Sustainability is much more than a buzzword thrown around by marketing departments and politicians. Sustainability defines in a single concept the greatest challenge facing our species: the building of a human civilization that has the potential to last and coexist with Earth’s ecosystems. Given our current trajectories of increasing production, consumption, and extraction, this goal sounds like a pipe dream. While we’re debating  about the necessity or the possibility of building a sustainable civilization, the Kayapo are putting the concept into practice, just as their ancestors lived sustainably for thousands of years.

I will plant Brazil nut seedlings that will grow and give fruit. When I die, my children, my grandchildren, and the grandchildren of my grandchildren are going to be able to see them grow. When I no longer exist they will remember that I planted these Brazil nut trees with my own hands for them to break open and eat the nuts.

A pillar of the rainforest ecology

The Brazil nut (PI’Y in Kayapo) beautifully illustrates the co-evolutionary dependence of tree regeneration and animals; a co-dependent relationship that predominates in all tropical forests. It appears that the Brazil nut tree co-evolved with the agouti -or an agouti ancestor -a large forest floor rodent related to the guinea pig. The agouti is for all intents and purposes the only animal in the forest able to open the pods which it does by gnawing a hole in the outer casing to release the trove of richly nutritious seeds inside. Similar to the North American or European squirrel, the agouti is a scatter hoarder that buries some nuts for a rainy day. With the hard pod protecting the nuts until an agouti happens by, the Brazil nut tree ensures that some of its nuts escape non-scatter hoarding seed predators, and; that some nuts will be dispersed and buried away from under the shade of the mother tree in places where they will have a chance to catch a few rays of light and grow.

Furthermore, the Brazil nut tree relies on specific species of large bee for pollination; bees that survive only in undisturbed primary forest. Without the bee there can be no pollination and therefore no fruit production; and without primary forest there are no bees. Therefore the Brazil nut is perhaps the only non-timber product from tropical forest that has never been domesticated and relies totally on primary forest for its existence.

Fruits of the wild

Brazil nut is a cornerstone sustainable enterprise of the Kayapo, because of its abundance and forest ecology combined with reliable domestic markets for Brazil nuts in the food industry. These delicious nutritious nuts generate equitably distributed annual income for Kayapo communities. Every family or person may choose to collect and sell nuts; an activity that has always been practiced by the Kayapo and so fits well with Kayapo culture and worldview. Each year during the fruiting season of the Brazil nut tree from December to March in the rainy season, Kayapo families spread out through the forest and camp near concentrations of huge Brazil nut trees.

Locating Brazil nut groves, navigating often long distances through forest and harvesting the nuts relies on knowledge and skills passed down for generations. Brazil nuts come packed like orange slices in hard wooden pods weighing up to  six pounds that grow on some of the tallest trees in the forest-which makes  it dangerous to spend time under massive Brazil nut trees during the fruiting season. Harvesters remove the fallen pods to places away from under the canopy of a Brazil nut tree where they break open the pods and remove the seeds (nuts) inside -an operation performed deftly with precise machete blows. The forest camps of Brazil nut harvesters are an opportunity for transmission of knowledge from old to young and, therefore, contribute to preservation and promotion of indigenous values and culture. 

Watch this short film, made by Floresta Protegida, on the harvest of the Brazil nut and become immersed the beauty of rainforest and the wisdom of its guardians:

An ancient seed

Brazil nut is the main economic enterprise of Kayapo communities, but not the only one. Cumaru (or Tonka bean as it is sometimes known) is another tree seed harvested by the Kayapo for its medicinal properties.

”Some time ago timber men cut down a lot of tonka bean trees. Only the ones that were in our land are still alive. In the ”white man’ land, they’ve already knocked down all of them.” – a Kayapo man

Cumaru trees are also large trees of primary forest and their nuts are harvested by the Kayapo from the forest floor during the summer dry season when cumaru fruits. Finding cumaru trees relies on traditional knowledge. Usually the hunters who first smell the loose bark of the seeds. The fragrance tells them that harvest time is near, so they inform the community. As with the Brazil nut, entire families camp for many days in the forest to collect cumaru seeds from the ground where they have fallen. Cumaru nuts are taken back to the village where people break them open with a hammer to extract the fragrant bean-like seed from its hard nut casing.

The seeds are laid out to dry under the sun and then sold for fabrication of cosmetics by the UK company Lush: the main buyer of Kayapo cumaru. Dried cumaru seeds are much lighter and easier to transport than the tons of unshelled Brazil nuts. Cumaru generates important income during the dry season especially for the most remote communities where river transportation is difficult and production must be taken out by air at great expense. 

Learn more about the cultural and economic importance of Cumaru with another great short, made possible by Floresta Protegida:

A blueprint for sustainable development

Brazil nut and cumaru demonstrate the possibility for and importance of sustainable non-timber product enterprises to forest protection by local communities. The Kayapo, however, export another extremely valuable forest product: climate stability. The huge trees and the soil of their land store and absorb vast amounts of carbon (see blog to come).

Kayapo Brazil nut and cumaru seed enterprises are examples that demonstrate sustainable income generation for forest communities is possible. These enterprises may not generate the same order of profit as goldmining or logging; but unlike these industrial activities that ultimately enrich only a few while forever destroying the incalculable benefits of natural forest including sustainable development opportunity for local people; sustainable enterprise development benefits many over the long-term. 

Brazil nut is a perfect blueprint for sustainable development: it can only be harvested from primary forest and generates sustainable and equitably distributed income for the communities that protect it. The defense of the forest, the well-being of the people, and the preservation of their culture are linked to a single economic activity. That’s sustainability in a nutshell.