land use dynamics and landscape change pattern in a typical watershed in the hillside region of...

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 75 (1999) 93–100

Land use dynamics and landscape change pattern in a typical watershedin the hillside region of central Honduras

Johann Kammerbauer∗, Carlos ArdonPan-American Agricultural School (Zamorano), Department of Natural Resources and Conservation Biology, German Technical Cooperation

(GTZ), P.O. Box 93, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Received 29 October 1998; received in revised form 5 March 1999; accepted 8 April 1999

Abstract

While tropical forest loss is recognized as a global problem, little is known on a local scale about the complex relationshipsbetween environmental, economic, social and policy factors that induce changes in land use patterns. This study analyzes theprocess of human-induced landscape transformation in a small watershed in the central region of Honduras in 1955, 1975and 1995. The watershed comprises a small mountainous valley with steep slopes and a small plain, typical of the landscapepattern in Central America. The spatial and temporal change patterns of land use were quantified by interpreting aerialphotographs and using a Geographic Information System. During the last 40 years, forest cover has been reduced drasticallywith increasing population pressure and agricultural activities. The traditional expansive shifting cultivation system has passedthrough a process of agricultural intensification and crop diversification which removed the restraints in territorial needs forthe increasing local population. Limiting physical and ecological factors were assessed, as well as the socio-economic andpolicy forces that caused these changes in natural resource management practices and the resulting land use patterns. Thestudy showed that monitoring systems are a necessary instrument required to assess and evaluate local impacts of nationalpolicies. ©1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Natural resource mapping; Land use cover; Landscape pattern; Natural resource policies

1. Introduction

Agriculture, as the principal economic activity inrural areas, conflicts with the natural forest vegetationcover normally present. The rational, efficient eco-nomic use of land dictates, in general, a higher pref-erence for agricultural production than to forest ac-tivities. However, from an ecological perspective, for-est ecosystems have important functions and provide

∗ Corresponding author. Present address: FUNDECO, EcologyInstitute, Campus Universitario C. #27 Cota Cota, Casilla 10077,La Paz, Bolivia. Tel.: +591-2-797511; fax: +591-2-797511E-mail address:[email protected] (J. Kammerbauer)

services that are essential to maintain the life-supportsystem on a local and global scale. Greenhouse gasregulation, water supplies and regulation, nutrient cy-cling, genetic and species diversity as well as recre-ation are only some examples of the services that for-est ecosystems provide.

Currently, Central America possesses about 19.4million hectares of natural forest with an estimated de-forestation rate of about 416,000 ha/year (Rodrıguez,1992). In Honduras, natural forests covered about4.5 million ha in 1992, with 2.5 million ha in pine(Pinus ssp.) and 2.0 million ha in broadleaf forests(Rodrıguez, 1992), and with deforestation rates esti-

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94 J. Kammerbauer, C. Ardon / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 75 (1999) 93–100

mated to be in the order of 31,000 and 57,000 ha/year,respectively (OEA, 1992) representing an annual de-forestation rate of 1.7%. Most parts of Central Amer-ica are mountainous landscapes with forests on theirhillsides, which represent very fragile ecosystemsthreatened by erosion and landslides in the rainy sea-son. This is also particularly problematic in Honduraswhere about 83% of the surface is sloped to some ex-tent, with about 75% of it having inclinations greaterthan 25% (SECPLAN, 1989). About 55% of thepopulation live in rural areas (IICA, 1994), with pop-ulation growth and unequal land distribution forcingsmall farmers to occupy hillsides and small valleys.The socio-economic situation of hillside farmers inthe region is characterized by a simple subsistenceeconomy, mainly for self-consumption. Comparedwith more affluent farmers on the plains, these hillproduction units have to bear additional economicdisadvantages and risks because of the fragile envi-ronmental conditions encountered. The subsequentconversion of tropical forested land into agriculturalland results in the modification of the hillside foreststructure, in part a consequence of social gradients.

The link between rural poverty and the environmentis often encountered in the sustainable developmentdebate. While tropical forest loss is recognized as a re-gional, as well as a global problem, little is known ona local scale about the complex relationships betweenenvironmental, economic, social and natural resourcepolicy factors that induce changes in land use patterns.The objective of this study was to identify the reasonsfor land use changes in a defined, representative smallwatershed in central Honduras, and to assess the rela-tive influence of biophysical and socio-economic pa-rameters and institutional policies on the changes overthe last four decades. This included making overlayswith the physical and ecological conditions, and as-sessing the impact of the governing natural resourcepolicies as well as land use sustainability questions.

