Development or Destruction

Theodore E. Downing, is a Research Professor of Social Development at the University of Arizona. He specializes in the institutional dimensions of agricultural development and has worked on the development of Mexican coffee producers, irrigation's impact on society, and the human rights of cultural groups in Latin America. Susanna B. Hecht, is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Planning at UCLA. She is a specialist in tropical forest development and has worked extensively on the environmental and social dynamics of livestock in Latin America. Henry A. Pearson, worked for the USDA Forest Service, Flagstaff, Arizona from 1956-68, specializing in ecology of semiarid savannahs. From 1968 to 1989, he served as Professor of Range Management at Colorado State University, where he developed several large scale computer modeling and operations research projects. Beginning in 1989, he moved to the USDA Forest Service Computer Science staff in Washington, D.C., where he works on university liaison and technology forecasts. Carmen Garcia-Downing works with Native American populations for the Rural Health Office at the University of Arizona Medical School and is an agricultural specialist in animal science and range management. A native Zapotec Indian, she also coordinates a non-profit organization, the Nine Points Alliance, which focuses on development of Native American populations and resources in southern Mexico.

• Foreword -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Overviews -- Logics of Livestock and Deforestation: The Case of Amazonia -- New Directions for Livestock Policy: an Environmental Perspective -- Bio-Economic Costs -- Livestock Economy and Forest Destruction -- Forest Uses -- Tropical Forest Uses -- Forest Economies: Transition and Ambiguity -- Social Dimensions of Forest Utilization In Mexico: Implications for Intervention -- Environmental Impacts -- Possible Climatological Impacts -- Terrestrial Impacts in Mexico and Central America -- Social Impacts -- Eating from the Tropics or Destroying It? -- From Reaction to Planning: An Indigenous Response to Deforestation and Cattle Raising -- Rural Development Effects -- Reconciling People and Land: The Prospects for Sustainable Extraction in the Amazon -- Production Alternatives -- Sustaining Pasture-based Production Systems for the Humid Tropics -- A Silvopastoral Strategy -- Integrated Production Systems -- Developers' and Donors' Perspectives -- Debt-for-Nature Swaps: A Response to Debt and Deforestation in Developing Countries? -- The Timber Industry Perspective -- Community Perspectives -- Union of Forest Ejidos and Communities of Oaxaca -- Integrated Resource Management: A Zapotec Community's Approach -- Two Peasants Discuss Deforestation -- A Rubber Tapper Speaks Out -- Comments and Recommendations -- The Oaxaca Recommendations -- Coda What can I do?