Contribution of forestry to economic development, with special reference to employment and income in developing countries : an annotated bibliography

The annotations, which been have been recorded in a computerized data base to promote wide access, note the economic, environmental, policy, and administrative issues treated in the papers. Author, country, and keyword indexes are included, along with a sampling of the articles rejected from the bibliogrpahy. The literature reviewed, it is noted in the preface, suggests that forestry offers an extraordinary opportunity for rural economic development in developing countries, especially by providing an opportunity to use otherwise erodable, low-valued land to create valuable products for rural use. Forestry can also help to diversify rural economies, create employment opportunities for part-time farmers, provide incentives against rural-urban migration, and produce needed foreign exchange. However, a striking feature of the literature is its failure to quantify specific impacts on the economies of developing countries. The overall view of the articles cited herein - that forestry has the potential to create hundreds of millions of jobs - should, according to the preface, be viewed with extreme caution.