ABSTRACT
This chapter examines on environmental-governance campaigns that have come to define an 'appropriate' role for indigenous Tagbanua farmers in accessing and using forests for swidden agriculture on Palawan Island, in the Philippines. It reveals how on Palawan, government agencies, city administrators and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have reproduced outdated conservation debates about forests and swidden agriculture in rural localities, leading farmers to 'internalize' beliefs that swidden is illegal and destructive, requiring that it be abandoned. While acknowledging that most Tagbanua farmers follow diverse livelihoods, ranging from subsistence to wage labour, the chapter concludes that among many farmers, self-regulation has partly led to the decline of swidden in the context of other socio-political, economic and biophysical pressures. State agencies and NGOs, among others, draw on cultural values and scientific ideals to govern, discipline and normalize indigenous peoples use of the environment according to market values and productivity that supports conservation and development.
