The little-known tree that revolutionised global communication - BBC REEL 

I guess gutta percha can not be harvested the way latex is harvested from a living tree.

@@davidjacobs8558 I just watch on local Indonesia documentary, and as this video said, the tree need to be felled/cut down, because the Gutta Percha extracted not from the wood body/stem, but actually from the leaf, and the tree need to be grow minimally around 10 meter to be considered ready to be harvested. That's why it's considered as ecologically destructive... But one good thing about this tree: they need extremely minimum care... seedling need as tall as teenager to be ready planted on the ground, and after that they not need any care, as long they planted on rainy season. even in the documentary, the worker only need to do weeding if the bushes/weed is growing too dense/big and sometimes they not need weeding at all. Currently, the only factory that knowingly cultivated the tree and extracted Gutta Percha on the spot is in Tjipetir, Sukabumi; and currently the whole plantation & factory managed by government. The factory only making around 200KG per year or every two year, and all the Gutta Percha is exported for medical need; just like in video said, mostly for dental & orthodontic. Some article said Tjipetir factory & plantation is the last one of this kind in the world, that specialized in Gutta Percha.

Except the narrator leaves us hanging. How is a little piece of Gutta Percha in our mouths?

Plus, I really enjoyed the graphics. Very good video.

@@jz94117 5:21

Well BBC does have quite amount of Poundsterling in their coffer

wow

As for me, I understood the "guttaperchivy" as a sort of a rubber. Some of our Russian XX century classic writers use it.

Trickyanna, thank you for that bit of knowledge. Interesting, and I wonder how far the concept spread?

Can it be used to describe a politician or let's say a foreign minister?

"Getah percha" in malay literally meaning "Rubber of Percha" With the percha is the tree's name which native in Malay Archipelago.

Mate.. Malay language. Indonesia wasnt even born yet.. the malay language is the lingua Franca of then Areas .. Indonesia adopted the Malay language as its National Lingua franca, naming it Indonesian Getah = Rubber Percha = small piece @ patch frm bigger just like kain percha (patchwork , of remnants of cloth)

@@kentershackle1329 are you malaysian?

@@kentershackle1329 that funny if you know that malay language came from Riau area of present day Indonesia. The reason why malay became lingua franca due to its position, because every sea trader will port at Riau island. If somehow the traders coma from the east, I bet Macassar language that will be lingua franca.

@@rizkierwin6488 Sooo, got nothin to do with the Melacca Sultanate, the last great Empire before Colonialists came..?

@@kentershackle1329 no, malay language exist far before that, and my point is it came from the present days Indonesia.

Dentist

porshe?

Or ever

or shown the Empire in Red, it was always in Pink when I was at school

The main problem was with using DC.

Convolution

Very well noted

Goodonya mate!…I noted that too.

And when I was educated 1950/60's the world atlas showed the British Empire in pink never red ( as that was seen as a Russian colour ) Any old atlas book with verify it .

Yup, added to the list of errors, exaggerations, and propaganda in thIs little film.

here's anudder odd fact: the structure of the internet as we know it from 1995 is old: it began one day in may, 1935, when a switch was thrown and RAF Fighter Command in the Home Ids. went active. it has been so ever since.

@@STScott-qo4pw Not sure that is an equivalent system without the internet protocols developed by DARPA in the 1970's/80,s

Dang it! I mentioned Alaska, but missed that. I tip my hat to you

I don't believe it was.

I don't think so .

The whole thing would be cast of it.

@@xrysoryba oh, it's gutta percha throughout? Must have been expensive back then. I thought they'd do something like with some lacquer items where it'll have a core and then build up with layers.

@@nunyabiznes33 No, gutta percha was actually quite cheap at the time. It was also used to make revolver grips as it was cheaper than wood. I guess that's also why they used it for truncheons.

@@xrysoryba oh, ok. Guess it's cheap since they're practically getting it for free by destroying the rainforest. If only it can be harvested without killing the tree, like rubber and lacquer.

No trees were destroyed they were all harvested.

Go live in a Cave then.

I suspect you are just looking at the map upside down.

yeah therer's some questionable things shown in this one lol. you'd think you'd know a little history when making a doco about history

Without the innovations and advancements brought on by the British Empire the world would be much less wealthy healthy and free. We can't even imagine the extend of illness and poverty, slavery etc, that would probably still exist without the British influence on the world. Gutta percha is still around but small pox has been eradicated.

And if the world was to pay Britain for abolishing slavery, building universities and libraries in every corner of its empire (look up the Jaffna Library, largest in Asia once and then destroyed by Sri lankans) and the technology it created, then the worlds' coffers would go dry.

See Shashi Tharoors on you tube

The nerve of fools that think current knowledge can be ignored just because someone did things in the past without that knowledge!

@@thedausthed some nerve of fools dont know about retrospective accountability.

Usually, when people refer to a latex allergy, they are talking about a *rubber* latex allergy. Latex is simply the name given to a milky sap. Many trees and other plants have latex, but only the latex from the rubber tree (ficus elastica) is rubber latex. Gutta percha is the latex from an entirely different tree, so if you have it in your tooth and have not had an allergic reaction to it yet, you probably aren't allergic to gutta percha, even if you know you have a (rubber) latex allergy. Not all salt is sodium chloride, not all alcohol is ethanol, and not all latex is rubber.

They're just Lame

I dont believe that you Racist pronounce foreign Words correct in your Language either.

This is more difficult than one would think, seeing that many languages have or haven't got sounds present in other languages. I always scream when some basic town name from my own country gets mutilated in English. Only they really don't have the sounds in their language; native English speakers don't know how to move their tongues to produce the sound properly. Add to that the fact that if two English speakers want to communicate about that town they probably have to find a way of spelling it so it will be understood by the other English speaker. Some languages, take Japanese for an extreme example, cannot pronounce consonant groups. They need to insert a vowel between most consonants, so for instance the word "strange" would become "su-tu-ren-ji". Or think of Chinese: Are we really able to pronounce Xi Jin-Pings name properly? How do we move our tongue to pronounce the sound they describe as "X"? How do we even transliterate languages that don't use the Latin alphabet? Yes, these days we can use UTF16 if we put our mind to it (and I really agree it should be done universally FFS), but by using a non-Latin alphabet the words will become unreadable for anybody from a country used to another alphabet. And Yes, this thing would have to be observed from all sides. We write your words as you please; then you also please write our words as we please. So from now on write the big German city on the Rhine as Köln, not as Cologne or whatever. => Conclusion: Hardly practicable, isn't it?

That's why it is called english and not some foreign language. Because we speak english!

I'm not quite sure what he's complaining about, but I have been thinking about it, and possibly he's annoyed at the narrator pronouncing gettah perca as "getta perka". I think it would have to be "getta percha" or "getta perja", the same as "kecap manis" is pronounced something like "ketchup manis". (This isn't Malay, as far as I know, but still.) I wrote a lengthy response to his post which was probably totally off his point because I hadn't grasped it 😄

White washed like the Situation of untouchables or the Sati Practice in Hindu History?

@@berserk9085 Yes, exactly like how Brits destroyed all the books and re wrote it so that smart people like u can read it.

@@shivarajc7405 What Books? Hindutva Facist usually claim that the Mughals destroyed all Hindu Books. Now Im Confused.

@@berserk9085 ya they did destroy most, but they didn't re write it.

@@shivarajc7405 what they Re wrote specifically?