2. Methods

2.1. Site selection and description

Site selection was developed by drawing on pre-liminary indicators of environmental degradation andcommunity activity (Molina, 1994). The Yeguare river

valley in the central region of Honduras comprises anarea of about 276 km2 containing 54 villages. Agri-cultural extensionists working in the zone mapped theactual land use and assessed the extent of environmen-tal degradation risk. On the basis of these results, aselected grouping of villages were visited by the re-search team who established a weighting matrix forenvironmental degradation and community activity foreach community evaluated. The small watershed of LaLima was finally selected for detailed analysis of thecausal relationships because of its high ranking in itsindex for potential environmental degradation and anabove average index of community activity.

The La Lima watershed (87◦25′W, 14◦00′N) hasan area of about 9.5 km2 and is 17 km from Teguci-galpa. The altitude varies between 1200 and 1668 mabove sea level with an annual precipitation rangingfrom 885–1182 m, with a dry period normally span-ning November to April and a rainy season from Mayto October. The average temperature is 21.4oC, vary-ing with the altitude, and the natural vegetation islargely pine forest up to about 1600 m, with broadleafforest above this altitude, these characterized by a highdiversity of mosses (Bryophyta), lichens (Lichenes),bromeliads (Family Bromeliaceae) and orchids (Fam-ily Orchidaceae). The soils belong to the Ojojona se-ries in the order of Entisols.

The principal La Lima community consists ofdenser settlement of 62 family units as well as amore dispersed community in the surrounding area,comprising of 119 family units in total. The principalactivity is basic grain production for home consump-tion as well as some horticultural production for theTegucigalpa market. About 60% of the agriculturalplots are under permanent cultivation, principallycorn (Zea maysL.), bean (Phaseolus vulgarisL.),potato (Solanum tuberosumL.), tomato (Lycopersi-con esculentumMill.), onions (Allium cepa L.) andgarlic (Allium sativumL.). Additional economic activ-ities include gathering of fire wood, wild berries andsome tropical fruits. Agricultural plot sizes vary from700 m2 to 8 ha with 63% of the plots ranging between0.1 and 1.5 ha.

2.2. Database development

The spatial database developed consisted of landcover maps derived from aerial photographs and

J. Kammerbauer, C. Ardon / Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 75 (1999) 93–100 95

field surveys. Aerial photographs of the study areawere obtained from the Honduran National In-stitute of Geography, for the years 1955 (scale1 : 50,000), 1975 (1 : 20,000) and 1995 (1 : 20,000).After geo-referencing (Global Positioning System,Pathfinder, Trimble Navigation, Sunnyvale, USA) andinterpreting these aerial photographs, land use wasclassified as dense forest, sparse forest and agricul-tural land. The map data was digitized and processedusing a Geographic Information System (GIS, IDRISIVersion 1.0 for Windows, Clark University, USA;ArcInfo Version 3.4 and ArcView Version 2.1, ESRI,Redlands, USA). A digital elevation model and mapswith slope inclinations were also derived from a topo-graphic map (National Geographic Institute, Teguci-galpa, 1980, scale 1 : 50 000) using GIS. For analyticalpurposes, overlays were made between land use maps,slope inclination maps and a sketch map outliningsoil types. The data for the soil sketch map was basedon information provided by the La Lima farmers.

A variety of methods are commonly used in LatinAmerica for classifying land use capacity. In a partic-ipatory workshop with the local farmers and in a se-ries of field trips to their plots, farmers presented theirperception and concepts about soil degradation pro-cesses. The slope inclination was selected as one ofthe principal limiting parameter for land use capacity,classifying the inclinations into the following ranges:(a) 0 to<15%: agricultural use without soil conserva-tion measures; (b) 15 to<30%: agricultural use withconservation measures and pasture; (c) 30 to<50%forest use and pasture; and (d) 50% and more: forestuse only. Slope inclination in combination with vege-tation cover is a major factor for inducing soil erosionprocesses in hillside regions in Central America (Lutzet al., 1994).

