Ecopirate Or Saviour of the Amazon Rain Forest? Kenn Hodd

EcoPirate or Saviour of the Amazon Rain Forest? Kenn Hodd

© 22.11.2011 EcoPirate or Saviour? Outline I. Early History of Natural Rubber Use & Time Line II. Biographical Details of Henry Wickham III. Sources of Rubber Latex & The Structure of Natural Rubber IV. The Amazon River, its Extent and Hazards V. Rubber Tree Seeds VI. The Production of and Market for Natural Rubber VII. Fordlandia VIII.A Defence of Henry Wickham EcoPirate or Saviour? Weeping Tree

¾Cao o’chu – Weeping Tree ¾Caoutchou (Fr.) & cauchu (Sp.) - Natural Rubber ¾Gummi (D.) ¾India Rubber (Eng.) ¾Best rubber was ‘Para Fine’ ¾Word ‘Latex’ derived from Leche (Sp. for Milk) EcoPirate or Saviour? Time Line

¾130 BCE – Olmecs use rubber ¾1531 - Rubber balls amuse Spanish court, later rubber balls used for real tennis in French court ¾1770-Joseph Priestley invented ‘India Rubber’ - eraser ¾1783- Montgolfier ‘Hot Air Balloon’ ¾1829-MacIntosh develops Waterproof Fabrics ¾1839-43 Sulphur Vulcanisation Patented (Goodyear and Hancock) EcoPirate or Saviour? Rubber Plants Plants producing latices bearing natural rubber EcoPirate or CH3

-CH2-C=CH-CH2- Saviour? n

Repeating unit in 1,4-polyisoprene

The Structure of

o Poly(1,4-Isoprenes) Cis-form (natural rubber) Tm ~25 C

o Trans-form (gutta percha; balata; eucommia ulmoide gum) Tm ~65 C EcoPirate or Saviour? Time Line-Continued

¾1850 Rubber gaskets patented Samuel Morton ¾1850-1920 Railway Expansion ¾1876 Wickham collects Hevea B. Seeds ¾1876 Dr Otto invents internal combustion engine ¾1888 Dunlop patents pneumatic cycle tyre ¾1905 Henry Ford starts to manufacture Model T EcoPirate or Saviour? Biographical Details-1 ¾1846 Henry Wickham born at Haverstock Hill, 4m from St. Paul’s ¾1850 Henry Wickham’s father dies of cholera ¾1850 HW’s mother becomes a milliner ¾1851 The Great Exhibition: Goodyear’s ’Vulcanite Court’ ¾1866 HW sails for Nicaragua in search of toucans, parrots... EcoPirate or Saviour? Biographical Details-2

¾1868 HW departs England to duplicate Humboldt’s route of Orinoco, Casaquiare Canal, Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers to the sea (5000m, 8000km) ¾1869-1870 HW becomes a rubber tapper on Orinoco ¾1870 - Returns to England publish book of his experiences EcoPirate or Saviour? Travel Book by HW yRough Notes of the Journey through the Wilderness from Trinidad to Para, by Way of the Great Cataracts of the Orinoco, Atabapo and Rio Negro y Includes sketches of leaf, seed and seed pod of Hevea Brasiliensis EcoPirate or Saviour? The Amazon

¾The Amazon drains some 40% of the land mass of South America

¾Approximately 6.9m.sq.km (2.7m.sq. m), about 4% of the world’s total land mass

¾In addition to Brazil, the Amazon drains part of Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador

¾It has 16,000km of navigable waterways EcoPirat e or Saviour ? Map of the Amazon and its Tributaries EcoPirate or Saviour? Wickham’s journey EcoPirate or Saviour? Some Hazards of Amazon Exploration ¾Disease: Amoebic and bacillary dysentery, yellow and dengue fevers, malaria, cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, tuberculosis, rabes from vampire bats, chagas disease ¾Insects and Arachnides: Mosquitos, blackflies infest the eyes causing river blindness, botflies, grubs infest the flesh, chiggers and sandflies, may transmit various diseases, hookworm, infest upto 96% of the local population, fire ants ¾ River Hazards: Ubiquitous pirahana, electric eels, electric stingrays, candiru (uric acid seeking fish) EcoPirate or Saviour? The Seeds

¾1871 Henry Wickham returns to Amazon with new wife, Violet, and relatives; 50% survive to 1875! ¾1876 HW collected 70,000 hevea b. seeds ¾Seeds taken by HW to Liverpool, thence to Kew Gardens ¾Paid £740 by Joseph Hooker, Director of Kew Gardens ¾Some 2000+ seed germinated at Kew ¾Seedlings sent to Singapore, Malaya & Ceylon ¾1898 First cultivated hevea rubber marketed EcoPirate or Saviour?

