Protecting the Amazon in Good Fashion

by Curtis Runyan

(Washington, DC, August 2003) The fashion world and environmental causes usually don't share much common ground. Tie-dyed t-shirts and hemp trousers rarely, if ever, grace the runways of Paris and Milan. And many of the fabrics that are the mainstay of the fashion industry -- from rayon to leather -- are often made with enough polluting chemicals to make the average environmentalist queasy.

But a small company in Brazil is working to bridge the gap between good fashion sense and green sensibilities -- with considerable success. AmazonLife has developed and patented an environmentally friendly material that it calls "wild rubber" or "vegetal leather." The company already supplies a number of European fashion designers, which are using the faux-leather fabric to make hip clothes, backpacks, upscale furniture, and a number of other items.

"Europe is our main market," said co-founder Maria Beatriz Saldanha, a designer who has been the driving force behind the project. "We are developing relationships in France, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands." Since 1998 French fashion powerhouse Hermes Sellier has used wild rubber, which is made from the sap of rubber trees in the Amazon, to make stylish hand bags. Italian furniture company Moroso is using the material to upholster its chairs.

Amazon Life's most recent foray has been to produce courier bags for the world's largest bicycle company, Giant. "We sold them 10,000 bags," said Saldanha.

Saldanha and her partner, Joao Augusto Fortes, first conceived of using natural rubber for bags and other products after opening a store to sell environmentally beneficial products in Rio de Janeiro more than a decade ago. "Using wild rubber as a raw material helps protect the Amazon rainforest and benefits rural communities," said Luiz Ros, head of World Resources Institute's New Ventures program, which aims to link up environmentally responsible businesses with investors. "The process of tapping trees for rubber does not kill the trees, and it provides jobs for rubber tappers who gather the sap to produce natural rubber."

Rubber production has shifted from natural latex to oil-based chemicals, driving down the price of natural rubber, and throwing many tappers out of work. In the past 3 decades lower prices for rubber has pushed many people to clear forests in the Amazon for higher-priced commodities like timber and cattle.

In the 1980s rubber tappers organized to resist the destruction of the forests that had supported them and that they had tended for decades. In 1989, after a cattle rancher murdered Chico Mendes, a key leader of the rubber tappers, the Brazilian government began to take action. The country set aside "extractive reserves," protected forests where tapping and other sustainable extraction could continue.

Saldanha's search for products for her EcoMercado store led her to rubber tappers in the state of Amazonas who showed her a traditional rubber sack that they used for carrying sap and personal belongings.

"We had the idea, so we met with rubber tappers and ordered laminates from them," said Saldanha. "We then used the rubber to make a small quantity of bags, briefcases, and other products."

While the first test run of 500 bags quickly sold out, there were still a few problems that needed to be solved. "Two months later all of the bags we had sold just melted," said Saldanha with a laugh. "We hadn't figured out that the rubber needed to be vulcanized."

So they went back to the drawing board to adapt the traditional vulcanization process from the big factories into a small-scale system that the rubber tappers could perform. Saldanha patented the process.

The company now sells around 30,000 sheets worth of wild rubber a year, both as raw pieces of material and as backpacks, briefcases, handbags, and hats. The whole process supports more than 200 rubber tappers.

In 2002, AmazonLife won a competition organized by WRI's New Ventures program, which has helped more than 20 companies receive close to $6 million. AmazonLife, which was found to be a leading environmentally sustainable business, was awarded free consulting services from Booz Allen Hamilton to help develop a business plan to expand its markets.

With the consultant services, Saldanha hopes to grow her company into more countries. "Right now our priority is finding partners and investors to help us expand our international markets," said Saldanha. (WRI Features, 717 words)