ABSTRACT
The potential types of exploitation of tropical forest lands have been the subject of considerable discussion, especially when the use implies the simplification of these ecosystems by converting them to permanent grasslands. All the data derived from inventories seem to suggest that the Latin America and the Caribbean region house the highest biological richness of the world. A review of the region's statistics shows that parallel to human population, which grew from 216 millions to 410 millions between 1960 and 1980, two other "organisms" increased explosively in Latin America: cars, in the urban spaces, and cattle, in the rural areas. The biological costs of transforming tropical forests to pastures can be calculated by estimating the loss of biomass and the number of removed organisms in a given area. Very few studies provide data on the products obtained from tropical forests at a site level, and these are concentrated on trees living in a one-hectare plot.