In order to study forest fragmentation processes, theland cover maps developed for 1955, 1975 and 1995were used to determine the number of forest plots,their perimeters and their areas, from which the mini-mum, maximum, and average areas were determined.This procedure was repeated in more detail for the1995 data, where more land use categories could beincluded, because of the higher quality of the imagesavailable. A shape complexity index (SCI) was calcu-lated by dividing the perimeter by the area, which isan indication of the degree of irregularity of land useplots.

Fig. 1. Forest cover maps of 1955, 1975 and 1995 in the La Limawatershed in the central region of Honduras.

To determine socio-economic factors influencingland use changes, a series of participatory workshopsand interviews were conducted with the local popu-lation. In addition a Census was carried in 1995 outto obtain basic demographic information about theresidents of the La Lima community (IFPRI, 1995).Furthermore, historical information about natural re-source and agricultural policies of Honduras over thepast four decades was obtained to provide a contextfrom which to analyze their impact on land use in theregion.

3. Results

3.1. Changes in land use cover

Natural resource management is a complex under-taking, influenced by environmental, economic, socialand political factors. Between 1955 and 1995 naturalresource use has modified and transformed the land-scape in the La Lima watershed. Fig. 1 and Table 1illustrate and quantify the changes in natural forestcover and it can be deduced that in 1955 more thanthe half of the La Lima watershed was still coveredby forest and human impact still limited on the re-maining forest. The principal agricultural activity wasbasic grain production for local consumption, as therewas effectively no road connection to Tegucigalpa to


Table 1Changes in the natural forest cover between 1955 and 1995 in thesmall watershed of La Lima, Honduras

Year Land use Area Changesb Deforestation

(ha) (%) (ha) (%) (% per year)

1955 Natural forest 529 55.5Agriculturea 425 44.5

1975 Natural forest 403 42.4−126.0 −23.8 1.2Agriculturea 548 57.6

1995 Natural forest 342 36.0−61.2 −11.5 0.6Agriculturea 602 64.0

a Includes agriculture, pasture, shrubs, gardens, and settlements.b Base year for calculations of changes and annual deforestationrates is 1955.

market produce. Over the following two decades, upto 1975, major deforestation events took place causinga 25% reduction in total forest area, largely due to anincrease in agricultural and animal production activi-ties. Data indicate that there was a steady migration offarmers from nearby communities outside the area ofthe La Lima catchment to the area, reaching a zenithbetween 1968 and 1973 (IFPRI, 1995). Between 1975and 1995 the annual deforestation rates in La Lima haddecreased significantly to nearly half that of the pre-vious 20 years (∼0.6%) (Table 1), half that of the na-tional average of 1,7% (Rodrıguez, 1992). This periodsaw an intensification and diversification of agricul-tural production, and farmers started to apply fertiliz-ers and pesticides. They also improved their irrigationsystems and diversified their production of basic cornand bean crops by including potatoes, onions, toma-toes and other horticultural crops. The construction ofa road (in 1985) permitted access to nearby local com-munity markets as well as to the Tegucigalpa market,allowing them to sell their horticultural produce.

Aside from the conversion of natural forests toagriculture, pasture and other human-induced uses,a process of forest modification, from dense forestto sparser forest, was observed. In 1975, there were269 ha of dense forest in the La Lima watershed,which by 1995, had been reduced to 221 ha, repre-senting an 18% conversion of dense forest to sparseforest. This forest thinning is largely the result ofincreased demand for firewood for household use, as80% of the homes depend on forest sources to supplywood for cooking (Cordova, 1995).

3.2. Changes in landscape patterns

A useful indicator (how reflected in the MontrealProcess of Forest Indicators for temperate and bo-real forests) of natural habitat fragmentation is thepatchiness of the landscape, especially in forest ar-eas. The number of forest patches decreased by about50% between 1955 to 1995 (Table 2). Up to 1955forest-clearing activities in support of shifting and per-manent agriculture left a highly fragmented patternin what were contiguous forest areas. With the elimi-nation of many remaining patches in the central areaof the La Lima watershed between 1955 and 1995,only the forest at the borders stayed untouched. Thesmaller forest patches were primarily eliminated dur-ing the second period from 1975 to 1995, when therewas less intervention in terms of total forest clearing.Hence the average patch area increased by 42%, butthe number of patches decreased by 40%, which con-trasts with the first period from 1955 to 1975, whenfewer plots were cut down but which were larger insize. The present landscape pattern, shown in moredetail in Table 3, shows that the average patch areasof broadleaf forest, dense and sparse pine forest to bevery small, with a high degree of fragmentation re-sulting in reduced habitat for fauna in the region.

