BRAZIL: AMAZON JUNGLE PROVIDES RAW MATERIAL FOR NEW ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS.

Record ID: 648031

  • Title: BRAZIL: AMAZON JUNGLE PROVIDES RAW MATERIAL FOR NEW ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS.
  • Date: 1st July 2004
  • Summary: (L!2) RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. EXTERIOR OF "AMAZON LIFE" EXPOSITION 2. SIGN THAT READS "BUSINESSES FOR SUSTAINABLE AMAZON" 3. GENERAL SHOT OF EXPOSITION 4. MAP OF BRAZIL SHOWING AMAZON REGION 5. SIGN ANNOUNCING EXPOSITION 6. SIGN INDICATING THAT LEATHER WAS MADE FROM AMAZONIAN PRODUCTS WITH TREETAP LABEL 7. VARIOUS OF PRODUCTS MADE FROM AMAZONIAN PRODUCTS WITH TREETAP LABEL 8. VARIOUS OF HEAD OF "AMAZON LIFE" BEATRIZ SALDANHA 9. (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) PRESIDENT OF AMAZON LIFE BEATRIZ SALDANHA, SAYING: "Treetap is an example that sustainable development is possible, that those alternatives that take into account the culture and ecological values of the products that come from the Amazon region are possible." 10. SALDANHA WITH TREETAP PRODUCTS 11. SIGN FOR 'GIANT' BICYCLES THAT IS LINKING UP WITH SUSTAINABLE AMAZONIAN PRODUCTS 12. VARIOUS OF BICYCLE EQUIPMENT MADE FROM TREETAP 13. CROTON TREE IN RIO DE JANEIRO'S BOTANICAL GARDEN 14. SIGN ON TREE WITH SCIENTIFIC NAME 'EUPHORBIACEAE' 15. VARIOUS OF TREE WITH CUTS MADE TO TAP RUBBER 16. (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATOR OF RIO DE JANEIRO'S BOTANICAL GARDEN CARMELITA SANTORO BOTTINO, SAYING: "For our country, it is much more important that the Amazon remain standing than that it be destroyed. So, through these products that are the riches of our forest, the Amazon can remain standing and be economically explored." 17. VARIOUS OF CERINGUEIRA TREE 18. VARIOUS STREET SCENES 19. EXTERIOR OF SHOPPING CENTRE 20. VARIOUS OF BHARA STORE THAT SELLS TREETAP PRODUCTS 21. PURSE MADE OF TREETAP 22. (SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) OWNER OF BHARA STORE THAT SELLS TREETAP PRODUCTS CLAUDIA MONTENEGRO, SAYING ABOUT CUSTOMERS: "They (customers) are looking exactly for this-- something (made of materials that are) sustainable, that helps, that does not cause animals to be killed. It's a public with whom our necklaces, our handbags, all of our line of products of vegetable leather has been very successful." 23. VARIOUS INTERIOR SHOTS OF STORE SELLING AMAZON PRODUCTS Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2004 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
  • Country: Brazil
  • Reuters ID: LVA7T3F5J5SDFY0GF39F64GA0VVW
  • Story Text: Brazil's rich Amazon jungle provides raw material
    for new environmentally-friendly products.



    An environmentally-conscious Brazilian project is
    infusing three remote Indian communities with fresh
    economic development as it creates 70 sustainable Amazon
    products for retail.

    The Treetap project crowns 12 years of efforts by Rio
    de Janeiro-based Amazon Life, a project which buys wild
    rubber from indigenous communities in the southwest Amazon
    and creates a variety of products like drugs, food,
    cosmetics, furniture and woodcraft.

    "Treetap is an example that sustainable development is
    possible, that those alternatives that take into account
    the culture and ecological values of the products that come
    from the Amazon region are possible," said Beatriz
    Saldanha, director-president of Amazon Life. The project brought
    ma
    rkets to what had been an
    uncertain existence of many of the tappers who today are
    selling 40,000 wild rubber sheets annually at around 8
    reais ($2.8) per sheet, or 10 times more.

    In the late 19th century, the Amazon enjoyed a bonanza
    as world demand and prices soared after the invention of
    the pneumatic tire. The money that poured in funded
    construction of opera houses in the Amazon river ports of
    Manaus and Belem.

    By World War I, the boom had gone bust in the face of
    competition from cheaper Malaysian plantations. American
    industrialist Henry Ford attempted to revive the industry
    in the 1920s, but Brazil's rubber industry steadily
    decayed.

    Now government officials and environmentalists are
    focusing on small projects to achieve sustainable growth.

    "For our country, it is much more important that the
    Amazon remain standing than that it be destroyed," said
    Carmelita Santoro of Rio de Janeiro's Botanical Garden,
    "through these products that are the riches of our forest,
    the Amazon can remain standing and be economically
    explored."
    It contrasts with the massive road, hydropower and
    mining schemes of the military government in the 1960s and
    1970s and is a rejection of indiscriminate logging and
    slash-and-burn farming that each year destroys an area half
    the size of Belgium in the world's greatest forest.

    Aid workers and government officials see sustainable
    production as a way to improve the quality of life of the
    Amazon Indians and other local people, increase their
    income and safeguard the rainforest.

    WWF Brazil's Secretary General Sandra Charity said that
    the Treetap project enabled local communities to continue
    to live in the forest while earning funds to buy water
    pumps, electric generators and other equipment to improve
    their life style. Several other small-scale projects have
    sprung up in the vast Amazon, raising living standards
    while respecting the forest.


  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register