Peer Learning and Exposure Visit on Managing Transformations in Shifting Cultivation

To understand the changes implicit in transformations in shifting cultivation and to learn from successful practices in the region, ICIMOD and the North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project (NERCORMP), will facilitate a peer-learning, experiential visit for practitioners dealing with the management of transformations in shifting cultivation across the Eastern Himalayas.

Event objectives are

• to provide a platform to key stakeholders engaged in managing transformations in shifting cultivation and its impact on livelihoods to share their experiences as part of a peer-learning process, highlighting critical issues that need addressing to avoid negative impacts;
• to familiarise participants with emerging issues in the management of successful transformations through case studies and field visits focusing implicit issue challenges;
• and to identify ways forward in terms of programme development and implementation activities.

The event will be structured around four areas of concern: crop diversity and food availability; changing land use and tenurial security; challenges to ecosystem services; and access to programmes and schemes for transformations for communities practising shifting cultivation and policy makers. The issues of governance, gender, and access to schemes and programmes will be considered as cross-cutting issues.

About forty-five participants will join the event from government departments and line agencies working in agriculture, forest, horticulture, revenue, regional and district councils, research institutes and development projects from Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar.