SILVOPASTORAL SYSTEMS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT ON A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

Rural areas of developing countries are home to about 2800 billion people that get food, energy medicines and other products from forestry, agriculture and animal rearing. The monthly share of one these inabitants is very little on a world scale; the search for wealth by such a large number of people can cause excessive exploitation and irrational management of natural and agricultural systems which, because of this, experience reduced productivity and resilience. Even if land productivity could be increased tenfold by introducing modern technologies and scientific knowledge, this would not be enough to avoid further environmental degradation and land abandonment. Sustainable management of the ecosystems together with an increase in wealth needs a link between traditional land uses and management with modern income sources and the integration of local and regional rural economics within the economies of the other areas of the world. This link is favoured by the multiple use of the territory and the passage from simplified farming systems to complex agro-ilvopastoral systems.