Geographically, another interesting feature of theLa Lima watershed is the large central closed croparea (∼55 ha) as well as a relatively large closed areacontaining mostly shrubs of approximately 14 ha (Ta-ble 3). The latter is a result of degraded soils fromabandoned plots of the shifting agricultural cultivationcycle, still practiced to some extent. To increase soilfertility, some of these degraded areas are burned atthe end of the dry season and then worked at the startof the rainy season. Even so, declining soil productiv-ity and increased weed competition leads to the even-tual abandonment of many plots. Depending on themanagement regimes of these plots, a vegetation suc-cession can be observed ranging from different grassstages, to shrub vegetation and secondary forest. Thedynamics of this type of land degradation and naturalrehabilitation has been described by Paniagua et al.(1999).

To assess the shape complexity of the land use covertypes in the La Lima watershed, the ratio of the averageperimeter to the average area of land-use patches wasused to derive a shape complexity index (SCI). Higher


Table 2Changes in patchiness of the forest area as an indicator for habitat fragmentation between 1955 and 1995 in the La Lima watershed inthe central region of Honduras

Year Forest patchesa Area (ha) Average perimeter (m) Shape complexity indexb (m/ha)

(n) Average Minimum Maximium

1955 58 9.12 0.04 113 1807 1981975 45 8.90 0.04 117 1429 1611995 27 12.60 0.18 92 2120 168

a Number of forest patches.b Shape complexity index is the ratio of average perimeter to average area of patches.

Table 3Patchiness of the different land use areas in 1995 in the small watershed of La Lima, Honduras

Land use Patchesa Area (ha) Average perimeterb Shape complexity indexc Total area

(n) Average Minimum Maximum (m) (m/ha) (ha)

Broadleaf forest 14 3.9 0.2 22.2 1131 290 55Dense pine forest 18 9.2 0.4 33.9 1919 208 166Sparse pine forest with pasture 13 9.2 1.2 40.7 1888 205 120Pasture 33 6.8 0.2 40.9 1511 222 225Crops 26 10.2 0.1 55.3 1800 176 265Shrubs 28 3.9 0.6 14.5 1128 289 109

a Number of patches of different land uses.b Average perimeter of the patches.c Shape complexity index is the ratio of average perimeter to average area of patches.

SCI ratios indicate more irregular patch forms thanlower ratios and the analysis shows a decrease in theSCI of the forest patches from 1955 to 1975, while itremained relatively constant from 1955 to 1995 (Table2). Comparison of SCIs for the various land uses in1995 reveals lower values for crop patches than forother land use types (Table 3), indicating that humanintervention has produced a simpler landscape form.

3.3. Physical and ecological constraints

The La Lima watershed is typically very irregularand about 82% of the area has inclinations of morethan 15%, with 18% of the area having grades >50%.Table 4 indicates the extent of the changes in for-est plots in the four slope categories over the past40 years. In slopes having inclinations of up to 30%,about half of the forest cover was eliminated between1955 to 1995, while in the slope inclinations cover-ing 30–50% and >50% only one third and one tenth,respectively, of the original forest area was cut down.Currently, most flat regions are used for crops and pas-ture, with small forest plots interspersed. A good pro-

portion of crops are cultivated in inclinations rangingfrom 15–30%, but lack the benefit of soil conserva-tion measures. The 1995 census, which provides someinformation on conservation practices, indicates that69% of farmers do not use any conservation practicesat all, 13% use stone walls, 7% contour farming and4% living plant barriers. Given these practices, erosionbecomes especially problematic when inclinations ex-ceed 30%, although it also occurs at lower slopes.Within the 15–30% inclination range, mostly pasturewas found, which has a relatively low erosion risk.However, at higher inclinations, including some above50%, crop plots are still found, even though there is

Table 4Natural forest covers in different slope ranges during a 40-yearperiod in the La Lima watershed in the central region of Honduras

Slope range 1955 1975 1995

(ha) (%) (ha) (%) (ha) (%)

0 to <15% 53 30 49 27 26 1515 to <30% 157 49 112 35 86 2630 to <50% 190 69 134 49 126 46≥50% 129 75 107 63 104 61


a very high risk of soil erosion and even landslides.These are the regions in the La Lima watershed wheremost pine and broadleaf forests are found as well asbeing the source of springs and two small rivers. Theland used for crop production on these steep inclinessuffer extensively from soil erosion and nutrient deple-tion, which leads farmers to abandon their plots aftera couple of seasons.

