Conflicts brewed as competing forces with opposing ideologies turned to them with different aims. Vietnam is slowly regaining its forests through tree planting and natural reforestation though. To explore the role of rubber in Vietnam, we have to first look to Henry Ford, the namesake founder of Ford Motors. While treatment at the hands of colonial exploiters sets an exceedingly low bar that is easily surpassed today, the work remains physically demanding and dangerous, with risks from snakes and insects, as well chemical poisoning during processing. Jun. Rubber production. When America ramped up its presence, it mostly picked up where the departing French left off. Vietnam’s forest recovery efforts have been driven in part by Phung Tuu Boi, a forester who experimented with various regeneration projects after the war. During the Vietnam war, the United States used large amounts of defoliants which destroyed large swathes of forests. The climate in the highlands of southern Vietnam offered ideal conditions for rubber trees. John ‘Chick’ Donohue, now 79, set off by boat on his 8,000-mile, four-month journey in November 1967. A rubber plantation in Bien Hoa, 1964. By Mike Ives Vietnamese soldiers have been searching two hamlets on the outskirts of the Vietnamese capital for at least 18 unexploded bombs dropped by a U.S. B-52 bomber in December 1972, during the late American President Richard Nixon's Christmas bombing offensive. Inside the home of a plantation operator. Binh claims it was rare for a week to pass without someone being crushed by a tree, while broken limbs were commonplace. Phung Tuu Boi stands in front of a hopea tree at the Forest Inventory and Planning Institute in Hanoi. Strangely, the teak trees that I’ve come across are often in eerie or significant places, such as dotting Hill A1 in Dien Bien Phu, the remote northwestern corner of Vietnam where the bloody final battle of the Franco-Vietnam war took place in 1954. Photo via Flickr user manhhai. Download Vietnam palm tree stock photos. This 13 part series covers the history of Vietnam from France's colonial control, through the 1945 revolution, to the 1975 U.S. evacuation from Saigon and the years beyond. He worked with Australian colleagues to plant Australian acacia and eucalyptus trees in deforested areas of central and southern Vietnam. For their part, the French corporations were accused of excessive tapping and unsustainable practices so as to exact as much short-term profit as possible in light of the uncertain political future. As of 2018, Vietnam is the world’s third-largest producer and exporter of rubber, boasting shipments of 1.58 million tons, worth over US$2.1 billion, a 14.5% increase in volume over the previous year. The new government, however, chose to operate the industry in accordance with colonial structures that showed little concern for workers and gave preferences to the large foreign companies that remained. So in addition to places of rebellion, the rubber plantations became sites of sabotage and death, as well as safe havens, way stations and valuable supply caches. The 2016 horror movie Co Hau Gai (The Housemaid) takes place on a Vietnamese rubber plantation during the colonial era’s waning years. There are other complications. As Big Energy Gains, Can Europe’s Community Renewables Compete? Swimmers Among the Trees: Seal Operations in the Vietnam War Hardcover – April 22, 1997 by Joel M. Hutchins (Author) 3.5 out of 5 stars 5 ratings The only sound in the dusty parking lot was of birds chirping. Although the trees were good for business — by 2008, 850,000 hectares of domestic acacia and eucalyptus trees were supporting Vietnam’s $185 million-per-year wood-chip export industry — it became clear that acacia and eucalyptus monocultures didn’t protect watersheds or conserve biodiversity as native trees did. Migrants in Tonkin bound for southern plantations. It was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It notes that Vietnam produced the fifth-most rubber in the world at the time, tallying US$33.5 million in profits, of which US$13.4 million went to the government, accounting for 57% of the nation’s foreign earnings. If production conditions and environmental impacts have drastically improved since the 19th and 20th centuries, we could possibly justify the continued use of rubber, as long as we acknowledge those who suffered in the past to make that possible. Benefiting from improved methods and attention, the southern region produced more than one metric ton of rubber per hectare per year between 1957 and 1961. A letter intercepted at the Phu Ly post office exemplifies the type of rhetorical positioning the political agents used to gain support: Fellow countrymen and women! In the Amazonian city of Manaus, for example, plantation owners were rumored to be so rich that they gave their horses champagne to drink and paid upwards of US$8,000 a night for imported prostitutes while filling the city with extravagant and absurdly impractical buildings, such as an ornate opera house. 