The Thing About Destroying The Jungle

 Around thirty years ago, I spent three years in Panama.  

It took me about a year to realize as much as the military spent time trimming back the jungle along the housing area....every single rainy season....it crept back. The base would go and hire a contract crew to come in....clear a good bit of growth of the jungle and ensure it didn't become 'snake-infested'.

So one day....one of the guys who handled National Guard deployments got into a discussion with me over a major US project down in Peru.  

The US had decided to vote thousands of man-days over a three-year period....to a 2-week deployment situation.  You'd bring in a crew of sixty-odd personnel, and their job was to build a 'road' through a jungle area to a remote village.....about twenty miles off in the distance.

They'd mostly do this in the dry season.  As each each wet season wrapped up....the new crew would arrive and find jungle growth back in full-swing....so it was a constant thing.....clear, re-clear, clear more, re-clear more.  

At some point, they brought in an expert on jungle growth, and he explained the facts to the engineering crew.....unless a fair amount of chemical efforts were employed....the trail would never remain jungle-free.  He figured in a ten-year period after completion....most of the road would be washed-out or jungled-up enough....that it would not exist.  

Amazingly enough....that was the end-point of this 'exercise'.  

Between the rain cycle, fertile soil, and limited use of trails/roads.....the jungle was pretty much locked-in to exist.