ABSTRACT
Substantial parts of Central America and Panama have undergone a dramatic change of aspect, the result of accelerated forest clearing and enormous expansion in the area of artificial or planted pasture. Modern highways and vias de penetration have provided increased access to the forested lands which increasingly has attracted the overflow of landless colonos from the more densely settled rural areas. Road-building has enormously facilitated the rapid replacement of forest by cropland and pasture. Erosion between the conspicuously pedestaled bunches of jaragua grass appeared to be the most significant environmental change under pasture in this particular case. Clearly, development must be within the limits of the environment. There is little prospect of stemming the process of conversion of forest to pasture so long as government attitudes support the continuing expansion of stock raising. In pre-columbian times the tropical forest zone was intensively exploited and occupied, as its abundant archaeologic remains illustrate.