314 videos Play all Vietnam War - Country Music Vietnam War Song Project Derrik Roberts - There Won't Be Any Snow (Christmas in the Jungle) - Duration: 3:03. This, according to National Geographic Society explorer Wade Davis, transformed rubber "from a curiosity to a fundamental component of the industrial age.". In another grove of trees sits the Vietnam Women's Memorial, another figurative sculpture depicting three nurses and one wounded soldier. When it fell to the Vietnamese People's Army and the Viet Cong at the end of the Vietnam War, its name was changed to Ho Chi Minh city in honor of the leader of Vietnam's communist movement. “We have to have a compromise between production and conservation forests,” said Ha Huy Thinh, director of the Research Center for Forestry Improvement at the Forest Science Institute of Vietnam. Rather than the wholly inadequate health services offered to people uprooted from their homelands, companies attributed the abysmal health to the "primitive lifestyle of Annam people when it comes to hygiene and their attitude to disease.". With much of the country’s woodlands and jungle lost or damaged over the past half-century by war, the spread of agriculture, and logging, Vietnam’s forestry experts are split over what the nation’s new forests should look like. Making matters worse, malaria and other illnesses ran rampant, with insufficient medical attention available. (previous page) () As one Vietnamese journalist, Diep Lien Anh, noted: “One rubber tree equals one enemy. It’s from the guerrilla tactic which the Northern army used to fight against the Southern army and the American army, during the Vietnam war. The plantation’s combination of orderly rows of plants adjacent to more rugged terrain played into the advantages and needs of Viet Minh forces. 16, 2004. Notably, the Vietnamese government scientists interviewed for this article suggest that Hopea and other native species should not only promote biodiversity, but supply Vietnam’s domestic timber market and $2.8 billion-per-year furniture export industry. Because rubber trees evolved in an ecosystem with constant rainfall, their natural growing cycle does not sync up with Southeast Asia’s monsoons, and thus they disrupt the complex balance of water systems, often burdening local streams and aquifers. The Micheline Plantation described them as "often depraved (opium addicts, public girls, lazy) having only an idea: desert to go to Cholon.". As the plantations grew, companies increasingly looked to source labor from the Red River Delta, thus bringing workers south to the highlands. But at the moment, he said, “biodiversity isn’t good there — there are no birds or wildlife.”. The two Tree Crushers cleared more than 2,000 acres around Long Binh by themselves, the 93rd’s engineers reported in one operational report. He attempted to satisfy America’s automobile-fueled rubber needs by creating his own latex-centric city in the Brazilian rainforest. These native stands of trees have been badly decimated not only in Vietnam but across all of Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, U.S. forces sprayed 72 million liters of herbicides, including Agent Orange, on the Vietnamese countryside and dropped roughly 13 million tons of bombs, according to Jakarta-based forestry expert Chris Lang. Vietnam – good growing conditions for acacia trees. With some exceptions, their preference for profits demanded they take a bet-hedging and pragmatic approach to politics, hoping to remain in good enough standing with whomever ultimately prevailed in the wars. Yet we paid the owners of the Michelin plantations $600 for each rubber tree we damaged, while the family of a slain Vietnamese child got no more than $120 in payout for a life.”. The development allowed the colonial government to exert political and social influence in the region, which partly explains their preference for large foreign plantations as opposed to smaller-scale operations run by Vietnamese. During the Vietnam War, the US sprayed Agent Orange on the jungles and fields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They requested protection to keep their interests safe. Our consumer-centric commodification of nature may soon lead to an inhospitable planet, to say nothing of the suffering of our fellow humans along the way. How could we produce enough to fill our bellies with those little fields?". School children look at an unexploded Vietnam War-era U.S. bomb at Soc Son near Hanoi airport December 22, 2000. Ford’s folly didn’t immediately stop the western world from sourcing rubber from South America, however. The safety pins on the grenades are removed and the explosives are put into cans, which hold down the striker levers. Quang Van Dinh, head of Tham A Village in Son La Province, told Vietnam News: "Before, when they [the rubber corporation] called upon the people to contribute land, they said the yield would come in seven years and the money would help people escape poverty. In War-Scarred Landscape, Vietnam Replants Its Forests. A retired US Marine has shared the extraordinary story of how he travelled from New York to Vietnam during the Vietnam War to deliver beers to friends serving in the US Army. By 1928, more than half of all workers employed on the plantations were recruited from Tonkin. When the outer layer of bark is ruptured, the sticky, milky substance flows out to deter hungry invertebrates. When planted in neat rows, rubber trees in the area were susceptible to a devastating plague known as South American Leaf Blight. Sign up for the E360 Newsletter →. 