Spanish version of this article
Nancy Kingsbury examined links between deforestation
and decline of traditional agricultural practices
Spanish version of this article
Nancy Kingsbury examined links between deforestation
and decline of traditional agricultural practices
Population pressures, the introduction of wage labour, and the decline of traditional ecological knowledge are accelerating the loss of forest cover in the Gran Sabana, says Nancy Kingsbury. She is a doctoral candidate at York University in Toronto and a recipient of the 1994 John G. Bene Fellowship in Social Forestry. Kingsbury says that solutions to the region's environmental woes lie in secure land tenure and the adoption of appropriate forest conservation techniques, which could help slow deforestation in the area.
Kingsbury's goal was to determine whether the traditional shifting cultivation of the Pemón Amerindians is the cause of deforestation in the Gran Sabana, a widely held view in Venezuela. In fact, her data suggest the opposite: the decline of traditional agricultural methods may be the real culprit.
To adapt to these conditions, Pemón communities have traditionally maintained very low population densities, while carefully choosing their sites for growing crops. "Shifting agriculture is sustainable if it's done for short periods of time over a large area," explains Kingsbury.
In recent decades, however, there has been a significant decline in the amount of forest cover. One of the first groups to raise the alarm was EDELCA, the regional hydroelectric authority, whose dams have caused wide-scale flooding and displaced some Pemón communities north of the Gran Sabana, notes Kingsbury. Concerned about the impact of deforestation on the hydrological regime, including rainfall, in the region, EDELCA launched a forest fire control program there in 1981.
After being cleared for cultivation, forests returned to 50% of the fields in Kavanayen, compared to 75% of the fields in Monte Bello. She explains that in Kavanayen, the decisions about where to grow crops is now based more on proximity to the village than on soil fertility, slope, and other key considerations. Kingsbury blames this on social and cultural disruption. In both villages, the population growth rate has been phenomenal, more than doubling between 1982 and 1995. But population density is much higher in Kavanayen, where people have primarily settled around the mission to access jobs, social services, and medicine. As a result of incorporation into the non-indigenous economy and educational system, traditional knowledge and use of sustainable agricultural practices are being lost.
"Many younger men hold seasonal jobs, so they don't have enough time to cut gardens in the more distant old growth forests," she says. "They prefer instead to cut down the younger, smaller trees in the nearby secondary forests because it's faster."
Kingsbury also recommends the use of "green manure" — a mixture of crop leftovers, leaves and branches — to fertilize fields between growing seasons. Tested successfully in Central America, green manure is less expensive than chemical inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, she says. And, "compost quickly breaks down in the tropics, so this is an efficient means of replenishing the soils." Kingsbury adds that on a political level, "controls need to be placed on the extensive gold mining activities in the region, which are also destroying forests."
John Eberlee is an Ottawa-based writer on health and development issues.
Resource Person:
Nancy Kingsbury, Graduate Program in Geography, York University, 4700 Keele Street, North York, Ontario M3J 1P3; e-mail: kingsbur@web.net