Introduction to Deforestation Issues and the Case-Studies

In recent years, few if any environmental issues have received as much global attention as ‘tropical deforestation’. Within developing countries there is a growing awareness among educated elites of the many interrelationships between deforestation and land degradation, floods, drought, famine and rural poverty. Popular movements in several countries by indigenous and other groups negatively affected by deforestation processes have contributed to political concerns about deforestation issues. So too have perceptions of many among intellectual, socia-economic and political leaders that rapid deforestation may be prejudicing their countries’ possibilities for sustainable development in the future while its short-term benefits accrue mostly to corporate and consumer interests in the North and to a few small minorities in the South. There is an ongoing debate among conservationists about how remaining forests in developing countries could best be protected, sustainably managed and used. The discussions in this book deal with these and related issues.