Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun An area cleared for temporary cultivation by cutting and burning the vegetation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun an area of
land that has beencleared bycutting thevegetation andburning it;slash and burn - verb to clear an area of land by cutting and burning
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Slash-and-burn, or "swidden," agriculture - clearing patches of woodland for crops and moving on after each harvest to allow the soil to replenish itself - is usually seen as a crude antecedent to the more intensive farming practiced in the lowlands and most of the developed world.
Boston Globe -- Ideas section Drake Bennett 2010
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Slash-and-burn, or "swidden," agriculture - clearing patches of woodland for crops and moving on after each harvest to allow the soil to replenish itself - is usually seen as a crude antecedent to the more intensive farming practiced in the lowlands and most of the developed world.
Anarchist news dot org - Comments anon 2010
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Trees turned the color of bone by drought, skies black with the smoke and ash of swidden burning for cultivation, the forest heavy with the smell of death.
Masked Lou Anders 2010
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Trees turned the color of bone by drought, skies black with the smoke and ash of swidden burning for cultivation, the forest heavy with the smell of death.
Masked Lou Anders 2010
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Many maintain a traditional swidden agriculture, with hunter-gathering and trading in artefacts; some today also live on mining and tourism.
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The Highland Peoples have a special relationship to their land, and their livelihood depends directly on swidden cultivation and the collection of non-timber forest products.
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The Highland Peoples have a special relationship to their land, and their livelihood depends directly on swidden cultivation and the collection of non-timber forest products.
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Secondary forest on areas of former swidden agriculture are found in the Mae Chan Valley and central uplands towards the east.
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Reconstruction of pristine forest structure and composition has been made very difficult by the high degree of landscape degradation that has taken place, much of it as the result of swidden agricultural practices.
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There are at least seven different tribes in and around GLNP, with their own languages and cultures from the Aceh and Gayo muslim farmers in the north, Batak highland farmers and Pakpak hunters and swidden hill farmers to the Alas, Singhil and Melayu rice farmers and fishermen of the lowlands mixed with Javanese once imported by the Dutch.
sionnach commented on the word swidden
A large Scandinavian country, whose landmass corresponds to terrain obtained by burning away vegetation from the tundra.
n. use of swidden, swithen to singe < ON svithna to be singed, deriv. of svītha to singe (cf. dial. swithe, ME swithen)
November 11, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word swidden
"Farther south, the mountains are swidden-scarred—the soil beneath is bright red and so these parts look like fresh lacerations."
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 32 of the Avon Books paperback edition
January 22, 2013