Agroforestry: An alternative sustainable land use system approach in the Philippines : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the post graduate Diploma in Natural Resources at Lincoln College New Zealand

Abstract

The number of people engaged in shifting cultivation in the Philippines is estimated at 7.5 million. These people live below the poverty level, and are directly dependent on kaingin (also referred as slash and burn agriculture, shifting cultivation, swidden farming, taungya (Oracion, 1963; Olofson, 1980)) for their sustenance and livelihood. Kaingin is the practice of clearing of land for crops by slash and burn. and planting rice or other staple crops. After a few years. soil fertility is severely depleted and the farmer is forced to clear another area. Kaingin is characterised by low level of capital inputs, highly fluctuating labour use and subsistence living.

Kaingin as practiced is not only a means of making a living; it is a way of life in itself. It is however. a social. environmental. economic and political problem in the Philippines. The uncontrolled human activities of kaingin have resulted in the rapid and widespread depletion of forest resources, destructive floods. drought. nutrient pool depletion, and the extinction of indigenous flora and fauna. The most serious aspect is that these changes are irreversible (at least in terms of human time scales). Kaingin not only threatens the sustainable use of Philippine forests. but it also presents the Philippine Government and people with many social, economic. and environmental problems.