Shifting Cultivation

Shifting Cultivation is still practice in Sarawak. It is mainly done for the purpose of planting hill paddy (padi bukit). The land is cleared by cutting down trees, usually in hills or slopes of mountains. The land is cleared as early as July and left to dry up until late September. By then the trees will be dry enough for burning.


The trees are then burn. In fully burnt fields, the tree trunks are reduced to ashes completely. This will in turn acts as fertilizer for the young paddy plants, and this will then produce good yields.

Partly burnt tree trunks are cut into manageable size and re burn. The green growth that you see here are paddy plants which are starting to grow.

From this picture you can easily recognized the land cycle that is involve in this shifting cultivation. The land is left to fallow until the trees are grown to 6-8 inches in diameter. This may takes up to 8-10 years. By doing so, there is enough time for the land to heal itself. As shifting cultivation is done on a small scale basis, the environmental effect is not so much.