Narinjara News
Ban on swidden agriculture
threatening Arakanese livelihoods
Lamar, Dec 20: The Burmese military junta has placed a ban
on swidden agricultural practices in the northern
districts of Arakan state, Maung Daw and Buthedaung, according to a tribal leader.
Most Arakanese people in northern Arakan traditionally rely on swidden
or slash-and-burn cultivation for their livelihoods, and they are worried about
food and product shortages resulting from the ban.
Before the ban, the junta tried to “educate” the people
about mountain terrain cultivation.
The cultivators were summoned to the Model Mountain
Agricultural Office in Hna Rone
Taung, Maung Daw for lectures on the negative effects
of swidden agriculture and the benefits of mountain
terrain agricultural methods that the government approved of.
At the same time, the government also promised to provide
fertilizers and seeds of beans and pepper. However in reality these
promises are never delivered.
A Mro
cultivator says that this Slash and Burn method has been used for generations
and it is hard for the Mro people to change from the
long established method to other methods.
The Swidden or Slash and Burn
method involves clearing the mountainside by cutting the trees during November
to January and leaving the cuttings to be dried during the summer. About
a month before the rainy season, the field is burned and cultivated with the
first rain.
The authority saw this method as problem leading to
deforestation. However, in international academic circles, the effects
and the wisdom of the swidden cultivation are
subjected to hot debates between scholars.
There are about 50,000 Arakanese
of the Mro, Mroone, Dine
Nat, and Chakma ethnic groups living in the northern
part of Arakan bordering
One of their leaders told Narinjara
that the government’s promise of helping to replace cultivation methods is
hollow and they are not trying to solve this problem in a systematic way. #
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