I have been listening to Icelandic music of various genres for a few years now, and one particular neoclassical composer Johann Johannsson I really like, he composed the soundtrack for the recent movie "The Theory Of Everything" He released a concept album called "Fordlandia" in 2008 which I adore, but until a few days ago I didn't realise it was inspired by Henry Ford's failed rubber production project in Brazil. I guess most Americans will already be aware of the story, but it was new to me and I found it fascinating Welcome to Fordlandia, Henry Ford's lost city deep in the Amazon rainforest which was abandoned as a monumental failure The relic of the Ford empire was part of automaker's vision to create his own rubber plant to feed his Michigan factories in the 1920s Ford negotiated a deal with the Brazilian government for 3,900 square miles of land on the banks of the Rio Tapajós and named it Fordlandia The idea was to recreate American suburbia but workers complained about the homes which let in bugs unlike their traditional stilt houses The Brazilian workers were unhappy about attending square dances and did not like the rules on women drinking Ford abandoned the plant when rubber trees would not grow Article here A track from the album A short video about the project
The Amazon Rainforest. Everything about it has always fascinated me, but the future sounds bleak from things I've read. ... troubling times ahead for sure. The Disappearing Rainforests We are losing Earth's greatest biological treasures just as we are beginning to appreciate their true value. Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years. One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second with tragic consequences for both developing and industrial countries. Rainforests are being destroyed because the value of rainforest land is perceived as only the value of its timber by short-sighted governments, multi-national logging companies, and land owners. Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation. Experts estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. That equates to 50,000 species a year. As the rainforest species disappear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. Currently, 121 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. While 25% of Western pharmaceuticals are derived from rainforest ingredients, less that 1% of these tropical trees and plants have been tested by scientists. Most rainforests are cleared by chainsaws, bulldozers and fires for its timber value and then are followed by farming and ranching operations, even by world giants like Mitsubishi Corporation, Georgia Pacific, Texaco and Unocal. There were an estimated ten million Indians living in the Amazonian Rainforest five centuries ago. Today there are less than 200,000. In Brazil alone, European colonists have destroyed more than 90 indigenous tribes since the 1900's. With them have gone centuries of accumulated knowledge of the medicinal value of rainforest species. As their homelands continue to be destroyed by deforestation, rainforest peoples are also disappearing. Most medicine men and shamans remaining in the Rainforests today are 70 years old or more. Each time a rainforest medicine man dies, it is as if a library has burned down. When a medicine man dies without passing his arts on to the next generation, the tribe and the world loses thousands of years of irreplaceable knowledge about medicinal plants. http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm#.VvwZfxx8b58