Guinea-Bissau farmers are replacing shifting cultivation
with cashew (Anacardium occidentale) orchards in
response to international and national economic and conservation
policies, local social changes and perceived increasing
climate instability. However, changes from relative food selfprovisioning
to full dependence on one cash crop and from a
complex mosaic of agricultural fields, fallows and forest
patches to a homogenous landscape of cashew agroforests
impacts both the natural environment and livelihoods. This
article on the demise of shifting cultivation in the tropics
contributes to the growing body of scholarship on land usecover
change (LUCC) and its multiplex global, national and
local drivers, varying across time and space. Further, we argue
that instead of adopting an approach exclusively focused on
parks, conservation-oriented external interventions should engage
with farmers in the development of innovations that both
preserve forest ecosystems and enhance food security.