Effects Of Deforestation On The Mayans

What happens when deforestation and famin take over a flourishing empire? What happens when your way of life slowly causes the place you call home,to collapse? For the Mayans something caused them to flee their prosperous empire. The question is what.
Around 900 A.D. the Mayans abandoned their empire that took over modern Mexico and most of Central America. Many theories exist on why the Mayans left but just few backed up with evidence and logic.
The Mayans without a doubt collapsed from hardship of a famine after many of their daily activities led to deforestation. These activities included a method called slashing and burning. Increasing rates in Deforestation, due to this slash and burn method, led to little food within the Mayans empire which slowly lead to none at all. They were forced to abandon their flourishing empire after a tragedy that would affect them forever. …show more content…
As mentioned earlier the Mayans used a method called slash and burn, which sounds exactly like what it is. Historians estimate that to keep the empire running they would need to cut down 20 trees per day and that's only for one square mile! On top of this the Mayans had been going in and out of droughts for quite some time now. Where once stood a forest, now stood a plain. The Mayans saw this as a good thing, maybe even more farm land but they couldn’t have predicted the massive effects this would have in their empire. Not only did they experience a 3-5 degree temperature increase, but also a 20-30% decrease in rainfall! This affected their crops which not only slowly lead to a famine but also a drought. Now if this doesn’t sound bad enough prepare yourself because not only were the Mayans losing out on food and water their population grew. All of these details slowly lead to the collapse of the Mayan