Forests had been cleared for settlement and agriculture at an estimated rate of 104,000 acres annually between 1956 and 1981.
In 1681 the Quaker leader of the English colony of Pennsylvania, William Penn, ordered that one acre of forest be preserved for every five acres cleared for settlement, and in the following century Benjamin Franklin led various campaigns to curtail the dumping of waste.
The best landscape predictor of the magnitude of tri-colored activity was non-forested land area within commuting distance of survey sites, suggesting that tri-colored bats were less active in landscapes where forests are cleared for agriculture, settlements and timber production.
The town was proclaimed in 1869, its name coming from an Aboriginal word for honeysuckle; the land was cleared for agriculture, and settlement began shortly thereafter.
The natural vegetation of deciduous forest and steppe has been almost wholly cleared for agriculture since intensive settlement began in the 17th century and now survives only as occasional oak groves along the rivers.
The way is now cleared for a trial or a settlement by New York, as has been the result in several other states that have faced such challenges.
The oblast's rolling hills, which are much dissected by river valleys and erosion gullies, are covered by both fertile and poor soils, but the natural vegetation of mixed forest or forest-steppe has in large part been cleared for agriculture since the intensive settlement of the area in the 16th century.
Large areas of forest in the province, most of which were already allocated to households, have been cleared for hydropower plants and many new settlements have been set up for villagers displaced as a consequence.
When the pre-historical people of the Taosi Culture occupied the loess tableland and cleared land for settlement and arable cultivation between 4400 and 3900 a B.P., a global event of rapid climatic change (4200 3800 a B.P). hit the area.
