This first in a series of regional conferences on this subject brought together more than fifty agricultural scientists and policymakers from China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and from international agricultural research centers and the Asian Development Bank to discuss how best to promote "sustainable agricultural intensification"—natural resource management that safeguards productivity of the natural resource base while meeting economic growth and poverty alleviation objectives. The regional conference series began in East and Southeast Asia partly because of the area's already broad experience with intensified farming systems on high potential lands alongside shifting cultivation, or upland or hillside cultivation, on more marginal, fragile lands. The group could thus reflect not only on these two contrasting agroecological zones, but on the links between them.