Abstract
Shifting cultivation is a predominant land use across the tropics, feeding hundreds of millions of marginalised people, causing significant deforestation, and encompassing a combined area of land ten-fold greater than that used for oil palm and rubber. A key question is whether carbon-based payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes can cost-effectively bring novel restoration and carbon-sensitive management practices to shifting agriculture. Using economic models that uniquely consider the substantial area of fallow land needed to support a single cultivated plot, we calculated the break-even carbon prices required for PES to match the opportunity cost of intervention in shifting agriculture. We do so in the North-east Indian biodiversity hotspot, where 35.4% of land is managed under shifting agriculture. We found net revenues of US$829.53–2581.95 per 30 ha when fallow area is included, which are an order of magnitude lower than previous estimates. Abandoning shifting agriculture entirely is highly feasible with break-even prices as low as US$1.33 t−1 CO2, but may conflict with food security. The oldest fallow plots could be fully restored for US$0.89 t−1 CO2 and the expansion of shifting agriculture into primary forest halted for US$0.51 t−1 CO2, whereas abandoning short-fallow systems would cost US$12.60 t−1 CO2. A precautionary reanalysis accounting for extreme economic uncertainty and leakage costs suggests that all interventions, excluding abandoning short-fallow systems, remain economically viable with prices less than US$4.00 t−1 CO2. Even with poorly formed voluntary carbon markets, shifting agriculture represents a critical opportunity for low-cost forest restoration whilst diversifying income streams of marginalised communities across a vast area.
Highlights
Shifting cultivation dates as far back as 10 000BC (Thrupp et al 1997) and remains the predominant agricultural land-use in many tropical regions, including much of Central and South America, SubSaharan Africa, and key areas of conservation interest in Asia and Australasia, notably Bangladesh, Laos and Papua New Guinea (Schmidt-Vogt et al 2009, van Vliet et al 2012, Heinimann et al 2017)
This mosaic landscape is characterised by a cycle, with a cleared area cultivated for a short period of Global economic and infrastructural trends are facilitating transitions from subsistence shifting cultivation to more profitable permanent crops or plantations as community isolation reduces, enabling wider market access, but driving carbon losses (Borah et al 2018)
Focal area and data We focus on Northeast India, an ideal potential site for payment for ecosystem services (PES) schemes due to the secure legal tenure that is bestowed upon tribal communities and isolated smallholders practising shifting cultivation under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (Bhullar 2006, Ramnath 2008)
Summary
Shifting cultivation dates as far back as 10 000BC (Thrupp et al 1997) and remains the predominant agricultural land-use in many tropical regions, including much of Central and South America, SubSaharan Africa, and key areas of conservation interest in Asia and Australasia, notably Bangladesh, Laos and Papua New Guinea (Schmidt-Vogt et al 2009, van Vliet et al 2012, Heinimann et al 2017). Food insecurity and population growth are driving shorter cycle lengths (5 years or less) as smallholders demand more output from a limited land area Where such contractions occur, carbon losses are assured (Borah et al 2018), as the standing secondary forest growth in the eldest fallow plots is replaced with degraded scrubland characteristic of short cycles, limiting both biomass and biodiversity recovery (Blankespoor 1991, Itioka et al 2014). Carbon losses are assured (Borah et al 2018), as the standing secondary forest growth in the eldest fallow plots is replaced with degraded scrubland characteristic of short cycles, limiting both biomass and biodiversity recovery (Blankespoor 1991, Itioka et al 2014) Such changes, both current and predicted, highlight this ancient practice will likely be replaced before the centuries end (Heinimann et al 2017, Dressler et al 2018). If not re-sequestered in secondary fallow growth, the practices yearly clearing alone would account for 13.7%–51.2% of all agricultural CO2 emissions worldwide (Seiler and Crutzen 1980, Silva et al 2011, Tubiello et al 2013)
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