Slash and burn is a process that has been practiced all over the world for centuries. It consists in burning forests to gain space for whatever purpose, mostly to create fields for agriculture. If it wasn’t for the use of this process we, humans, would have never been able to feed ourselves as easily, but this is something that has got to stop. Slash and burn has been used more and more in areas of the globe such as South America (Amazon) or Africa, where “Madagascar has lost more than 80% of its forests”. Pollution rises, natural resources go to waste and more horrifyingly important: the loss of unique species (animal and vegetable) is irreparable. Breaking away from Africa about 165 million years ago, Madagascar has its own unique species that have been fighting against extinction ever since humans first arrived on the island, 2 thousand years ago, particularly the largest animals. “There have been five extinction waves in the planet’s history (…) the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet’s sixth great extinction wave. And this time the cause isn’t an errant asteroid or mega-volcanoes. It’s us.”
Quotations
from TIME’s April 13, 2009 special environmental issue.
Image from WBUR.ORG