Local farmers have their own system by which toclassify the fertility and utility of soils, the physicaland ecological properties of the soils tend to dictate asto how farmers will tend to use the land. Black soils areconsidered to be the most fertile, with it and colouredsoils commonly considered suitable for agriculturaland horticultural production, while pulverous soils areconsidered particularly appropriate for potatoes andgravely soil only suitable for forest. In the central andlower part of the La Lima watershed with low slopeinclinations, deeper and richer soils can be found, usedextensively for horticultural production, whereas in theperipheral zones with steeper inclinations one findsshallower, less fertile soils left mainly under forest.

3.4. Demographic development

Aside from the natural resources situation, demo-graphic considerations also play a role in the dynam-ics of the La Lima watershed. There are currently 119families living in the watershed, with an average of6.29 members per family with an estimated populationgrowth of 1.8% per year. In 1955, the total populationwas estimated to have been 367 persons, increasingto 533 and 749 in 1975 and 1995, respectively. Pop-ulation densities on land other than dense forest, wasestimated to have been 0.86 in 1955, rising to 1.03,and 1.24 persons per hectare in 1975 and 1995, re-spectively. These figures indicate that the populationdensity increased by 44% between 1955 and 1995 onnon-forested land and doubled in the total watershedarea.

3.5. Institutions and natural resource policies

Government land management strategies tend to in-fluence the decisions individual farmers make as tohow natural resources are used. Land use is framed inan institutional and natural resources policy context,

with property and land use rights, access to extensionservices and markets and agricultural price policiesbeing additional relevant factors influencing these de-cisions. In the cadastral map of the municipality of LaLima, land is registered as communal property grantedto farmers for their own use. Farmers do not possessland titles; however, this does not constrain land trans-actions. Furthermore, there exist clear mechanisms formutual use rights and service contraction. In contrast,forested land was de facto nationalized in 1974, un-der the control of the National Forestry Administra-tion and since nationalization, official permission hasbeen required to cut down trees. The intrinsic hightransaction costs associated with obtaining official per-mission to cut trees reduced the rate of clear-cutting,but led to dense forest becoming sparser. A commonpractice to circumvent the regulations imposed was toset fire to forest plots so that the dead trees could becut legally and pasture established. In 1992, the legalsituation changed again with the advent of the Agri-cultural Modernization Law regarding privatization offorest land and the introduction of a forest manage-ment plan as a control instrument. The impact of thischange is not yet clear.

Until 1990, import substitution was the foundationof Honduran economic policy, which attempted to pro-mote industrialization within the country by reducingthe agricultural production costs and lowering con-sumer food prices. National agriculture policy had noevident direct impact on land use decisions in thestudy during the expansive period from 1955–1975.After that period, policy instruments such as subsi-dized agricultural inputs, import controls of agricul-tural produce, soft loans and gratuity technical assis-tance, led farmers to intensify and diversify agricul-tural production. Starting in 1982, governmental andprivate extension services provided direct agriculturaltechnological assistance (irrigation, pesticide and fer-tilizer) and expertise to increase crop diversification inLa Lima. New crops were introduced, crop yields in-creased and improved access by road permitted betteraccess to local markets. As a consequence, increasedefficiencies and a wider range of higher value crops,have reduced the demand for new agricultural land andreduced the dependency on traditional shifting agri-culture, which reduced the pressure on the remainingforested lands. In the 1990s there was a drastic changein the national economic policies with the structural


adjustments measures and market liberalization tak-ing place. However the impact of these policies on themanagement of local natural resources are not yet ap-parent (Zelada, 1995) and have still to be assessed inthe future.

4. Discussion

Spatial and temporal databases have been used toassess the changes in land cover and landscape use pat-terns over a 40-year period using deforestation ratesand landscape patterns as process indicators for theecological sustainability. Physical and ecological fac-tors are constraints in the ability to manage naturalresources and generally determine the life support ca-pacity of the ecosystems. On the other hand, techno-logical, institutional and natural resource policy forcesalso play a role in changing land use patterns.

