Shifting cultivation is a form of land use among resource poor communities with a rotation of cultivation and fallow in the same unit of land. It involves the clearing of certain patches of forests by slashing and/or burning (in many cases), followed by short span of crop cultivation and long span of fallow period. It involves the cyclical shifting of cultivation sites. It is the  shift between fields rather than between crops on the same field, short (1 to 3 year) cropping periods alternating with longer fallow periods (4 to 60 years), cutting and burning of the fallow vegetation at the beginning of each cropping  period, and the almost exclusive use of human energy in land management operations.

Burning of vegetation. Source: Google.

The environment degradation is the most serious issue of the present day to be dealt with. Various types of anthropogenic activites  like industrial revolution, deforestation, increased population, etc have been fornt to be responsible for this. Beside these causes shifting cultivation is also playing considerable role in the environment degradation in various parts of the world mainly in sparsely populated and lesser developed areas where technological inputs for advance agriculture development are not available. It is expected to contribute 30% in the world's land degradation. This is mostly found in the African and South East Asian countries. In case of Nepal, shifting cultivation has cultural affiliation with indigenous people of Nepal like Chepang, Rai, Limbu, Magar, etc with poor. It is called as khoriya bhasme in Nepal. Though, there is no exact data recorded on the land area covered under shifting cultivation it is estimated that it is being carried in 20 districts of Nepal.. Each family of Chepang tribe is estimated to cover the land of  0.198ha by shifting cultivation. They have no legal ownership of these cultivation plots and are governmental plots.

As this method of cultivation involves the cutting and burning of the vegetation prior to crops cultivation, this helps to replenish the fertility of soil and also helps to eliminate the weeds, insects and pests. Moreover, this contribute in increasing the light approach to the land, incorporating the plants and vegetation allowing the cultivation in the areas with dense vegetation, poor nutrition soil content and uncontrollable pests. Despite these merits, shifting cultivation have put serious threat in natural habitat conservation. This is believed to be promoting the deforestation and carbon emission, biodiversity loss, greenery loss, soil degradation and sustainability loss.

This method of farming has been playing crucial role in the environment degradation. So, sustainable resource programs and trainings seems utmost to the tribes who are practicing shifting cultivation as their generational trend. The dependency of resource poor farmers is to be twisted to other things rather than natural resource. The  policy making for sustainable use of natural resources is to be considered on the legitimate level and the implementation consideration are to be undertaken among marginalized people. If no actions are considered and implemented as soon as possible, there is high risk of species loss in the country.