Seeds of Hevea Brasiliensis EcoPirate or Saviour?

Making Baskets for Rubber Tree Seeds EcoPirate or Saviour?

y Early Plantation Growth EcoPirate or Saviour?

Annual Production of Rubber (1,000t/a) EcoPirate or Saviour? Stock Market Crashes

I. 1636 Tulipmania in Holland II. 1720 Mississippi Scheme in France and the South Sea Bubble in England collapse. III. 1910 Rubber Bubble Bursts IV. 1929 Black Tuesday, the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange V. 1990 Dot.Com Bubble bursts VI. 2008 Collapse of Fraudulent Banks EcoPirate or Saviour? Car Production & Rubber Price Company Tonnes of Wild EcoPirate Rubber Exported Duschenchon, Zargas & 3770 or Saviour? Co. Schultz & Co 2509 Wild Rubber Export Adelbert H. Alden 1433 from Manuas Gordon & Co 1016 (1910) Anderson Wharehouses 225

Burns, “Manaus 1910: Gunzberger, Levy & Co 131 Portrait of a Boom Town” De Lagotellerie & Co 125 J.G. Araujo 106 Theodore Levy Camille & 75 Co J.C. Arana y Hermanos 69 EcoPirate or Saviour? Wild Rubber Collection I. Aviador - Wholesale wild rubber dealer situated in Para, Santarem or Manaus II. Patrao – Owns, controls or manages, a forest rancho organised in estrada, walks, of wild rubber tree groves III. Seringuieros – Rubber tree tappers, collect rubber latex for three to six months of the year Trade goods – worthless goods sold to patraos by aviadors & to pay seringuireos. Example: shotguns with wire wound barrels; Mark up on trade goods 1000’s% EcoPirate or Saviour? Biographical Details-3 ¾Late 1870’s Henry and Violet settle in N.Queensland to grow Tobacco ¾1886 H & V settle in British Honduras as Government Officer & Banana Planter + some Castilloa ¾1895 H & V settle on the Conflict Islands –H dives for sponges, mother of pearl, pearls, etc., and grows coconuts ¾1898 Violet gives up on Henry & departs Conflict Islands EcoPira te or Saviour ?

Rubber Plantation EcoPirate or Rubber Tree Annual Yield Saviour? kg/h/y Hevea Brasiliensis, 750 Yields of wild ‘Rubber Hevea Brasiliensis Trees’ Early cultivar 750 (kg per hectare Late cultivar 1500 per annum) Castilloa Elastica <120 Ceara (Manibot) <50 EcoPirate or Saviour? Fordlandia ¾ 1928-Henry Ford buys 1m hectares of Amazonian ‘Real Estate’ ¾ Builds an All-American City on the Tapajos River ¾ Bulldozes land of castahiersa (Brazil nut), Spanish cedar, uxy, etc. ¾ Plants Hevea Seed imported from Malaya! ¾ Result – Disaster! ¾ Rubber Tree Seedlings Die ¾ Caboclos Riot shouting the slogan “Down with Spinach!” EcoPirate or Saviour? Hevea Killer ¾Dothidela Alei, a fungal parasite, spread by leaf contact in young saplings; ¾This blight is counteracted in Nature by the seed dispersal method of the Hevea. ¾As it dries the trilobal fruit of the plant explodes, ¾Fires Seeds upto 33m; ¾Seeds are dispersed over area >⅓ hectare > 1 acre EcoPirate or Saviour? The Case for Saviour! I. Estimates suggest 131,000 to 149,000 seringuiros tapped 21.4m Hevea trees to produce upto 50,000 of wild NR, annually (Study of Microeconomics of Extraction 1860-1920) II. Estimated in total 300m Hevea trees in Amazon Rain Forest III. By 1920 >350,000t of Cultivated NR produced annually IV. Estimated to produce 350,000t of Wild NR need to tap ~140m Hevea trees using ~1m Seringuiros! V. Effectively accessing the entire Amazon Forest within 25y! without satisfying the market need! (Russia alone produced >800,000t of synthetic NR, annually, in 1980’s) EcoPirate or Saviour? Biographical Details-4 ¾1920 – Henry Wickham knighted ‘for services to the Rubber Industry’ ¾Mid-1920’s Sir Henry is destitute ¾Late-1920’s Sir Henry is awarded various pensions & lives his final years in relative luxury ¾1928 Sir Henry dies after very short illness