In January I voyaged up the Amazon river for two days to the port of Santarem. Several hours by taxi (mainly due to the taxi drivers poor navigation) took me to the Tapajos National Forest where I wanted to visit a rubber tapping project located in the community of Maguari. Maguari was visited by Prince Charles in 2009 as it provides a model for the creation of sustainable livelihoods within the Amazon without the need for deforestation. Set up by Poloprobio: Pólo de Proteção da Biodiversidade e Uso Sustentável dos Recursos Naturais, this is one of many projects within Brazil which is working with rubber tappers and their communities.
Rubber is one of the most important products to come from the Brazilian rainforest. The rubber boom of the mid 19th Century was centred on the Amazon and forms an important part of the country's social and economic history.
Although the indigenous peoples of the forest had been extracting latex from rubber trees for many generations, it was only in 1839 when Charles Goodyear discovered the process of vulcanisation that the white latex sap was able to be transformed into an industrial product. The collapse of the rubber boom was caused by an act of bio-piracy by British explorer Henry Wickham who, in 1876, smuggled 70,000 rubber seeds out of Brazil to Kew Gardens in London. The seeds were raised at Kew and then distributed to the British colonies. By 1940 rubber exports from Brazil were almost non-existent.
Maguari is a role-model riverside community in the Brazilian Amazon who are dedicated to defending land ownership rights and promoting the sustainable use of rainforest resources. The community are extracting latex from the native rubber trees abundant in the region but underutilised since the days of the rubber boom.
Latex comes from the sap of the Hevea Brasiliensis and is obtained by making diagonal cuts in the bark from which the latex drips into a container. The latex can be combined with natural pigments and used to paint bags and clothing. Maguari and other Amazonian communities create sheets of latex backed with natural cotton which can then be made into bags, tablecloths or other accessories.
The cotton is stretched over a wooden frame and the latex mixture is then painted onto the canvas. It is then taken to a traditional brick kin where the frame is passed over the smoke several times until the sheet turns yellow. The sheets of latex are then put in a kiln for two days until they turn dark brown in colour, hence the term 'ecological leather' being frequently used for natural latex production. This natural cotton cloth covered in latex was originally used by the indigenous population of the rainforest to protect their provisions from the constant rainfall in the region.
It is estimated that 63,000 families in the Amazon forest earn their living from rubber tapping in extractive reserves which cover up to 1% of the forest The Poloprobio project is just one production unit out of 28 which have already been set up by the organisation in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Pará, and Rondônia.
I purchased a '50s style bottle green make-up bag and a pair of black rubber sandals which I ended up living in for the remaining 10 days of our holiday. They are the most comfortable sandals I have ever worn and I'm wishing I had bought a few pairs as will undoubtedly live in them all summer.
According to Royal Correspondent Sarah Hughes, when Prince Charles toured the community a few years ago "he was presented with a rather fetching rubber sun-hat but seemed a little reluctant to part with his panama". Can't say I blame him!