Describing the distribution of rubber producing countries, indicate the major environmental issues faced by them.

Natural rubber comes from Hevea brasiliensis, a native of the Amazon basin that needs equatorial conditions — 25–30°C, over 200 cm of well-distributed rainfall and deep, well-drained soils — confining commercial cultivation broadly to 10°N–10°S.

Distribution of rubber-producing countries

• South-East Asia dominates world output: Thailand and Indonesia lead, followed by Vietnam, Malaysia and China (Yunnan and Hainan).
• South Asia: India — with Kerala's Kottayam belt as the core and Tripura and Karnataka as newer areas — and Sri Lanka.
• Africa: Côte d'Ivoire has risen into the top rank of producers; Liberia, Nigeria and Cameroon are older plantation economies.
• Latin America: Brazil, rubber's homeland, remains a minor producer because South American leaf blight prevents dense plantation monoculture there.

Major environmental issues

• Deforestation: expansion into rainforests of the Mekong region, Sumatra and West Africa destroys biodiversity-rich habitats; rubber is accordingly covered by the EU Deforestation Regulation.
• Monoculture effects: loss of species diversity and heightened vulnerability to pests and pathogens, such as the Pestalotiopsis leaf-fall disease that has cut yields in Indian and South-East Asian plantations.
• Hydrological stress: rubber acts as a "water pump" — studies in Xishuangbanna, China, record falling water tables and drying streams under mature rubber stands.
• Soil degradation and erosion on cleared slopes, alongside agrochemical run-off and untreated effluents from latex processing that pollute local waters.
• Climate vulnerability: typhoons, erratic rainfall and rising temperatures are already reducing yields in traditional belts, pushing cultivation to new frontiers.
• Governance challenge: about four-fifths of world output comes from smallholders, which makes traceability and regulation of these impacts difficult.

Reconciling the crop's economic importance with ecological limits requires agroforestry-based rubber, certification under the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber and deforestation-free supply chains.