3 ms·

Isn't "slash and burn" also a common agricultural practice for millenia?

• AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  That's certainly my understanding. I seem to remember from an Intro to Hinduism class that when the "Aryans" arrived in the Indus Valley, the first thing they did was burn down a bunch of the forests, because the charred mulch made the soil more fertile for growing crops.
• culi 4y ago
  Depends who/where/when you're talking about. For example, I'd really hesitate to lump the carefully planned controlled "slow burns" that Native Californians and Aboriginal Australians have practiced into the same category as "slash and burn". The former is done in a very planned way in very restricted areas and ends up having the net effect of reducing the number of wildfires while also increasing the productivity of certain species like acorns. There's a large number of other benefits to these techniques like the charcoal produced ending up cleaning the streams and making them more safe to enjoy and drink from for humans "Slash and burn" as I've heard it is mostly applied to colonial techniques where the goal is actual destruction of forests to turn the land into (temporarily) very productive agricultural plots. This is in contrast to the cultural burns that were usually done in the name of preservation and to the benefit of many native wild plants But we could just be going by different dictionaries