Belterra is a city in the Brazilian Amazon in Para rich on rubber trees. The demand of rubber from the Second World War and the car industries in Europe and USA made this place to develop very fast around the 1940s.
The American millionaire Henry Ford, owner of the Ford Company, wanted to establish in the Amazon the biggest rubber producer place in the world. He first tried in Fordlandia but it was a failure.
Then, Belterra was born around 1934 in the middle of the forest near the Rio Tapajos as it had better communications and soil. Soon Brazilians an Americans moved in to work and quickly Belterra started to have hospitals, sport areas, schools, American architecture buildings and houses, harbours, cinemas, entertainment areas, …
The end of the 2nd World War, and mainly the new Malayan synthetic rubber brought the project down, and Belterra was finally sold to the Brazilian Government.
Many serengueiros “rubber collectors” have now stopped collecting latex because of the low price they get for it, and the deforestation in the area. Belterra’s people often live from family farming, poultry keeping or fishing.
The economy of the region now is mainly based in mechanical agriculture to grow soya that export directly from the huge Cargill Port in Santarem to Europe. This brought many farmers from South Brazil “gauchos” to the region clearing forest to grow soya.. Today’s serengueiros need to go far from Belterra to collect rubber.
Locals say that since the clearing of the forest started there are less wild birds, and the weather has changed too, it is warmer. The area has recently seen some of the worse floods for many years.
