Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan

Abstract

This highly topical study of tropical deforestation reports on the first phase of a large, integrated, multi- institutional, and team-based study. Based in Mexico, it is designed to understand and project land changes in a development frontier that pits the rapidly growing needs of smallholder farmers to cut down forests for cultivation against federally sponsored initiatives committed to various international programs of forest preservation and complementary economic programs.