Even though slash and burn techniques are necessary to the current food production phasing out unsustainable techniques will pay off in the long run. The steps to working past or improving slash and burn techniques will be difficult for the reason that most of the people benefitting from slash and burn techniques live in remote areas of developing countries where the only option is to yield as much food as soon as possible. Leaving the fallowed land degraded and as populations rise in these areas ever increasing amount of forest will be slashed as old fallow lands fail to be restored ( Indian Academy of Science, …show more content…
The Mayan civilization began in the south parts of the Yucatan peninsula because there was more precipitation than the northern areas making it a superior place for agricultural production and viable place to support denser populations. However, since the south is at a higher elevation, and they relied heavily on rain water the Mayans had dig depressions or reservoirs in the ground and plaster the bottoms to store rainfall for the dry seasons. Some reservoirs, like the ones in the city of Tikal held enough water for 10,000 people for a period of 18 months giving the south a water supply in the dry seasons (McAnay,