As places that conjure up images of vast, empty spaces, frontiers are associated with many popular myths that contribute to their destruction. In each case, the reality is far more complex. Frontiers are comprised of empty wilderness. Forest peoples live in utopian harmony with nature. Evidence suggests that some human cultures destroyed their own forest ecosystems through abuse, and others in tribal warfare.
Frontiers consist of fertile land, ripe for development.
In many tropical forests, for instance, intensive agricultural activity can rapidly deplete soils that need natural debris from the tree canopy. Then too, forests are finite, and some are inaccessible. Forests in Amazonia and in Central Africa, for example, are rich in biodiversity but they often lack high densities of valuable timber species or good soils.