User:Ezimoo/sandbox

= Ironworking in Igbo land dates back to one of the earliest dates for it in the world. For centuries after, Igbo land was heavily forested and geographers logically designated it as characterized heavy tropical forest belt of West Africa Over time, the  heavy  forests began  giving way to grass vegetation with stunted trees here and there. By the late 19th century, much of the hitherto heavily forested area had given way to grass and shrub vegetation .The early Europeans who ventured into the Igbo heartland  commented on the extent to which the heavy forest had given way to derived savanna. Many writers have attributed this to increasing farming  of  the land. While farming was a major cause of this, ironworking initiated and significantly contributed to it well into the 19th century. =

= Iron technology is regarded  as one of the most profound  revolutions  in human history Before then, human beings used stone and wood as tools and weapons. They could hardly make  any impact on their environment, for  very little could be done with stones and sticks. = With the advent of the technology, Igbo ancestors  began impacting  their physical milieu more significantly than their  Stone Age ancestors could ever  have dreamt. Tradition ironworking; that is iron smelting  and smiting, required enormous amount of charcoal as a source of energy. Charcoal production required cutting  down of a huge amount  of hardwoods++++?. The hard woods were slow in regenerating. As result of this, fast growing shrubs and  grass began to take over the areas with  heavy forests. As iron smelters  and smiths  moved to new areas  to exploit hardwoods for smelting and smiting, grassland areas began to expand, correspondingly. It is little surprise that the areas where iron working was practiced   most intensely and for a very long  time,  have  the most savannah-like vegetation in Igboland .These include  the Nsukka-Udi- Okiwe-Uturu-Abiriba stretch. This can hardly be coincidental. Rather, it inheres  a correlation  between ironworking  and vegetation depletion. Furthermore exploitation of the soil for iron ore exposed it to gully erosion which is characteristic of many of the traditional ironworking areas.

Traditional farming based on the slash and burn system of land clearing  contributed to the spread of  derived savanna vegetation in Igboland. The situation was   exacerbated by rapid   growth of Igbo population. From pre-colonial times to the present, Igbo land harbors the heaviest human population density in Africa, second only to the fertile lower River Nile valley. The heavy population density   makes its own  environmental degradation, as shrinking   area of  arable land becomes  over used.