Expansion of shifting cultivation fields over old-growth forest between 1987 and 2014.

<p>a) Total area cultivated per year, i.e. total area where a clear cut occurred regardless if the previous land cover was an old-growth forest or a secondary-forest fallow (in black), and the area where clear cuts occurred in old-growth forests (in grey). b) The percentage of clear cut area in old-growth forests relative to the total clear cut area each year.</p

Secondary forest age and land-use intensity of the shifting cultivation landscape in 2014.

<p>(a) Cumulative area with secondary-forest fallows with different ages in 2014. (b) Cumulative area of fields that experienced different number of clear-cut events (swidden-fallow cycles). Dashed lines indicate the age of secondary forests (a) and the number of clearcut events in 50% and 80% of the fields.</p

Map of the study area and the land-use history of the active shifting cultivation landscape retrieved by remote sensing.

<p>(a) Map of the Amazon Basin indicating the location of the study area (green diamond). Landsat 8 image (September 29^th 2014; band combination 6/5/2) of the study area (buffer zone) showing the location of riverine communities and respective number of households. The red square indicates the zoomed area represented in maps c and d. Maps show the land-use history of agricultural fields during the time period of 1985 until 2015. Segments represent pixels that have similar land-use history; (b) Map of the study area showing all the segments belonging to the swidden-fallow fields, i.e. which had at least one clear-cut event detected over the 1984–2015 period. Segments are coloured according to the date of the first clear-cut event detected by the BFAST analysis; (c) Map of the number of clear-cut events (slash and burn events) detected at each segment during the monitoring period; (d) Map of the age of secondary-forest-fallows in 2014 for each segment.</p

Frequency distribution of fallow ages in two time-periods: 1987–2000 and 2001–2014, in the riverine settlements of the region of the middle-Amazonas river, Brazil.

<p>Grey dashed line and the number indicate the average fallow age in each time-period. Note the different scales in y axes of the two graphs.</p

Kaplan-Meier survival curves for fallows fields at two time-periods: 1987–2000 and 2001–2014.

<p>Cumulative survival probability of fallows refers to the probability of fallows not been cut, i.e. of continuing regrowth.</p