Infodoc : Sciences, Techniques et Culture

This study attempts to provide rnore concrete information on the plant communities associated with slash-and-burn agriculture in East Kalimantan. We surveyed vegetation before and after slash-and-burn use and classified it as 5 types of plant communities by floristic composition and physiognomy. They are primary and logged over (burned) forests, pyrophytic forests in ,widden land and others, small-tree forests, shrub communities, and grassland. Slash-and-burn farming does not necessarily destroy the swidden land forests, in whieh trees less sensitive to felling and fire are dominant; but the farming by recent migrants has destroyed the sensitive original vegetation of primary and logged over (burned) foresta and replaced it with degraded plant communities, namely, small-tree forest[...]

This study attempts to provide rnore concrete information on the plant communities associated with slash-and-burn agriculture in East Kalimantan. We surveyed vegetation before and after slash-and-burn use and classified it as 5 types of plant communities by floristic composition and physiognomy. They are primary and logged over (burned) forests, pyrophytic forests in ,widden land and others, small-tree forests, shrub communities, and grassland. Slash-and-burn farming does not necessarily destroy the swidden land forests, in whieh trees less sensitive to felling and fire are dominant; but the farming by recent migrants has destroyed the sensitive original vegetation of primary and logged over (burned) foresta and replaced it with degraded plant communities, namely, small-tree forests and shrub communities. Signa of dégradation include biomass decrease, species conversion, and invasion of exotic immigrant plants. While degraded vegetation is often converted to plantation, plantation abandonment triggers off the establishment of Irnperata cylindrica grassland. Slash-and-burn farming itself rarely causes grassland formation, but frequent wildfires from slash-and-burn farmland disturb normal succession (orthosere) and expand grassland areas. It has been said that grasslands result from slash-and-burn farming itself, but that is not strictly true. (Résumé scannérisé)