Brazil’s government will hand out nine million condoms for free around Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics in August, a push meant to encourage safe sex and also defend the Amazon rainforest.
Rio’s local Olympic organising committee said about 450,000 of the sustainably-produced condoms would be destined for athletes and staff housed in the Olympic Village.
The rest will be made widely available to the many visitors who will be arriving in the city in just a few weeks, the Health Ministry said.
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.
The factory, run by the Acre state government, uses latex gathered from Amazon rubber trees by tappers who are employed by a government-run program designed to protect their traditional livelihood, foster sustainable use of the rainforest and deter illegal loggers.
The tappers see themselves as guardians of the rainforest.
On a recent outing, Raimundo Mendes de Barros, a 71-year-old lifelong rubber tapper with a stark white beard, gathered the milky-white latex dripping into metal buckets hooked at the base of countless trees. Above, the tropical sun was filtered by the Amazon canopy.
Barros spoke with pride about the fierce fight he and other sustainable rubber tappers wage to maintain their craft.
“Our condom factory, aside from guaranteeing a fair price for the rubber, employs hundreds,” he said.
“It gives the world a product – the condom – that will be very present there in Rio, to fight disease and help with birth control.”
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