"The Book of Mormon includes a brief account of imprudent use of natural resources. The people of Nephi migrated northward to the land 'Desolate, so called because 'of the greatness of the destruction of the people who had before inhabited the land' and had harvested all available timber. In contrast to their irresponsible predecessors, the people of Nephi became 'expert in the working of cement' and 'did suffer whatsoever tree should spring up upon the face of the land that it should grow up, that in time they might have timber to build their houses, yea, their cities, and their temples, and their synagogues, and their sanctuaries, and all manner of their buildings.' UCLA professor Jared Diamond suggests in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed that poor environmental stewardship accounts for the decline of many civilizations. He attributes the decline of the early Mayan civilization to warfare, and failure to adequately manage available resources, specifically the effects of 'deforestation and hillside erosion, which caused a decrease in the amount of useable farmland at a time when more rather than less farmland was needed.'"