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Por que briquetes de castanha do Amazonia?

Brazil nut tree [in the centre]. Photo: Sabine Schulz Blank.

The main aim of this study is to help promote the sustainable, extractivist practice of Brazil nut gathering, a production manner that poses a minimum of disturbance to the natural ecosystem of the forests and can be seen as being one of the most ecologically sustainable income opportunities for those that live in or close-by to the Amazonian Rainforests (Corvera-Gomringer 2011, p. 19). 
 
The Brazil nut grows on a tree which grows only in the Amazonian Rainforest and cuould, until this date, not been grown outside of this habitat. It develops in hot and humid climates with annual medium temperatures of about 24°C to 27°C and annual rain levels of 1400 mm to 2800 mm. The tree can grow up to 60m in height and reaches ages of 800 years or more (Andreotti 1995 p. 13ff). The nuts grow in a spherical, wooden fruit capsule, which weighs between 500g and 2,5 kg (Scoles & Gribel 2011, p. 456). The collection of the nut is done only manually through wild collection from naturally grown trees, a practice that is called extractivism. The Brazil nut economy relies heavily on intact forests. Today however, the Brazil nut tree is endangered by extinction (IBAMA 2012). The main threat is the loss of its habitat due to an increase in the areas used for mining, logging, cattle ranching or agriculture, including burn-and slash-agriculture for subsidence production (Azavedo-Ramos 2008, p. 13 and Nascimento Júnior et al. 2000, p. 6). Vast parts of the Amazonian rainforest have been deforested so far, putting evermore pressure on the sustainable income generation through extractivist collection. In the case of the Brazil nut, this pressure is especially high, as the nuts form only a very small portion of this ressource. Researchers from the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA), a state-owned agricultural research institution came to the conclusion that in average, only 13% of this fruit is the edible seed, so only 3/4 of it is actually the Brazil nut (Andreotti 1995, p. 10). Today, the seed is the only income-generating part of this fruit, leaving 87% of this prime material completely unused. The main question this study poses therefore is: 

Isn’t there a way to generate an income from the remaining 87% of the fruit, which are being collected and rounded up anyway?