In August this year, the games kick off in Rio de Janeiro with millions of visit6ors expected from all over the world. According to Rio’s local Olympic organising committee, about 450,000 of the sustainably-produced condoms would be destined for athletes and staff housed in the Olympic Village.
According to the Brazilian health minister, the rest will be made widely available to the many visitors who will be arriving in the city in just a few weeks. All the condoms to be distributed are produced by Natex, a factory in the western Amazonian state of Acre, deep in the rainforest near Brazil’s border with Bolivia.
This factory, run by the Acre State government, uses latex gathered from Amazon rubber trees by tappers who are employed by a government-run programme designed to protect their traditional livelihood. This government plan is also designed to foster the sustainable use of the rainforest and deter illegal loggers.
Raimundo Mendes de Barros, 71, a lifelong rubber tapper, said: “Our condom factory, aside from guaranteeing a fair price for the rubber, employs hundreds. It gives the world a product that will be very present there in Rio, to fight disease and help with birth control.”
For decades, tappers like Barros have been on the front line of pushing Brazilian leaders to do more to halt deforestation, which is mostly caused by the illegal clearing of forest for ranching, soya farms and timber extraction. This fight has sometimes come at a heavy cost as farmers and loggers have sometimes retaliated with hired guns.
Scores of people have been killed over the years trying to protect the forest, most notably the internationally known environmentalist and rubber tapper Chico Mendes. His 1988 murder in Xapuri, where the condom factory now stands, helped galvanise the government to take serious measures to battle deforestation and the violence against Amazon defenders.
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