"Rubber Tapping" Malaysia Local Custom Tip by traveldave

Along with tin, Malaysia's early economy was built on rubber. Rubber tapping is the process whereby natural rubber, called latex, is collected from a rubber tree. A small incision is made in the bark of a rubber tree with a special tool in order to cut the latex vessels. The dripping latex is then collected in a small container attached to the tree.

Rubber trees are native to the Amazonian regions of South America. There are several species, but the rubber tree that yields the purest, most elastic, and most abundant flow of latex is the Pará tree, which is native to western Brazil, northern Bolivia, and eastern Peru.

Attempts were made to grow Pará trees in South America, but a species of fungus native to that continent caused a disease that killed many of the transplanted trees and made it impractical to set up rubber plantations there. And the rubber trees that grow wild in the Amazonian region tend to be widely spaced over large areas of the vast rainforest, and are therefore mainly inaccessible.

In the 1890s, Pará trees were smuggled from Brazil and transported to Malaysia. The hot, humid climate of Southeast Asia perfectly suited the rubber trees, and the fungal disease that killed them on plantations in South America did not exist. The numerous orderly rubber plantations established in Malaysia eliminated the problems of access and maximized growth. In addition, the invention of special cutting tools increased the flow of, and therefore the production of, latex. These factors helped Malaysia monopolize much of the world's production of natural rubber.

Although Malaysia's importance as a rubber producer declined after the advent of synthetic rubber, it is still the world's third-largest producer of natural rubber, accounting for 20 percent of the world's total. Over 3,212,370 acres (1,300,000 hectares) of land are devoted to rubber plantations in Peninsular Malaysia.

I took a day trip to see the sights of Kuala Lumpur, and one of the sights featured a visit to a small rubber plantation where the tour leader showed us how the bark of the tree is scraped to start a flow of the latex.