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Native Americans practiced setting fires as a forest management technique for thousands of years and the forests of the Pacific Northwest survived. It took less

Native Americans practiced setting fires as a forest management technique for thousands of years and the forests of the Pacific Northwest survived. It took less than a hundred years of logging by the USA following the Indian Wars of the 19th century to wipe all of those forests out. The Caledonian Forest of Scotland was destroyed in roughly the same amount of time during the 19th century by the English following the Highland Clearances. Obviously there are economic and political forms of organization that do not result in massive environmental destruction. Saying that "it's not capitalism because the USSR did it too" when clearly the example of the current situation in Brazil is capitalist is disingenuous.

mc32 9y ago
Right, I also recall how the Mayans depleted their forests and farmlands which resulted in droughts and famines and eventual social collapse. It happened rather quickly too. You are so right. Brazil likes to think of itself as socialist --the Worker's Party (o partido dos trabalhadores) was in power for pretty long till recently (during which lots of the rainforest plundering took place). So even in Brazil, the leftists didn't care about the enviro. I could also bring up a litany of Chinese projects, North Korean projects, Vietnamese, Former Soviet repubs. I think you get the picture. Much of the degradation was due to utilizing outdated technology, other times, just complete disregard for nature in the name of progress --three gorges dam, for example.