brazil nut

The Amazon basin, where Kew records Bertholletia excelsa as native from Bolivia and Brazil to the Guianas; an obligate out-crosser pollinated by large-bodied bees, its fruit taking up to fourteen months to ripen, harvested almost entirely from natural forest

Gathered by forest-based extractivists, the only globally traded seed crop collected that way; felling the tree is illegal in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, and Peru formalised about a thousand harvest concessions in 2000

Brazil nuts come almost entirely from natural forest. The tree is an obligate out-crosser, set by large-bodied bees, and its fruit takes up to fourteen months to ripen; Rockwell and her colleagues call it the only globally traded seed crop gathered by forest-based extractivists. The law has followed the tree: felling a Brazil nut is illegal in Brazil, Bolivia and Peru, and Peru formalised its harvesters' customary rights in 2000 as some thousand forest concessions. The forest need not be untouched: in logged concessions in Madre de Dios they found no significant fall in nut production at the usual logging intensities, while still urging caution. This means that the Brazil nut ties a world market to standing forest, and researchers note low deforestation in and around Peru's nut concessions. The forest is the harvesters' factory, and it functions.