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Farms or Forests? Understanding and Mapping Shifting Cultivation Using the Case Study of West Garo Hills, India

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  • Amit John Kurien

    (Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Jakkur P. O., Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064, India
    Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal, Karnataka 576104, India)

  • Sharachchandra Lele

    (Centre for Environment and Development, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Royal Enclave, Jakkur P. O., Bengaluru, Karnataka 560064, India)

  • Harini Nagendra

    (School of Development, Azim Premji University, PES Institute of Technology Campus, Pixel Park, B Block, Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560100, India)

Abstract

Attempts to study shifting cultivation landscapes are fundamentally impeded by the difficulty in mapping and distinguishing shifting cultivation, settled farms and forests. There are foundational challenges in defining shifting cultivation and its constituent land-covers and land-uses, conceptualizing a suitable mapping framework, and identifying consequent methodological specifications. Our objective is to present a rigorous methodological framework and mapping protocol, couple it with extensive fieldwork and use them to undertake a two-season Landsat image analysis to map the forest-agriculture frontier of West Garo Hills district, Meghalaya, in Northeast India. We achieve an overall accuracy of ~80% and find that shifting cultivation is the most extensive land-use, followed by tree plantations and old-growth forest confined to only a few locations. We have also found that commercial plantation extent is positively correlated with shortened fallow periods and high land-use intensities. Our findings are in sharp contrast to various official reports and studies, including from the Forest Survey of India, the Wastelands Atlas of India and state government statistics that show the landscape as primarily forested with only small fractions under shifting cultivation, a consequence of the lack of clear definitions and poor understanding of what constitutes shifting cultivation and forest. Our results call for an attentive revision of India’s official land-use mapping protocols, and have wider significance for remote sensing-based mapping in other shifting cultivation landscapes.

Suggested Citation

  • Amit John Kurien & Sharachchandra Lele & Harini Nagendra, 2019. "Farms or Forests? Understanding and Mapping Shifting Cultivation Using the Case Study of West Garo Hills, India," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-26, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:8:y:2019:i:9:p:133-:d:262233
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Dileep Kumar Pandey & Kalkame Ch Momin & Shantanu Kumar Dubey & Poovaragavalu Adhiguru, 2022. "Biodiversity in agricultural and food systems of jhum landscape in the West Garo Hills, North-eastern India," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 14(3), pages 791-804, June.

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