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SUMMARYCommunity-based natural resource management (CBNRM) has been on the ascendancy for several decades and plays a leading role in conservation strategies worldwide. Arriving out of a desire to rectify the human costs associated with coercive conservation, CBNRM sought to return the stewardship of biodiversity and natural resources to local communities through participation, empowerment and decentralization. Today, however, scholars and practitioners suggest that CBNRM is experiencing a crisis of identity and purpose, with even the most positive examples experiencing only fleeting success due to major deficiencies. Six case studies from around the world offer a history of how and why the global CBNRM narrative has unfolded over time and space. While CBNRM emerged with promise and hope, it often ended in less than ideal outcomes when institutionalized and reconfigured in design and practice. Nevertheless, despite the current crisis, there is scope for refocusing on the original ideals of CBNRM: ensuring social justice, material well-being and environmental integrity.

This paper explores the major interactions between the transformation of swidden farming and the pursuit of rural livelihoods in the uplands of Southeast Asia. The paper draws on selected literature, workshop reflections, and six case studies to describe the causal processes and livelihood consequences of swidden change. Householdlevel livelihood responses have included both the intensification and 'dis-intensification' of swidden land-use, the insertion of cash crops, the redeployment of household labour, and the taking on of broader (often non-rural) livelihood aspirations and strategies. At the community level there have been emerging institutional arrangements for management of land and forests, and varying degrees of participation in or resistance to government schemes and programs. Swidden change has led to the loss and also the reassertion, realignment, and redefinition of cultures and identities, with important implications for access to resources. The impacts of these changes have been varied. Cash crops have often improved livelihoods but complete specialisation for the market increases vulnerability. Thus swidden can still provide an important safety net in the face of market fluctuations. Improved access to markets and social provision of education and health care have mostly improved the welfare of previously isolated groups. However, growing differences within and between communities in the course of swidden transformations can leave some groups marginalized and worse off. These processes of differentiation can be accentuated by heavy-handed state interventions based on swidden stereotypes. Nevertheless, communities have not passively accepted these pressures and have mobilized to protect their livelihood assets and strategies. Thus swidden farmers are not resisting appropriate and supportive forms of development. They are adopting new practices and engaging with markets, but in many situations swidden is still important to their livelihood strategies, providing resilience in the face of turbulent change. Active involvement of local people is essential in planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating development and conservation programs in swidden lands. Positive market incentives and supportive government policies are better than standardised, top-down directives.

Policy makers across the tropics propose that carbon finance could provide incentives for forest frontier communities to transition away from swidden agriculture (slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation) to other systems that potentially reduce emissions and/or increase carbon sequestration. However, there is little certainty regarding the carbon outcomes of many key land-use transitions at the center of current policy debates. Our meta-analysis of over 250 studies reporting above- and below-ground carbon estimates for different land-use types indicates great uncertainty in the net total ecosystem carbon changes that can be expected from many transitions, including the replacement of various types of swidden agriculture with oil palm, rubber, or some other types of agroforestry systems. These transitions are underway throughout Southeast Asia, and are at the heart of REDD+ debates. Exceptions of unambiguous carbon outcomes are the abandonment of any type of agriculture to allow forest regeneration (a certain positive carbon outcome) and expansion of agriculture into mature forest (a certain negative carbon outcome). With respect to swiddening, our meta-analysis supports a reassessment of policies that encourage land-cover conversion away from these [especially long-fallow] systems to other more cash-crop-oriented systems producing ambiguous carbon stock changes - including oil palm and rubber. In some instances, lengthening fallow periods of an existing swidden system may produce substantial carbon benefits, as would conversion from intensely cultivated lands to high-biomass plantations and some other types of agroforestry. More field studies are needed to provide better data of above- and below-ground carbon stocks before informed recommendations or policy decisions can be made regarding which land-use regimes optimize or increase carbon sequestration. As some transitions may negatively impact other ecosystem services, food security, and local livelihoods, the entire carbon and noncarbon benefit stream should also be taken into account before prescribing transitions with ambiguous carbon benefits.

