In 1958, I began a three-year period as Soil Surveyor to the Government of Malawi, then Nyasaland, carrying out a reconnaissance land resource survey of the country; and, in 1993–5, completed consultancies on land use policy in Jamaica, land degradation in South Asia, and the preparation of an international programme to monitor changes in land conditions. Between those times I have worked on soil survey methods, land evaluation, land use planning and policy, and carried out research into land management, particularly through agroforestry.

This book is a review of land resources: their evaluation, management, and conservation, and their role in human welfare. Land resources are the environmental resources of climate, water, soils, landforms, forests, pastures, and wildlife, on which agriculture, forestry, and other kinds of rural land use depend. Renewable natural resources is an alternative name. Whilst details of the methods used differ from one kind of resource to another, many principles are common to their survey, evaluation, planning, and management. I also set down the opinions I have formed, in places more forcefully than was possible when writing as a consultant.

The objectives of the book are:

1. to improve awareness of the critical role of land resources as a major element in the development of agriculture and the rural sector;

2. to review the progress that has been made in different aspects of land resources, and to point to priorities for the future;

3. to draw attention to the urgent need for action to improve the management of land resources, if they are to be conserved for the benefit of future generations;

4. to show how land resources interact with wider aspects of development, including food security, poverty, and population policy.