GC: n

CT: Evidence for early agriculture can be obtained from pollen profiles indicating forest clearance. The practice of cultivation is widely believed to have been introduced into the interlacustrine region of central Africa by Bantu-speaking iron-workers, present by 2,000 yr BP (ref. 3) or, disputedly, 2,600 yr BP (ref. 5). There are, however, archaeological and linguistic indications that cultivation may have begun earlier. Published pollen diagrams which clearly show forest clearance in East Africa are either poorly dated8 or place forest destruction1 after 2,000 yr BP; possible palynological signs of previous clearance are open to other interpretations, notably climatic change. We have now analysed the pollen and charcoal of a peat core from Ahakagyezi Swamp in south-west Uganda using radiocarbon for dating. The results suggest a history of forest clearance stretching back beyond 4,800yr BP. This is the earliest evidence for cultivation reported from tropical Africa.

S: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v320/n6058/abs/320164a0.html (last access: 26 December 2014)

N: 1. forest (n): late 13c., “extensive tree-covered district,” especially one set aside for royal hunting and under the protection of the king, from Old French forest “forest, wood, woodland” (Modern French forêt), probably ultimately from Late Latin/Medieval Latin forestem silvam “the outside woods,” a term from the Capitularies of Charlemagne denoting “the royal forest.” This word comes to Medieval Latin, perhaps via a Germanic source akin to Old High German forst, from Latin foris “outside”
clearance (n): 1560s, “action of clearing,” from clear (v.) + -ance. Meaning “a clear space” is from 1788. Meaning “approval, permission” (especially to land or take off an aircraft) is from 1944, American English; national security sense recorded from 1948. Clearance sale attested by 1843.
2. Overall, Australia has lost nearly 40% of its forests, but much of the remaining native vegetation is highly fragmented. As European colonists expanded in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries, deforestation occurred mainly on the most fertile soils nearest to the coast. In the 1950s, southwestern Western Australia was largely cleared for wheat production, subsequently leading to its designation as a Global Biodiversity Hotspot given its high number of endemic plant species and rapid clearing rates. Since the 1970s, the greatest rates of forest clearance have been in southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales, although Victoria is the most cleared state. Today, degradation is occurring in the largely forested tropical north due to rapidly expanding invasive weed species and altered fire regimes.

S: 1. OED – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=forest&searchmode=none; http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=clearance&searchmode=none (last access: 26 December 2014). 2. http://jpe.oxfordjournals.org/content/5/1/109.full (last access: 26 December 2014).

SYN: 1. deforestation, forest destruction, clearance of forests. 2. deforest area.

S: 1. IATE. 2. GDT.

CR: biomass, biomass energy, deforestation, ecology, land clearing, manure.