AGROFORESTRY AND THE UTILISATION OF FRAGILE

King, K.F.S., 1979. Agroforestry and the utilisation of fragile ecosystems. Forest Ecol. Manage., 2: 161—168. Sixty-five percent of the land in the tropical world occupies fragile ecosystems. The number of people who depend upon these areas for their food and livelihood is 630 million or 35 % of the total population of the developing countries. Not only is the physical environment in which they live extremely harsh and unproductive, they are also generally so poor that they cannot afford to purchase food from other less brittle ecological zones. Accordingly, they are forced to utilise these inherently marginally productive areas for food production. The consequences are that soils are becoming even more degraded, forests are being razed to the ground at an alarming rate, there is desertification and there are periodic floods and droughts. The necessity for food has forced the occupants of these areas to employ land-utilisation practices which have led to the degradation of the ecosystems. The conventional scientific wisdom prescribes forestry as the best land-use for thes