ABSTRACT
The management of swidden fallow vegetation is an aspect of local natural resource management that is common to all tropical regions. This vegetation follows crop production, which may have lasted any time from one to several years. Its environmental function is to accumulate nutrient stocks and replenish the nutrients lost from the fields during cropping. Often, however, the fallow vegetation is also an important source of useful products and, although most of these are used for family consumption, they are also traded. There are many reports of active management to enhance returns from useful fallow species (for example Denevan and Padoch 1987; de Jong 1996, 1997; Jessup 1981; Smith et al. 1999). Under some circumstances, the useful species in these fallow fields become so valuable that both the fallow and the field’s subsequent agricultural function are forgone, and the field is maintained as a forest garden. In some swidden farming communities, this development is anticipated by planting economically important tree species into the fields (de Jong 1996).
