The Rain Forest of the Osa Peninsula is the largest remaining tract of forest on the Pacific coast of Central America and probably of the rest of Latin America. In this area we could find around 700 different species of trees. One of them is The Rubber Tree.
The Hule Tree (Rubber Tree) is quite common in secondary forests in the Osa.It is easy to recognize with long, soft, hanging branches and large, alternate leaves, all covered with soft hairs.
The bark is brown, and filled with white latex, which is the hule, or rubber. When Colombus came to America, he saw Indigenous playing with rubber balls. This material came from Castilla trees and became the natural rubber of commerce.
Rubber extraction led to overexploitation of hule trees in all Latin America, because extraction required the killing of the tree. To maintain rubber production, plantations were made, for example in the Atlantic Zone of Costa Rica and in Coastal Ecuador.
The salvation of the Castilla tree was the discovery of Pará rubber, which is extracted from Hevea brasiliensis. This tree is abundant in swampy parts of Amazonia, and latex can be extracted from it repeatedly without killing the tree.
Today, Hevea is planted all over South East Asia and is almost the sole source of natural rubber. Left in the forest is the original hule tree, once the World’s only source of the prized rubber.Often times we forget how the majority of all modern comforts in life originated from some of the most under-developed areas in the world. On the Osa Penninsula, we are blessed by not only retaining the natural resources themselves, but also the traditional knowledge regarding where, and how they are used.
Ecotourism and Nature 
