This book is directed at foresters who work, or have an interest, in the developing world, and at development analysts and theorists who are concerned with the forestry sector. Most readers will be aware that in recent years, some fundamental changes in thinking about the development process in very poor countries have occurred. At one level, the underdevelopment problem has been explained as a lack of absorptive capacity, or implementation ability in very poor countries. However, it now seems that these are only symptoms of a more profound ailment in the whole economic structural and philosophical approach to development. The idea that poor countries could transform their economies through an accelerated process of industrialisation has proved largely incorrect, or at least highly premature. Within the rural sector, emphasis on productivity and aggregate income growth have been shown to have had little effect or, worse still, negative effects, on the burgeoning group of poor and landless rural dwellers.
