In many developing regions of the world conventional agriculture is failing to meet the needs of people and at the same time is becoming progressively less ecologically sustainable. It is proposed that in a number of these regions, both overall economic development and the welfare of the inhabitants would improve if the primary form of land use was based on multiple use of those regions' natural biological resources, rather than continuing the practice of replacing or displacing them with marginal forms of agriculture. Testing this proposition, and then (if appropriate) effecting it, requires. answers to a number of ecological, economic and management questions, in particular to do with: identifying those regions where biodiversity use has high potential the appropriate spatial scales for planning and management compatible combinations of different types of resource use ecological and economic trade-offs between different resource use enterprises how to arrive at the most efficient form of resource use sustainable levels of biodiversity harvest resource use decisions in relation to ecological drivers (such as climate and fire) institutional and regulatory structures that dictate current resource use.
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