Seringueiros - Rubber tappers

The most classic rainforest product in Ace is natural latex, rubber. The tree that produces rubber is native to the western Amazon and was responsible for a major economic boom in the late 1800s that led to a significant influx of new residents to Acre from the arid North East of Brazil to work on the Seringais - areas of wild rubber trees. The process is to cut the rubber tree every other week to extract the leite da seringa - latex (or literally `milk´ of the rubber tree), this does not require felling any trees and in fact the forest is maintained for shade to allow the rubber trees to produce a constant harvest. This boom also led to the construction of the magnificent Teatro Amazonas (Opera House) in Manaus... At the turn of the twentieth century, the British took rubber to Malaysia and began industrial production with large-scale monoculture plantations, as a result the price fell and the artesenal production of the Amazon could not compete on world markets. During the 2nd World War there was a short-lived return to production for western military needs, as the Japanese occupied the rubber plantations of Asia but since that time the producers have lived at subsistence level, in tune with natural cycles, without clearing the forest.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, new settlers arrived from the South of Brazil, supported by the military dictatorship, with the intention of clearing the forest and creating cattle grazing lands in the heart of the Amazon! The local population often lacked the official documents to the land they had lived on for generations and had few resources to counter this new threat so they organised rural movements to physically resist the takeover of their land. One of the most well-known leaders of these rural unions was Chico Mendes, who received a number of international prizes for his work in defence of the natural environment. In 1989, he was assasinated by gunmen hired by a local landlord for his outspoken views and refusal to stop the campaign.

Many of the people involved in the rural movements of the 1980s are now in government positions both in the state of Acre and in the Federal Government of Brazil, such as the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva. As for the natural rubber: many people still rate it as much stronger than synthetic products and the native Amazonian variety as more resistant than others, for this reason there is now a plan to build a factory for condoms made of natural rubber in Acre!

House of Chico Mendes, where he lived and died