There were clearly two distinct periods of landuse development in the La Lima watershed, the first,1955–1975, being an agricultural expansion phase.This consisted of occupying the space from the rela-tive flat central area to the steep, more peripheral areasin the watershed until natural physical and ecologicalconstraints were encountered, principally slope incli-nation and thin soils. Forested areas were cleared andconverted into agricultural areas, the driving force forthis change being population increase and migrationmovement as well as a lack of forest regulation.

The second period (1975–1995) can be considereda period of agricultural intensification and diversifi-cation, where the driving forces were the technologytransfer, access to agricultural extension services, im-proved access to local markets, subsidized agricul-tural input prices and limited private forest propertyrights due to forest regulations. Consequently, forestuse was more extractive and converted dense foreststo sparser forest and forests with pasture, the demandfor firewood being the main causative factor. More-over, the landscape pattern changed, with number offorest patches decreasing and their size increasing,which resulted in a lower shape complexity of thelandscape, especially due to the relatively large andclosed crop areas. This landscape pattern in combina-tion with steep slopes was more prone to erosion andlandslides, which subsequently occurred.

A study in Northern Thailand showed similar dy-namics in land use and landscape patterns, first, as theopening of a frontier area and its with subsequent lossof tropical forest, followed by a period of land useintensification (Fox et al., 1995). This provides someindication that such patterns occur on a wider scaleas a result of expansive economic and social forces,which are delimited by physical and ecological con-straints. In the La Lima watershed, shifting cultivationhad to be gradually abandoned because of the popu-lation growth and the limited space available for agri-cultural purposes. Dove (1982) calculated the sustain-able territorial needs of shifting cultivators to be about0.16 persons per hectare in Indonesia. By this mea-sure, the population density of the La Lima area ex-ceeded sustainable rates by approximately five timesby 1955, and six and eight times by 1975 and 1975,respectively. Although the Indonesian territorial needsfigure may not be appropriate, given differences in theecological conditions, it is a reasonable indicator thatsustainability limits were likely to have been exceeded.On this basis, already by 1955 the available spacefor the traditional shifting cultivation was too limitedto allow a sufficiently long fallow period to naturallyreestablish soil fertility (Kleinman et al., 1995). In-tensification of traditional agriculture and horticulturalproduction permitted to overcome this constraint, butwith a higher environmental contamination by pesti-cide residues (Kammerbauer and Moncada, 1998).

5. Conclusions

To give a differential weight to the studied influ-encing parameters (topography, demographic change,technological change, agricultural and natural resourcepolicies) on current land uses and their distributionis difficult. Nevertheless, the study indicates that de-mographic expansion, access to technological infor-mation and local markets, as well as the incentivesproduced by agricultural policies were the main driv-ing forces that determined how farmers used the landand subsequently modified landscape patterns. Physi-cal and ecological factors, as well as the regulatory in-stitutional framework in natural resource policies werethe main constraints in hillside land transformationprocesses. The parameters are linked with each otherbut it seems that mainly the technological improve-


ments and market access increased economic welfarein the watershed. For practical purposes, as shown inthis case study of a typical watershed for central Hon-duras, watershed restoration, soil conservation, appro-priate agricultural technologies and alternate energysources to fire wood are important issues to considerin hillside regions.

Impacts of the current structural adjustments andtrade liberalisation policies on natural resources andthe environment have to be monitored, as some authorshave indicated that these programs can have additionalnegative environment impacts (Redclift, 1995). Thenational natural resources and agricultural policy hadits impact on a local scale, which may differ in eachregion or landscape within a country. Consequently,natural resource monitoring systems at various levelsare a necessary tool to assess and evaluate the impactsof such policies; however, indicators of sustainabledevelopment have yet to be defined more precisely.The work carried out in the La Lima watershed showsthat by integrating information about the physical at-tributes and changes (shape complexity, slope, coveretc.) over time, with demographic, legal and policychanges, one can formulate a cause and effect pattern.

Acknowledgements

Gratitude to Dr. Gilles Bergeron and colleaguesfrom the IFPRI research team in Honduras, MayraFalck and Mario Ardon from Zamorano for valuablediscussions and contributions. Thanks also to studentsof Zamorano for fieldwork, as well as to Dr. F.R. van deVoort from McGill University in Canada and Dr. Wil-fredo Colon from Zamorano for comments and sug-gestions regarding this manuscript. Financing of thisproject by the International Development ResearchCentre, Ottawa, Canada (Grant No. 93-0030) is grate-fully acknowledged.

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