{"id":6317,"date":"2019-11-01T14:29:59","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T11:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6317"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:39","slug":"do-we-seriously-need-more-rubber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/01\/do-we-seriously-need-more-rubber\/","title":{"rendered":"Do We Seriously Need More Rubber?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rubber plays an important\nrole as a versatile industrial raw material with a lot of applications in a man\u2019s\neveryday life. Being a major raw material used in manufacturing tyre that has overtime\nsatisfied man\u2019s need for speed, natural rubber has become almost indispensable\nfor all in today’s world. It\u2019s found everywhere around us- in shoes, in\nsporting goods, bikes and so much more.  Africa\naccounts for around 5 percent of global natural rubber production<\/a>.\nThis may seem dismal but has a lot of input in the countries its production\nmanifests- Nigeria, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Benin. The global\nscenario for rubber is very encouraging with projections of increasing demand.\nAttention is turning to the western side of Africa as a source of production\ngrowth. This could revive it from the shadows of palm oil in terms of\nsustainable development issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The immediate harm caused by the rubber industry is serious|photo|source intelligence<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

However, behind the\nglorified commercial significance of the present, rubber harvesting could have\na horrid tale to tell. A tale of how cultivating it without factoring in\nsustainability might lead to the deaths of our forests and ultimately us. A\nstory covered by Al-Jazeera<\/a> in January 2019, narrated the tale\nof how a Chinese owned company was given the go-ahead to harvest thousands of\nhectares in Cameroon rainforests for rubber, and this had effects not only to\nthe local community but to the environment as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The immediate harm caused\nby the rubber industry is serious- but the biggest impacts might not be felt\nfor years to come, because deforestation is a major factor in climate change.\nAt the moment when drastic measures are needed within the next decade to\nprevent the worst effects of climate change, many companies are stepping up to\nmake a difference- by integrating sustainability in their strategies, but\nrubber is an often- overlooked part of the problem. We must commit to ending\nthe deforestation caused by rubber harvesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deforestation for rubber\nis a silent problem that is growing in Africa and other parts of the world that\nproduce rubber, and its accelerating. Their areas are biodiversity hotspots,\nand the inhabitants of numerous endangered species, including elephants, are\nrapidly disappearing. This is hitting the tourism sector hard and in turn,\naffecting the economy of the countries as tourism is a key player due to the\nrevenues it salvages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rubber industry is destroying more than just forests. Exploitative harvesting is wrecking communities in the western part of Africa, throwing families off the land where they lived for generations to make way for rubber farms. Their livelihoods have been affected and poverty continues to be a persistent headache to these communities.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, all is not lost. With an increasing awareness of the importance of sustainability in products, some companies are turning to ethical rubber. In 2016, Toyota<\/a> decided to commit to sustainability through a partnership with World Wildlife Fund by donating cash that ensures that rubber and product such as palm oil are sourced sustainably to avoid deforestation. Sustainable rubber not only paves way for protecting the planet but the communities as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsurvey<\/a> indicates that 66 percent of the general public and\n73 percent of millennials will spend more if the product is produced more\nsustainably. The parties involved and those that push the rubber harvesting\nagenda should seek to go the ethical way for a win-win situation. This will\nhelp reduce environmental devastation on a massive scale.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rubber plays an important role as a versatile industrial raw material with a lot of applications in a man\u2019s everyday life. Being a major raw material used in manufacturing tyre…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}