Bolsonar’s environmental policies can be perceived as being a threat to human existence all together. Recently, a new President was elected in Brazil, Jair Bolsonar. This information about the fall of the Mayan civilization becomes increasingly alarming when we look into what is currently going on in Brazil. Currently global loss of forests is contributing 12-15% of total greenhouse gas emissions (Charlotte). If the tree is cut down prematurely, the process is accelerated. When a tree dies all of the carbon that has been stored away is released back into the atmosphere. The world’s forests are one big carbon sink, storing and locking away carbon dioxide avoiding its immediate release into the atmosphere. Deforestation is a great threat to biodiversity, leading birds, animals and plants to lose their natural habitats. In Honduras, it is estimated that up to 85% of timber which is cut down is done so illegally (Charlotte).

Deforestation in Central American still remains extremely problematic today. The Mayans burned and chopped down their forests in order to clear land for agriculture and also to acquire wood for the elaborate construction of their cities (Stromberg). As seen in Figure 1, the decline of the Mayan population was closely tied to rapid deforestation coupled with the soil erosion. Analysis of past human activity and its effects on the environmental are critical to evaluating contemporary environmental debates and policies. In the book, “American Anthropologist,” Fisher and Feinman link past human activity to a range of environmental changes. We can determine the ways in which the Mayans exacerbated deforestation along with the effects which it had. In his book “Collapse,” Jared Diamond puts forth a theory about the sudden demise of the Mayan civilization. Diamond believes that a prolonged drought which was intensified by rapid deforestation led to the collapse of the once great Mayan civilization (Stromberg).Studying the collapse of the Mayan civilization can be beneficial for a multitude of reasons.

However, during the 8 thor 9 thcentury the Mayan civilization suddenly collapsed. At the Mayan’s peak, the civilization was made up by more than 19 million people. The fall of the Mayan civilization has puzzled scholars for years.

Jared diamond maya collapse