TY - JOUR
T1 - Slash and Burn and Fires in Indonesia: A comment
AU - Tacconi, Luca
AU - Vayda, Andrew P
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - A paper published in Ecological Economics [Varma, A. 2003. The economics of slash and burn: a case study of the 1997-1998 Indonesian forest fires. Ecological Economics 46,159-171] claims to show that slash and burn agriculture is socially inefficient and should be banned. However, its conclusions and recommendations are flawed. It defines slash and burn agriculture too broadly and misrepresents the nature and causes of the 1997-98 fires by virtue of attributing them entirely to slash and burn agriculture. Its economic assessment of the costs of the fires is also problematic. The recommendations to ban land-clearing fires and to provide alternative livelihoods to slash and burn farmers cannot be supported.
AB - A paper published in Ecological Economics [Varma, A. 2003. The economics of slash and burn: a case study of the 1997-1998 Indonesian forest fires. Ecological Economics 46,159-171] claims to show that slash and burn agriculture is socially inefficient and should be banned. However, its conclusions and recommendations are flawed. It defines slash and burn agriculture too broadly and misrepresents the nature and causes of the 1997-98 fires by virtue of attributing them entirely to slash and burn agriculture. Its economic assessment of the costs of the fires is also problematic. The recommendations to ban land-clearing fires and to provide alternative livelihoods to slash and burn farmers cannot be supported.
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.03.034
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.03.034
M3 - Article
VL - 56
SP - 1
EP - 4
JO - Ecological Economics
JF - Ecological Economics
SN - 0921-8009
IS - 1
ER -