In November 2005, the International Labor Rights Fund, representing "tappers" (workers who extract latex from rubber trees) on the Liberian plantation, filed an Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) case in US District Court in California against Bridgestone (parent company owning Firestone), alleging “forced labor, the modern equivalent of slavery”, on the Firestone Plantation in Harbel, Liberia.
The Olmec people of Mesoamerica extracted and produced similar forms of primitive rubber from analogous latex-producing trees such as Castilla elastica as early as 3600 years ago.
Taraxacum kok-saghyz was cultivated on a large scale in the Soviet Union between 1931 and 1950, as well as in the United States, the UK, Germany, Sweden and Spain during World War II as an emergency source of rubber when supplies of rubber from Hevea brasiliensis in Southeast Asia were threatened.
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There has been a resurgence of attention on T. kok-saghyz due to shortcomings of the Hevea brasiliensis rubber supply.
Prior to commercial exploitation of latex-bearing trees such as Hevea brasiliensis in the Amazon Basin and Funtumia elastica in the Congo, native populations limited harvesting to non-lethal tapping of the latex.