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, however, the community has reclaimed it as an opportunity for income and forest protection, especially for Indigenous youths. According to José, many young people seek better economic opportunities outside the community. But he says it’s important to balance these ambitions with efforts to protect the forest that sustains them.

“In every meeting I go to, I always highlight this point: If we don’t give value to the rainforest’s products, it won’t take long before it’s gone,” José tells Mongabay. “It helps reverse that mindset. Because when a seed collector earns income from that tree, they won’t want to cut it down.”

The Gavião of Rondônia worked under exploitative conditions imposed by rubber extractors following their first contact with outsiders. Due to land conflicts and the advance of external development projects, they eventually abandoned rubber tapping in the late 1980s. By then, rubber was being harvested at industrial scales from vast plantations of rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis), obviating the need to venture into the forest to collect it.

In 2021, José co-founded a cooperative to revive the practice of natural rubber extraction, from trees found in the forest rather than grown on plantations — this time under Indigenous leadership. The community now harvests and sells natural rubber at fair prices in partnership with Brazilian rubber manufacturing company Mercur and Origens Brasil, a network coordinated by the Brazilian NGO Institute for Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Imaflora).

The initiative is part of a broader push to build a forest-based bioeconomy, rooted in traditional knowledge and aligned with environmental protection and ethical market access.

“Our community once suffered and was enslaved at the hands of the rubber extractors,” José says. “Now, our life has changed. We no longer depend only on hunting and fishing.”

Their own rhythm

The Origens Brasil rubber network connects forest-based communities with businesses seeking supply chains developed under a more ethical system. In Mercur’s case, the company has been active in the neighboring state of Pará since 2012, sourcing rubber from four Indigenous territories. It’s now in Rondônia, working across five Indigenous lands in the Tupi-Guaporé region. The project supports the yearly production of around 30 metric tons of wild-harvested rubber.

Mercur started out sourcing rubber from the rainforest before switching to synthetics, but changed gear again in 2012 after a reassessment of its environmental and social impact. Now, it’s returning to its origins, in an eco-friendly way, according to company officials. “We realized we needed to go back, revisit this process, and start buying natural rubber from the Amazon again,” Jovani Machado da Silva, sales analyst at Mercur, tells Mongabay.

The company now purchases rubber tapped by seringueiros, as traditional rubber tappers are known in Brazil, using nondestructive methods. It offers long-term agreements to Amazonian communities with fair prices compared to past market conditions. Through Origens Brasil, each rubber product Mercur makes is tagged with a QR code that allows consumers to trace its origin and learn about the people behind it.

Yet, operating in the Amazon means working outside of the conventional business model. Native rubber is neither cheap nor easily scalable; collection depends on seasonal cycles, volumes are unpredictable, and transport is slow and costly.

“One of the first challenges is learning to work within the pace and timing of the Amazon’s peoples. They have their own rhythm; their own way of life — and we don’t want to interfere with that,” Silva says. “It’s not like working with an industry, where you have scale and fixed delivery timelines.”

Compared to plantation-grown rubber, the wild version of the commodity can cost two to three times more, largely due to the higher expenses involved in the manual extraction. The premium reflects not just the raw material, but also the labor involved in sourcing it sustainably from remote areas. To adapt, Mercur began sourcing from Rondônia to complement its supplies from Pará, while still relying primarily on plantation-harvested rubber from outside the Amazon, in São Paulo state.

Through a payment for environmental services (PES) model, Mercur pays Indigenous tappers not just for the latex they collect but also for the environmental services that the communities secure by preserving the ecosystem. The extra cost is absorbed across the company’s product line as part of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy, according to Silva. This allows participating communities to triple their earnings, around 15 reais ($2.70) per kilogram of rubber, or about $1.20 per pound.

Rubber tapping can play an important role in conservation. As they collect latex, tappers maintain forest trails, monitor for illegal logging or mining, and gather seeds and medicinal plants. They simultaneously protect the forest and support local economies. This model contrasts with the dominant extractive industries in the Amazon, such as cattle ranching, logging and gold mining, which involve deforestation and soil degradation.

