Agroforestry as an appropriate land use system in the American Tropics

Abstract

The improper use of land is resulting in the rapid deforestation of the American tropics, with a concomitant degradation of land and water resources. Agroforestry in a land management system of a conceptual design involving multiple use and sustained yield, which could provide --depending on its adaptation to local environmental and socio-cultural characteristics-- appropriate alternatives to these destructive land uses.