Eduardo Cesar, 60, selects slabs of cork, according to thickness and quality, July 18, 2000, at a factory in the town of Azaruja, in southern Portugal's region of Alentejo. Cesar has been working in the cork business for 35 years. The cork oak tree bark, harvested in the nearby fields, is brought to the factory to be boiled, cut and graded before being sent to factories where cork stoppers and other by-products are manufactured. Cork also has less well-known uses, as insulation on the space shuttle andbeneath the keys of clarinets, for example. (APPhoto/Armando Franca)