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The literature on tropical deforesta-tion has grown at such a rapid rate over the past decade that it has become difficult for interested persons to keep up with it. Approximately 50 studies of tropical deforestation appear annually in the literature. This mushrooming of information has important implications. The uncoordinated way in which studies are conducted and published challenges efforts to integrate the data for closer monitoring of the tropical deforestation problem, and also challenges efforts to use the literature in the development of policy initiatives to combat deforestation.

This article summarizes the findings of a recent eight-month effort to inventory the literature on tropical deforestation, carried out in the context of FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000, which has as one of its objectives the estimation of forest cover change in all countries (see Box below). The article