<P> Three regional studies of historic erosion and alluviation in ancient Greece found that, wherever adequate evidence exists, a major phase of erosion follows the introduction of farming in the various regions of Greece by about 500 - 1,000 years, ranging from the later Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age . The thousand years following the mid-first millennium BC saw serious, intermittent pulses of soil erosion in numerous places . The historic silting of ports along the southern coasts of Asia Minor (e.g. Clarus, and the examples of Ephesus, Priene and Miletus, where harbors had to be abandoned because of the silt deposited by the Meander) and in coastal Syria during the last centuries BC . </P> <P> Easter Island has suffered from heavy soil erosion in recent centuries, aggravated by agriculture and deforestation . Jared Diamond gives an extensive look into the collapse of the ancient Easter Islanders in his book Collapse . The disappearance of the island's trees seems to coincide with a decline of its civilization around the 17th and 18th century . He attributed the collapse to deforestation and over-exploitation of all resources . </P> <P> The famous silting up of the harbor for Bruges, which moved port commerce to Antwerp, also followed a period of increased settlement growth (and apparently of deforestation) in the upper river basins . In early medieval Riez in upper Provence, alluvial silt from two small rivers raised the riverbeds and widened the floodplain, which slowly buried the Roman settlement in alluvium and gradually moved new construction to higher ground; concurrently the headwater valleys above Riez were being opened to pasturage . </P> <P> A typical progress trap was that cities were often built in a forested area, which would provide wood for some industry (for example, construction, shipbuilding, pottery). When deforestation occurs without proper replanting, however; local wood supplies become difficult to obtain near enough to remain competitive, leading to the city's abandonment, as happened repeatedly in Ancient Asia Minor . Because of fuel needs, mining and metallurgy often led to deforestation and city abandonment . </P>

Deforestation decreases with enhanced awareness about forest conservation importance