The Rubber Tree: source of natural rubber

Native to the Amazon, the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) grows in seasonally flooded areas of the forest, reaching up to 40 meters in height. From its trunk flows latex, a milky substance that changed the course of world history.

Amazonian peoples used rubber tree latex to waterproof fabrics, mold objects, and even make footwear. Rubber ball games were a tradition among the Maya and Aztec, who used a different tree: Castilla elastica.

In the 16th century, Spanish chroniclers reported Indigenous peoples molding latex around clay pots, creating elastic containers that astonished the colonizers. Centuries later, naturalists such as La Condamine described its properties, sparking European interest.

In the 19th century, rubber spread across the world. Vulcanized by Charles Goodyear in 1839, it became a vital input for tires, cables, insulators, condoms, and countless other products. The Amazon then experienced the ‘rubber boom,’ marked by both wealth and contradictions.

Latex extraction turned the cities of Manaus and Belém into symbols of tropical luxury. Theaters, palaces, and boulevards reflected the opulence of rubber wealth, while rubber tappers endured harsh conditions in the forest.

In 1876, Henry Wickham clandestinely transported about 70,000 Hevea seeds from the Amazon to London’s Kew Gardens. Around 3,000 seedlings germinated there, soon to be sent far beyond Europe.

The seedlings cultivated at Kew were shipped to Asia in Wardian cases (miniature glass-and-wood greenhouses that revolutionized plant transport). These shipments enabled the creation of vast rubber plantations in Southeast Asia, breaking the Amazon monopoly.

With the expansion of Asian plantations, the Amazon entered an economic decline. Still, the rubber tree remained central to regional life, sustaining livelihoods and keeping the forest’s extractive culture alive.

In the 1920s, Henry Ford tried to build an American-style model city in Pará to secure rubber for his industry. Fordlândia failed in the face of pests, cultural clashes, and Amazonian resistance, but became a symbol of early globalization.

During World War II, the Amazon once again supplied latex to the Allies. Thousands of migrants, the ‘rubber soldiers,’ braved the forest to keep production going, in an epic marked by sacrifice and hope.

In the 1980s, rubber tapper Chico Mendes led the struggle for extractive reserves, defending both the standing forest and social justice. Assassinated in 1988, he became a global symbol of socio-environmental resistance and an inspiration for new generations.

Today, the rubber tree stands as a symbol of a possible bioeconomy: conserving the forest, valuing its guardian peoples, and innovating sustainably. From the sap that flows from its trunk emerge memories, challenges, and pathways to the future.