riculture. Numerous investigators have collected data, and analysis by the World Resources Institute indicates that both the logging and the conversion are largely the result of government policies, many of which are driven by the severe economic pressures afflicting debt burdened underdeveloped countries. Those pressures are increased by certain practices of developed countries and their national and international financial institutions. The causes as well as the effects of tropical forest degradation are thus matters of worldwide concern. It is now known that the destruction of tropical forests is a more serious problem than it was thought to be only a decade ago, as shown by recent estimates based on remote sensing from satellites and on careful field surveys. Studies by the National Remote Sensing Center analyzing data from India show that there was an estimated deforestation rate for the early 1980's of 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) per year, some 10 times the earlier estimate made by the Food
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