slash-and-burn agriculture
Metaphorically, the image is of a "non sustainable process of obtaining daily sustenance while consuming a limited amount of things. In reality, in some cases, the rate of reproduction of the object to be burned is high enough to make the process sustainable.
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This page is auto-translated from /nishio/焼畑農業. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I'm very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.