ABSTRACT
Shifting agriculture (also called slashand-burn agriculture) is common mostly in tropical forest areas. It involves the cutting and burning of forests, cropping the land for a few years until the soil fertility is exhausted, and then abandoning the area and moving on to clear another forest patch for agriculture. Shifting cultivation renders cleared and abandoned areas prone to extreme soil erosion, which eventually results in the loss of their regenerative capacity permanently. The
practice renders millions of people as “environmental refugees.” Nomadic herding occurs where the land conditions are not favorable to support crops for livestock growth, and hence herders must continually search for fodder by moving their animals.
