tags:: #historic-developments #colonialism #guttapercha #Telegraph projects::[[]]
In Tully’s (2009) article, the unregulated harvesting of Gutta Percha in colonized countries is discussed, noting the environmental consequences of a newly industrialized economy. Tully (2009) explains, “This ecological disaster adumbrated the galloping destruction of tropical rainforests so depressingly familiar to us today” (3). Although the advancement of the telegraph was a very important step to reaching the modern day Internet, it can be easy to forget the materials that went into achieving said end goal, and how that could effect us today.
Melissa Rand has great notes on the environmental destruction caused by gutta percha harvesting: