摘要
热带森林在人类生存中扮演着重要角色，但它们的损耗，尤其是在发展中国家，还在无情地继续着。而农业一直被人们认为是这种损耗的主要原因。本文讨论了热带毁林中农业作用的两个主要理论基础。首先，森林生物量作为农业生产的输入；其次，农业与林业的相对边际收益加重了它们之间的竞争。非洲和南美洲一些国家的经验为上述结论提供了支持证据。本文认为，有必要寻求一种双赢机制来控制热带毁林的洪流。这可能意味着发展中国家的农业技术改进，它会增加农业产量，同时也有助于控制将热带森林作为农业生产的一种输入。
Despite the important role that tropical forests play in human existence,their depletion, especially in the developing world, continue relentlessly. Agriculture has beencited as the major cause of this depletion. This paper discusses two main theoretical underpinningsfor the role of agriculture in tropical deforestation. First, the forest biomass as input inagricultural production, and second, the competition between agriculture and forestry underlined bytheir relative marginal benefits. These are supported by empirical evidence from selected countriesin Africa and South America. The paper suggests a need to find a win-win situation to control thespate of tropical deforestation. This may imply improved technologies in the agriculture sector inthe developing world, which would lead both to increased production in the agriculture sector, andwould also help control the use of tropical forest as an input in agriculture production.
