Iberia - Aleix Plademunt

Iberia is a locality in the province of Tahuamanu, Madre de Dios region, Peru. For centuries it was inhabited by the native peoples who occupied the banks of the Tahuamanu River. In the second half of the 19th century, the Bolivian colonisers, led by the Suárez brothers, expelled them and began the exploitation of rubber, or shiringa (Hevea brasiliensis), for the extraction of rubber and latex. In 1903, the 38-year-old Asturian rubber tapper Máximo Rodríguez Gonzales and his brother Baldomero came into contact with the region in search of shiringa.

At the beginning of 2019, Aleix Plademunt travels to Iberia and discovers a natural paradise with endless hectares of Amazon rainforest of incalculable wealth, currently persecuted and attacked by the politicians and businessmen of the day. A cyclical story. The book introduces the origin of the name of the town of Iberia, as well as some of the consequences of Máximo Rodríguez’s arrival in the region: the displacement of native peoples and the indiscriminate exploitation of raw materials for export.