1967, Dak To, South Vietnam, American soldiers use fallen trees for cover during the costly fighting for Hill 875 Erstklassige Nachrichtenbilder in hoher Auflösung bei Getty Images While reunification would usher in a period of peace and prosperity, nothing represents a greater what could have been than the rubber industry, which took years to rebound following decades of senseless devastation. The colonial government nevertheless made vast swaths of forest available to European companies to start plantations while also establishing necessary transportation infrastructure and providing financial support. They could easily slip in and out to wreak havoc while also traveling into and through areas their more mechanized foes could not. By some estimates, forest cover in Vietnam declined by 50 percent between 1945 and 1980. On a muggy morning near Vinh Cuu, a town about 60 miles north of Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam, a blue Toyota pickup whizzed by dense tropical scrub. The disease, which one pathologist observed to move "like a blowtorch through the plantings," could strike at any moment, and destruction would result. Considering the living and working conditions, it should be of no surprise that colonial plantations became places of radicalization and rebellion. Famous as the tree under which Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment and thus became the Buddha, the Bodhi Tree, which means ‘perfect knowledge’, has strong spiritual associations and is found in most temple grounds in Vietnam. It's worth noting that whatever disregard the American military held for rubber holdings, it was worse for Vietnamese people. These French operators were often caught between adversaries and played one off another as it suited their interests. From tires to sandals to medical instruments, rubber is a ubiquitous part of the modern experience, yet few people know much about its origins or the complex, exceedingly violent history that accompanied its ascension to one of the world’s most important commodities. Vietnam’s most beautiful trees and flowers are also its deadliest. An Australia-based forestry expert, Tran Lam Dong, reports that defoliants destroyed about 7,700 square miles of forests — six percent of Vietnam’s total land area. ", Visitors to a colonial plantation might have heard this sorrowful song drifting above the soft, unceasing drops of latex dribbling from the ghastly, slashed flesh of trees. A list with some of the most terrifying sounds o the Vietnam War. As Vietnam cultivates its own expertise and experience, companies have increasingly looked beyond the borders to Laos and Cambodia to establish plantations. Unlike hopea — which can’t easily re-colonize degraded landscapes because they are insect-pollinated and have poor seed-dispersal capabilities — acacia and eucalyptus seedlings grew easily in soils degraded by logging and herbicides. Pages in category "Trees of Vietnam" The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 222 total. Cultural artifacts like artwork can reveal fascinating insights into our ancestors’ past life, though the pieces below are far from the kind of artistic creations that get featured in museums. Authorities point to the efficiencies of large plantations — owning only 38% of land, they produce 60% of total latex — and higher quality standards stemming from technological advantages to justify the continued support of them at the expense of small plantations. However, most of it got wiped off and got reduced to 155 000 ha in 2006 because of the war. Moreover, plantation development results in roads, schools and other key infrastructure projects in remote regions of the country, including northern areas where production has expanded with the advent of hybrid species and advanced cultivation methods. To destroy one rubber tree is to kill one invader.” All told, 10% of all high-value trees and 17,000 of a total 150,000 plantation hectares were ruined. In their retreats, colonial forces would occasionally destroy the rubber trees so they wouldn’t offer economic or strategic value to their enemies. Rubber plantations provide evidence of some of the worst abuses of natives at the hands of the French, while later serving numerous purposes for a range of private and public actors. The National Coordinators of Vietnam Veterans Against the War once wrote: “We supposedly valued human life while our enemy did not. 16, 2004. A nose-dive in natural rubber production because of the blight would certainly have a calamitous effect on aviation, shipping and transportation, rippling across all aspects of modern-day life. The Americans sought to defoliate the trees and bushes, so that enemy soldiers would be exposed. Vietnam is one of the countries to which the Bodhi … “The American army used planes to kill our forests,” said Tran Van Mui, director of the Vinh Cuu Nature Reserve, which since 2009 has promoted a $1.5 million program of native tree reintroduction among villagers. Unlike native Dipterocarps, acacias block indigenous trees, shrubs, and lianas (woody vines) from growing underneath them, which eliminates the habitat of native insects, vertebrates and fungi; reduce biodiversity; and lead to species extinction. Without rubber, you could not enjoy the life you have now. 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