"The complexity of strategies that affect the conservation of forests from NW MT has an example in the actions of the GEF/UNDP/SEMA-MT project and its partners in the reactivation of the management of native rubber trees on Indigenous Lands. The initiative involve corporations, unions, indigenous organizations, NGO networks, with the political support of FUNAI (the Brazilian Agency for Indigenous Peoples).
Adding to this effort, a public policy is an important vector in the revaluation of latex extraction activity: The "Early Acquisition Program" (Programa de Aquisição Antecipada). It is runned by CONAB, an institutional arm of the Ministry of Agriculture aimed to stabilize prices and offer of food supplies and agricultural products.
It has acquired latex from indigenous and farmers associations "in advance" providing a critical cash flow for these organizations in the Amazonian states of Acre and Mato Grosso. Now rubber tappers can search for the better offers, and once the deal is made, to pay back the CONAB program. This move is stabilizing prices and improving then in a motivating level, which is in turn renewing overall interest in the activity.
By motivating indigenous peoples to return to the rubber tapping activity in a progressive, sustainable manner, the aim is to to increase their interest in a conservation-through-use of the forest . Expected "spillover" effects are the reduction of illegal logging both in federal and state protected areas, as well as in private areas that contain old growth native populations of rubber trees". By Jorge L. Vivan / NETS / CPDA.