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EL ESPECTADOR

Colombia's 'Rappitenderos' — On The Dark Side Of Uberization

Orange-clad couriers working for the delivery firm Rappi are ubiquitous in Bogota. They're also poorly paid, unorganized and in the way

'Rappi' near Bogota, Colombia
"Rappi" near Bogota, Colombia
Piedad Bonnet

-OpEd-

BOGOTÁ — Hundreds of men sit around on the pavement, on steps or on a patch of grass. They're like an army, almost always in groups, with their equipment beside them. Some eat snacks from their lunchboxes. Mostly they're just waiting for their marching orders.

They're rappitenderos, delivery people and couriers who work for the South American startup Rappi. And they're everywhere, like an invading force. They're also archetypes of the so-called "sharing economy." Firms present them not as employees but independent entrepreneurs who find, in some platform or website, an opportunity for extra cash. In reality, they're youngsters without jobs, and since they have no employer, strictly speaking, they find it difficult to organize themselves to form a union or push collective demands.

For desperate people, Rappi is often just something to cling to. Its precarious conditions have already prompted complaints: you must buy your own uniform and case, and use your bicycle or motorbike. In exchange, they receive a delivery fee and tips.

Rappitenderos are a symptom of the paths being taken by a ruthless form of capitalism.

They are a symptom of the paths being taken by a ruthless form of capitalism, and above all of the scale of unemployment, especially among younger people. They illustrate how badly hundreds of people need to work, whatever the conditions, come rain or shine, amid fierce competition and forever diminishing fees. "We sometimes work for 12 hours, getting just three deliveries," one rappitendero told the weekly news magazine Semana.

These people are a sign of how you can start a firm with minimal capital and infrastructure, relying on nothing but a workforce and the law of supply and demand. One reads in the website Las2orillas that Rappi's office workers need to bring their own electronic equipment, and there is no cafeteria or breaks. The rappitenderos have also become an obstruction on pavements and potentially hazardous to pedestrians.

Online tech firms have come to stay. They have many advantages, so it is no longer about stopping, but regulating them. They need a bit of order and restriction, if only to protect their workers and the public space. Curiously, while Rappi is allowed to get away with so much, alternative transportation projects have either faced legal action, like Uber, or the rigorous imposition of usage rules, as with scooters.

With the latter, these are light, aesthetic and above all a valid response to traffic jams, and now they want to expel them from pavements and practically all public spaces. In other words, put them out of people's reach. The Bogotá transport authority has said they need to create rental kiosks for scooters on the street, and expects a single firm to be given a citywide license. That means they want a monopoly.

Worse still — and something we don't see in other countries — is that users will not be allowed to leave their scooters where they end their trip or nearby, but must leave them at designated stations. This effectively nullifies their utility and discourages a healthy initiative, which if properly overseen and controlled, would be an excellent option for so many.

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Green

Forest Networks? Revisiting The Science Of Trees And Funghi "Reaching Out"

A compelling story about how forest fungal networks communicate has garnered much public interest. Is any of it true?

Thomas Brail films the roots of a cut tree with his smartphone.

Arborist and conservationist Thomas Brail at a clearcutting near his hometown of Mazamet in the Tarn, France.

Melanie Jones, Jason Hoeksema, & Justine Karst

Over the past few years, a fascinating narrative about forests and fungi has captured the public imagination. It holds that the roots of neighboring trees can be connected by fungal filaments, forming massive underground networks that can span entire forests — a so-called wood-wide web. Through this web, the story goes, trees share carbon, water, and other nutrients, and even send chemical warnings of dangers such as insect attacks. The narrative — recounted in books, podcasts, TV series, documentaries, and news articles — has prompted some experts to rethink not only forest management but the relationships between self-interest and altruism in human society.

But is any of it true?

The three of us have studied forest fungi for our whole careers, and even we were surprised by some of the more extraordinary claims surfacing in the media about the wood-wide web. Thinking we had missed something, we thoroughly reviewed 26 field studies, including several of our own, that looked at the role fungal networks play in resource transfer in forests. What we found shows how easily confirmation bias, unchecked claims, and credulous news reporting can, over time, distort research findings beyond recognition. It should serve as a cautionary tale for scientists and journalists alike.

First, let’s be clear: Fungi do grow inside and on tree roots, forming a symbiosis called a mycorrhiza, or fungus-root. Mycorrhizae are essential for the normal growth of trees. Among other things, the fungi can take up from the soil, and transfer to the tree, nutrients that roots could not otherwise access. In return, fungi receive from the roots sugars they need to grow.

As fungal filaments spread out through forest soil, they will often, at least temporarily, physically connect the roots of two neighboring trees. The resulting system of interconnected tree roots is called a common mycorrhizal network, or CMN.

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