Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
But it wasn't sickness I felt. I felt trapped, just like the Africans running this plantation
must have felt trapped - by economics, by industry, by the reality of putting food on the
table at the end of each night. Africa has to develop, its people have to be empowered to
use their natural resources - but it brought a tear to my eye, to think of the forest that had
once been here, vanished forever so that we in the West can get fat and rot our teeth.
We weaved through narrow channels between the stalks, trying to keep to the river, but
sometimes the pathways would go off at an angle and we'd have to blaze our own way,
causing the only living creatures here - bush rats, mice and rattle snakes - to scuttle off
into the cane's interior. Soon, we began to smell smoke, a tell-tale sign of further deforest-
ation somewhere to the north. Up ahead, a thick column of black smoke was rising into the
sky. I judged it to be about two miles distant and, as we wended our way closer, it became
difficult to see what was on the other side.
We emerged from the cane.
Ahead of us lay mile upon mile of charred bush. This deforestation was fresh and, not
far away, it was happening right now. A wall of fire, where scores of men had hacked,
chopped and ploughed up the trees into a straight line of ecological debris stretching east
and west, blocked the way forward. As Boston and I watched, we could see the march of
the flames. They were going north, annihilating everything in their path.
Boston and I followed the fire north, walking in fresh devastation. Until now, the meth-
od by which the forests were cleared for agriculture had been abstract to me, but here it
was impossible to ignore. It touched all five of my senses. When the smoke was too strong,
tears budded in my eyes and I kept having to knead them so that I could see.
'It's senseless. This is what makes Africa unique, and they're killing it.'
For the first time, Boston wasn't merely playing devil's advocate when he disagreed.
'You whites cut down your forests hundreds of years ago,' he said. 'You had your industri-
al revolution, and when you needed wood you took it. Well, now we need ours. We need to
plant crops to feed our children, and plant sugar so you can feed yours whatever shit you
feed them.'
He was angry at me for getting on my high horse and, as we found a way through the
fire, I couldn't blame him. We'd cut down England's forests to build a navy, to make our
own charcoal so that we could power the locomotives and mills that, in their time, had
made Britain great - and allowed us to take over the parts of the world through which I
was now walking. Why shouldn't Africa do the same, and finally exploit its own natural
resources? Yet, for all his damn logic, even Boston couldn't hide his sadness at the irre-
versible change going on around us. Never again would this landscape look the same. The
acacias, the birds, the buffalo, the antelope and monkeys - all of that was gone. And even
more difficult to swallow was the hypocrisy I felt at bemoaning it, and my inability to con-
ceive of a single answer to what was going on all around me.
