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News
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| Nature |
Volume 15,
Number 3 |
Also in this section:  That time of year Dry season is burning season ---
not only people intentionally setting fires to clear their land, but
discarded cigarettes, bottles or other pieces of glass that act like
magnifying glasses to focus the sun's rays on flammable grass and many
other sources of combustion.
It's illegal to set fires to clear land, because it causes air pollution and because there are always a few families burned out of their homes every year by brush fires that get out of control. Setting fires is a tradition thousands of years old, and when Panama's population was much smaller and we had fewer invasive weeds like the elephant grass --- paja canalera --- that was unwisely imported in the 1950s, it made a certain amount of sense. One could chop a farm out of the jungle, get a few seasons of agricultural production out of the land, then abandon it for the forest to grow back. Nowadays you get exotic grasses instead of trees on abandoned disturbed soil, and there are way too many people for slash-and-burn to be a sustainable agricultural practice anymore. This particular fire started in a cow pasture and progressed to the edge of a residential neighborhood before burning itself out. Nobody lost a home, but there were some stinging eyes and some clothing that acquired the stench of smoke while hanging on the line to dry. Photo by Eric Jackson Also in this section: News
| Economy
| Culture
| Opinion
| Lifestyle
| Nature
Noticias | Opiniones | Archive | Unclassified Ads | Home             The
Panama Report: What's best and where to go in Panama --- http://www.thepanamareport.com |
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2009 by Eric Jackson email:
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