Burning the Forest

Burning the bush is an easy way of getting rid of scrub and weeds.

I took this outside out house at Mathora near Magburaka in Sierra Leone, when I was teaching there.

The area round our school was farmed - the villagers grew rice in the swamp areas and vegetables, and cassava

I wonder how much CO2 goes up in the air .. Still here most of the plants will only have grown in the past few years since the land was last burned, so it will only be the Carbon fixed in the last few years.
However, thirty miles north, where there were mountains and fewer people we met missionaries who said "When we first came here (? in the 1940s?) this was primary forest."


Just look at the steep slopes - and think of the erosion.


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