Revenge of the Rainforest

My 7th CC Toastmaster speech. The objective was research. The copyright of the speech belongs to Zani Smit

Mr Toastmaster,

Some of the most important events in the twentieth century took years to accomplish, while others took only minutes.

Let’s look at some of the highlights of this century.

• 1st Flight by Wright brothers
• World War I
• Titanic Sank
• The Assassination of Gandhi
• Creation of Star Wars
• Nelson Mandela being released from prison

I want you for a moment to imagine a small and trivial event of this century, like the paving of the Kinshasa highway in the nineteen seventies.

The paving of this highway may seem insignificant to you but what if I told you it affected every person on earth, and turned out to be one of the most important events in the twentieth century.

Before the highway was paved and become known as The Aids Highway, a little boy called Richard Preston and his family went on a trip to Mount Elgon that lies between the border of Uganda and Kenya, not far from Sudan. They wanted to visit this biological island of rain forest in the center of Africa, and isolated world rising above dry plants, fifty miles across, blanketed with trees. Another cool fact about this Mountain was that is may have been the highest mountain in Africa if it was not eroded down, even higher than Kilimanjaro is today, it is still the widest.

The road to Mount Elgon is a segment of the Kinshasa highway, a road that cuts Africa in half. During the time that the Preston’s took the trip the road was a dirt track that advanced through the heart of Africa, almost impossible to traverse along its complete length.

But how could the paving of this road have such a dramatic impact on humanity? It killed at least 10 million lives, with the likelihood that the ultimate number of human casualties will vastly exceed the deaths in the Second World War When long sections of the road were paved, the trucks began rolling through and soon afterward the Aids virus appeared in towns along the highway. Medical doctors who work in East Africa believe that 90 percent of the prostitutes working along the main roads carry the Aids virus. Local doctors estimate that as many as 30 percent of all men and women of child bearing age who live in the vicinity of Mount Elgon are infected with HIV.

The emergence of HIV was subtle; it incubates for years in a human host before it kills the host. If the virus had been noticed earlier, it might have been named Kinshasa Highway, in honor of the fact that it passed along the Kinshasa highway during its emergence from the African forest.

Years later when Richard Preston became a number one bestselling author with his book “The Hot Zone” he recalls “In effect, I had witnessed a crucial event in the emergence of Aids, the transformation of a thread of dirt into a ribbon of tar.”

The emergence of Aids, Ebola and any number of other rain forest agents appears to be a natural consequence of the ruin of the tropical biosphere. The emerging viruses are surfacing from ecologically damaged parts of the earth, like Mount Elgon. The tropical rain forests are the deep reservoirs of life on the planet, containing most of the world’s plant and animal species. The rain forests are also its largest reservoirs of viruses, since all living things carry viruses. When viruses come out of an ecosystem, they tend to spread in waves through the human population, like echoes from the dying biosphere.

There are many villages around Mount Elgon and the forest is being cleared away, the trees are being cut down for firewood or to make room for grazing land, and the elephants are vanishing.

In a sense, the earth is mounting and immune response against the human species. It is beginning to react to the human parasite, the flooding infection of people, and the dead spots of concrete all over the planet.

Perhaps the biosphere does not like the idea of 5 billion humans. Nature has interesting ways of balancing itself. The rain forest has its own defenses. The earth’s immune system has recognized the presence of human species and is starting to kick in. The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by the human parasite.

“Aids” is the worst environmental disaster of the twentieth century.Whether the human race can actually maintain a population of five billion or more without a crash with a hot virus remains an open question - unanswered. What we do know is that Aids is the revenge of the rain forest. It may be only the beginning.

Mr. Toastmaster