversity of crops raised in the proposed programmes, as compared to the multilayered and multi-species crops in jhum fields do not meet the requirement and lifestyle of the communities; (iv) Many of the alternatives are not gender sensitive and the role of women is made insignificant, unlike in jhum where they play a major role; (v) The fallow phase of jhum is an important aspect of tribal subsistence economy and livelihood. Conversion of land into permanent terraces or other land uses eliminates this very important aspect of tribal life; (vi) Land in most parts of the northeast are within the jurisdiction of tribal institutions and lack codified documents. This also hampers with access to loans and other mortgage facilities with banks and financial institutions; (vii) The alternatives have all been cash crop or horticulture based which require strong financial and marketing infrastructure. This factor has not only been lacking but is further compounded by poor link roads; and (viii) The failure to recognize and support traditional innovations of farmers to intensify jhum and make it productive. On the other hand, while numerous shifting cultivation control programmes have not succeed well, some recent projects and initiatives that are people oriented have interesting done well. This could be because shifting cultivators are increasing also becoming aware of the adverse effects of short-cycle jhumming. Jhumias (jhumming families) are increasingly seeking government support, rehabilitation and viable alternatives and this has to be seen as a positive trend which the government must capitalize upon.
[edit] National Afforestation Programme (for jhum lands):
The National Afforestation Program in Nagaland is a centrally sponsored programme implemented through the Forest department’s Forest Development Agency (FDA), Government of Nagaland. This project is one example of how things can succeed if traditional village institutions and their governance structures are involved in planning and decision making.
The FDA first approaches and consults with the Village Councils, who in turn facilitate the constitution of the Joint Forest Management Committee (JFMC) in the village. This committee then comes up with a micro management plan and one the money is sanctioned, it is directly credited into the villagers JFMC account.
The formation of the JFMC by the Village Council is interesting that it includes representatives from each and every clan in the village, as well as, women representatives and Council members. The JFMC then first approaches clans for their clan (community) lands for the afforestation programme and once the beneficiaries are decided within themselves, they are given resources to plant trees. An interesting management strategy adopted by the Village Councils and the JFMCs in Nagaland is for the release of the second installment of funds. A monitoring team is formed consisting of representatives from the different clans and Council members and the release of funds to the beneficiary is based on the number of healthy surviving trees. This has ensured a very high survival rate of trees at more that 90% throughout the state.
While this looks good, community elders have also placed some concerns and some of their remarks are quoted below: • “Traditional village institutions should not be taken for granted by government agencies just because they have money for projects. We should not be used only as hired agents to implement their programmes, rather we know what is best and what is required where… and hence, the government must consult us more often and give us freedom in planning our own destiny” – Imnasashi Jamir, Mopungchuket village • “It seems the government is not very happy with the project in our village as we have not planted enough trees. What do you expect us to do when we already have many good forests and not just trees? We can’t just grow and eat trees! If the government wants us to conserve these great forests, they should not just ask us to grow more trees but also provide us good alternatives and we shall ensure that there are more and more trees.” – Mongko Chang, Chingmei village • “On one hand we are asked to grow trees and we have done so, not just for this project but even before. On the other hand, I know that there are Court restrictions for us to sell our forest produces. What is the government playing at?” – Anonymous, Wokha village • “Planting trees is not a problem – we know how to and have enough land – but if they (government) want us to just go on planting more and more trees, we do not have enough people to tend to these trees. In the process, all the trees will suffer. They should therefore, not tell us to keep planting trees but help us with what we have planted first.” – Village Council member, Mokokchung village • “The fallow lands have plenty of standing and growing trees but nobody wants to help us in improving it. Why can the government give us the afforestation money for maintaining these rather than instructing us to buy saplings and plant in new areas?” – Anonymous, Khonoma village
[edit] Two breakthroughs – field interventions
‘Where the degradation is fast, people themselves see it and there is no need to tell them that some alternative is required. They know the situation. They look forward to guidance. Here, failure lie with Governments extension agencies both in the agriculture and forestry domains’ . Recent events show that in many pockets people themselves - or as advised by project officials - have switched from Jhum to ‘settled’ agriculture, including horticultural plantations but it must also be mentioned that many of these ‘converts’ continue to practice shifting cultivation but at a smaller scale.
During the past decade, two externally funded development projects were implemented viz., Nagaland Environmental Protection and Economic Development (NEPED), in Nagaland, and North-Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP) in six hill districts of Meghalaya, Manipur, and Assam. Both these projects had a major component on improvement of jhum. While NEPED has excelled in improving the livelihoods through promotion of tree husbandry and cash crops, the NERCORMP has done exceptional work in institution building and microfinance. These projects have demonstrated that through multi-pronged external intervention, the productivity of jhumming can be enhanced. The lessons of such stories need to be built into future strategies.
Where degradation is not yet perceived by people, or where the cycles are above 10 years, Jhumming will continue, there is no escape from this, and here is where some breakthrough is a critically required. The NEPED (phase I) project of Nagaland from 1995 to 2000 in Nagaland made a successful demonstration of an intervention in such a situation by introducing trees as just crops in shifting cultivators fields.
