High rates of landscape degradation not product of landscape fires

Once humans discovered how to tame fire, they began using it for heat, cooking, to scare away animals and to alter their environs, especially burning areas to plant and to restore grazing land. In Madagascar, scientists and conservationists have long believed that fire is a leading cause of high landscape degradation, but an international team of researchers have found that medium to large fires on the island are similar to those on other tropical locations.