Indigenous rubber bounces back for Amazon conservation and higher income

Indigenous rubber bounces back for Amazon conservation and higher income

In the Igarapé Lourdes Indigenous Territory in the Brazilian Amazon, community members gather to listen to José Palahv Gavião. An Indigenous teacher and cooperative leader, he speaks about the past and the future of Amazonian rubber. Rubber extracted from forest trees was a major Brazilian commodity in the 1800s and early 1900s. But for the Indigenous Gavião people of this part of Rondônia state, it also meant exploitation and suffering. Today, …