“Our people want to keep the forest standing,” Heilton Gavião, a leader of the Igarapé Lourdes Indigenous Territory involved in the project, tells Mongabay. “They want to manage it carefully, without harming it — unlike others who destroy it for profit.”

Building an Indigenous-led bioeconomy

Brazil’s push for a bioeconomy — a system built on renewable biological resources — has gained momentum in recent years. In the Amazon, this can mean supporting traditional forest-based livelihoods that have existed for generations, rather than replacing them with industrial models. Examples of communities’ alternative sources of income range from sustainable handcrafted art (made from dead wood), to the balanced harvest of primary products such as açaí berries and cacao pods.

A solid financial structure can also emerge from it. Recent studies project that the rainforest could generate up to $8 billion a year through a bioeconomy while keeping its biomes preserved. But experts say reaching these numbers sustainably depends on empowering local native communities to fully participate in this model — so both they and the forest they call their home can share in the benefits of an economic plan that has long felt out of balance.

Rubber tapping fits neatly into this context.

Bioeconomy-driven higher prices have helped attract younger Indigenous generations. If a producer makes 10 or 15 pressed sheets of rubber, around 300-400 kg (660-880 lbs), that can fetch about 8,000-10,000 reais ($1,430-$1,820), says José, the Indigenous co-op leader. “Seeing this, young people have become interested in this past year,” he says.

Indigenous communities in the Amazon are increasingly having to adopt a cash economy for everyday survival, such as buying food, clothing and other necessities. As a result, sustainable forest management has to consider economic needs, proponents say. Rubber tapping has become a new source of income, while encouraging younger generations to develop traditional, forest-friendly practices. Some of these younger community members are also now receiving technical training with Mercur.

While the partnership is bringing benefits to the community, challenges remain. Drought has impacted productivity, and many old rubber trails need funding to reopen. “There was a severe drought here in the Amazon, and it even affected the rubber trees. They all dried up,” Heilton says. “We also need financial support to reopen old rubber trails [where rubber trees are] or open new ones.”

Despite the hurdles, Heilton says he sees a transformative opportunity. “The standing forest offers a better quality of life for our people,” he says. “Our work focuses on raising awareness in this generation and securing life for the next.”

Building a future bioeconomy

Across the Brazilian Amazon, state governments are gradually embracing the potential of the bioeconomy model to drive sustainable development. In Rondônia and Acre states, initiatives like the Bioeconomy Priority Program are channeling investments to selected innovative projects that help build a structural ecosystem. Meanwhile, Pará has emerged as a key national pioneer with its State Bioeconomy Plan (PlanBio), a public policy that aims to push economic growth and social inclusion in Brazil while protecting biodiversity.

Proponents say they’re aware of the challenges ahead. Dodging capitalism traps, scaling without environmental harm, and protecting the bioeconomy model from greenwashing are real concerns. Interest from a wider range of companies is still limited due to logistical challenges and cost issues, says Mercur’s Silva. Political funding is one way to foster greater participation and more involvement from the private sector.

“A subsidy would be necessary to support the placement of Amazon-sourced rubber in the market,” Silva says. “We’ve seen companies get involved and then drop out, because they lacked awareness of the importance of sourcing from the Amazon, even at a higher cost.”

Harvesting rubber from the Amazon may not offer scale or speed, but in places like the Igarapé Lourdes Indigenous Territory, it offers a viable livelihood, a standing forest, and a future for the community.

“When we talk about the Amazon and protecting the Amazon, we need to think about what society lives there, the population that lives inside the Amazon,” José says. “The goal of our cooperative is just that: to bring value to the products that exist within the forest. That’s the only way we’ll keep the forest standing for many years.”

Banner image: Latex collected from the trees is pressed and formed into blocks, which are easier to transport from the territory. Image courtesy of José Palahv Gavião/Igarapé Lourdes Indigenous Territory Cooperative.

What does bioeconomy truly mean? Indigenous groups seek answer to dodge capitalist traps

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