[edit] The NEPED story
Jhum farmers were persuaded to plant about 1000 trees in their jhum plots just when they sow paddy seeds. Species were selected by farmers on the basis of experience that the trees will yield to girths from three to four feet in 10 to 12 years, which could be sold as round logs in the local timber market. The choice of tree species was done by farmers together with assistance of the project team.
In the subsequent two years, when the farmers take two crops of paddy, the tree seedlings grow up. They have been well attended to, protected and nursed by the farmers as and when they go to their fields for weeding the paddy field. After harvest, the fallow period begins. At this stage the trees, now two years old, have grown up to average heights of six to 12 feet. These 1000 trees now create their own ambience, in which some shade loving annuals other than paddy can be grown. The project had a small participatory research component supervised by a senior agriculture officer to see what plants could be planted in the shade of the trees. What many programmes could not achieve in long years of funding, the NEPED project in its short span achieved much. Some examples are: - In 1995, 1996 and 1998 some six million trees of 65 species were planted all across the 1000 villages in Nagaland, covering about 6000 hectares of jhumland. - The other fallow management experiment yielded a list of 10 different species of annuals, biennials which could be planted for the first two years of the fallow period. - Seeing the healthy growth of trees and that the trees did not interfere paddy production, people on their own undertook vigorous tree planting – an assessment done by India Canada Environment Facility (ICEF) in 2000 showed that this “spontaneous” replication was to the extent of six times the plantations of the project; i.e. the number of trees planted was about 36 million. - Another encouraging thing was – women groups also took up tree plantation in lands allotted to them by their village councils.
Source: Gokhale, A.M. (2007) Unpublished paper
[edit] The third initiative – policy consultations
Solutions to the ‘problems’ of shifting cultivation, it seems, might not lie in punitive and regulatory methods and deterrents. Such stringent deterrents and downright strict enforcement of laws have failed as alternatives were not socially, culturally and ecologically acceptable to the tribal communities. A small initiative was therefore launched in 2002 by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and smaller local partners across the eastern Himalayan regions of eastern Nepal, Bhutan, northeast India, Myanmar and the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. “During this period, a series of field-based participatory research and policy analysis were undertaken to understand and document the challenges with regard to shifting cultivation. Documentations were undertaken not for pure scientific studies but to facilitate a sustained and rooted dialogue on issues of policies and legislations on shifting cultivation which culminated in the passing of the ‘Shillong Declaration’ and a set of policy recommendations.”
While a series of challenges and recommendations were documented, a core lesson from this exercise was that there has been a pure lack of communication and documentation between practitioners (shifting cultivation communities), researchers and policy makers. This led not just to misconceptions and misplaced strategies on the issue but further alienated the poorest of the poor; and also to a huge wastage of resources and finance that could have been utilized to develop such regions.
It is worthy of note that where ever successes have been recorded in dealing with shifting cultivation problems, it was not due to punitive regulations but because of development programmes that involved local people in decision making. The basic element of development was the key driver and legislative backing was only seen as an assurance of action by the government.
[edit] Conclusion:
Interactions with community leaders, local policy makers and traditional institutions have established that unless efforts are made to find out the essential elements required to establish close links between communities and governance structures nothing concrete happens. It is important to find out what holds back the two key stakeholders to work together under any circumstances, especially when the intentions are good and one understands the needs and aspirations of the other.
In addition to the above, we have to ensure that perceptions and experiences are documented in such a way that leaders express themselves in a non–regulated manner and if needed steer the expressions so that they are always around local environmental governance.
A major challenge with regard to local environmental governance, particularly when it comes to communities in the northeaster region of India will depent a lot of the following: Institutionalisation of community owned forests and their institutions. Making community owned forests accessible to government schemes, compensations etc. This is easier said than done because unlike in the ‘community forests’ as established in the government Acts, the community forests in this region have never been with or under the control of the state. Recognising traditional/community land ownership and rights. Incorporating or enshrining spirit of strengths of the Jhum regulations into Forest Act and redefining the term ‘unclassed state forests’ so that the rightful owners and managers of these forests are recognised Not negating community rights – ensuring access and rightful compensations
The dilemma and debate on shifting cultivation, its local governance and whether it is good or bad will continue for many more days to come. This present analysis , perhaps is just an attempt to highlight that there are many actors and stakeholders when it comes to shifting cultivation and that there is a need to revisit policies and laws on natural resources, particularly forests and those that regulate the practice of shifting cultivation. After all, ‘…policies can function as social visions for the future and represent a statement of intent by government to shape an outcome’ , but on the other hand, failed policies can be costly particularly when it come to peoples livelihood, environmental security and social equity. This was very distinctly reflected in the state of Mr Imlikokba, a Naga farmer who said during a policy workshop: ‘We hear that you learned people are here to make policies for us shifting cultivators. This is good and we wish you the best. But let me ask you to be wise and careful because shifting cultivation to us is not just about mere farming. It is our life, tradition, culture, religion and our institution. Without it, we are nothing!’