We question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this 'half earth' plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a 'human half' of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality. Main TextThere is a new call to extend conservation frontiers as an ultimate attempt to save global biodiversity. Under the slogan 'nature needs half' (http://natureneedshalf.org/) and spearheaded by leading conservation scientists such as Edward O. Wilson (2016), Reed Noss (Noss et al, 2012), George Wuerthner and John Terborgh (Wuerthner et al, 2015), a vision has been formulated to turn half of the earth into a series of interconnected protected areas. This radical plan for conservation seeks to expand and strengthen the world's current network of protected areas to create a patchwork grid of reserves encompassing at least half the world's surface and hence "about 85 percent" of remaining biodiversity (Wilson, 2016). We wish to open up debate about this idea. While it might be interpreted as simply a rhetorical challenge to provoke greater conservation effort, it is proposed by senior scientific figures and is being widely discussed and supported. Critical reflection about this proposal is thus important.The plan proposed is staggering in scale: protected areas, according to the IUCN, currently incorporate around 15.4% of the earth's terrestrial areas and 3.4% of its oceans. They would thus need to more than triple in extent on land and by more than ten-fold in the oceans. Not only would this include the earth's currently still relatively intact ecosystems and natural habitats, it would also necessarily entail an active programme of restoration and 'rewilding' to 2 return larger areas to a more pristine 'pre-human' baseline (Wilson, 2016;Noss et al, 2012;Donlan et al, 2005). E. O. Wilson is arguably most explicit in his recent book Half-Earth, stating that "only by setting aside half the planet in reserve, or more, can we save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival" (Wilson, 2016: 3).Other conservationists agree that such a goal is the 'only defensible target' from a 'strictly scientific point of view' to allow for a sustainable future (Wuerthner et al, 2015: 18).These proposals seem to be driven by the credo 'desperate times call for desperate measures'. We agree with Wilson and other conservationists that because biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate as a result of human activity therefore urgent need for action to address this. Desperate times, however, demand careful decisions. We argue that the 'hal...

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The environmental crises currently gripping the Earth have been codified in a new proposed geological epoch: the Anthropocene. This epoch, according to the Anthropocene Working Group, began in the mid-20th century and reflects the “great acceleration” that began with industrialization in Europe [J. Zalasiewicz et al., Anthropocene 19, 55–60 (2017)]. Ironically, European ideals of protecting a pristine “wilderness,” free from the damaging role of humans, is still often heralded as the antidote to this human-induced crisis [J. E. M. Watson et al., Nature, 563, 27–30 (2018)]. Despite decades of critical engagement by Indigenous and non-Indigenous observers, large international nongovernmental organizations, philanthropists, global institutions, and nation-states continue to uphold the notion of pristine landscapes as wilderness in conservation ideals and practices. In doing so, dominant global conservation policy and public perceptions still fail to recognize that Indigenous and local peoples have long valued, used, and shaped “high-value” biodiverse landscapes. Moreover, the exclusion of people from many of these places under the guise of wilderness protection has degraded their ecological condition and is hastening the demise of a number of highly valued systems. Rather than denying Indigenous and local peoples’ agency, access rights, and knowledge in conserving their territories, we draw upon a series of case studies to argue that wilderness is an inappropriate and dehumanizing construct, and that Indigenous and community conservation areas must be legally recognized and supported to enable socially just, empowering, and sustainable conservation across scale.

Global economic change and policy interventions are driving transitions from long-fallow swidden (LFS) systems to alternative land uses in Southeast Asia’s uplands. This study presents a systematic review of how these transitions impact upon livelihoods and ecosystem services in the region. Over 17 000 studies published between 1950 and 2015 were narrowed, based on relevance and quality, to 93 studies for further analysis. Our analysis of land-use transitions from swidden to intensified cropping systems showed several outcomes: more households had increased overall income, but these benefits came at significant cost such as reductions of customary practice, socio-economic wellbeing, livelihood options, and staple yields. Examining the effects of transitions on soil properties revealed negative impacts on soil organic carbon, cation-exchange capacity, and aboveground carbon. Taken together, the proximate and underlying drivers of the transitions from LFS to alternative land uses, especially intensified perennial and annual cash cropping, led to significant declines in pre-existing livelihood security and the ecosystem services supporting this security. Our results suggest that policies imposing land-use transitions on upland farmers so as to improve livelihoods and environments have been misguided; in the context of varied land uses, swidden agriculture can support livelihoods and ecosystem services that will help buffer the impacts of climate change in Southeast Asia.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0836-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorised users.