>I'm not sure that repaying
>foreign debt is foremost in the minds of those indigenous rain forest
>people when they engage in slash-and-burn agriculture, which they have
>done since time-immemorial. Slash-and-burn is a very primitive form of
>land clearance (quite effective in saving labour, but less so in economy
>of acreage), that most developed capitalist agriculture eschews.
in reply to Dennis saying:
>>The
>>rainforests, which contain probably the most biodiversity per square meter
>>on the planet, are being trashed because of market forces run amok, which
>>force countries like Brazil into slash-and-burn extractivism to make the
>>payments on their unpayable foreign debt.
Um, those indigenous people didn't/generally don't have the means or power or determination of one or more modern businesses (local or trans-national) in practising extractivism/slash-and-burn clear cutting on a massive, industrial scale. I think you misinterpreted a wee bit of what Dennis said.
Todd