Cattle, cash, food and forest: The destruction of the American tropics and the Lacandon Maya alternative

This paper discusses food production techniques developed by the Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Mexico and examines the feasibility of expanding the use of those techniques to other groups in the Chiapas jungle. The topic of special interest for three reasons: first,because the Lacandon food production systems can produce a nutritious diet in an area inhabited by 50,000 undernourished people; second, because it van produce this food without destroying the tropical forest these people live in; and third because the Lacondon system presents a rational alternative to the present situation in Chiapas - a situation that is leading to the rapid and total destruction of Mexico's last tropical forest.