Amazon Love Factory

The Natex factory in the Brazilian state of Acre is located in the heart of the Amazonian forests. This production of condoms is the only one in the world that successfully achieves two good goals at once. The first is saving tropical forests, the second is charity in the field of combating the spread of HIV.

Raimundo Pereira collects the sap of rubber trees in a forest near the village of Shapuri in northwestern Brazil. The juice is intended for a local rubber contraceptive factory. This is the only condom production in the world using rubber from tropical forests. As you know, the exotic green cover has been in environmental danger for many years. Therefore, the factory directs part of the profits to measures to protect tropical forests.

Pereira feeds the chickens before going to work — in the forest.

Senora Pereira is preparing breakfast for her husband.

Ready to go to work.

Raimundo makes an incision in the bark to collect the juice.

Outdoor work…

Rubber juice.

Pereira collects juice in cans.

Raimundo's working tool.

And here are the neighbors of the worker.

This is the interior of the house of Chico Mendes, another collector of rubber juice. He was shot in 1988 by local ranchers responsible for cutting down the rainforest. To honor the memory of Mendes, his home was turned into a kind of museum.

That's where the rubber juice collected by Pereira ends up.

The Natex factory was founded in 2008 in Shapuri (Akri State), in the heart of the Amazon forests.

The factory produces about 100 million condoms a year.

Condoms with lubricants are almost ready for packaging.

Samples are meticulously tested.

The condoms are made by order of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. This is one fifth of the rubber contraceptives distributed annually by the Government to the population as part of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In total, 500 million free "products No. 2" are given out to Brazilians a year. At least 730 thousand HIV-infected people live in the country.