Demography of the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa): impact of seed harvest and hunting on recruitment and population dynamics

The Brazil nut tree provides one of the most socio-economically important non-timber tropical forest products – the Brazil nut. These nuts are the only internationally traded seed crop collected exclusively from natural forests. Despite the economic impor tance of this species virtually nothing is known about the population structure and regeneration ecology of either harvested or unharvested natural populations of Brazil nuts. This project proposes to investigate the underlying mechanisms of Brazil nut r egeneration and population dynamics under natural conditions. This will help determine the impact of exploitation on the maintenance of Brazil nut populations and the availability of Brazil nuts in the future. A management plan to deal with Brazil nut exp loitation is sorely needed and this study will go a long way to provide the answers needed to draft such a plan and ultimately guide the sustainable harvest of Brazil nuts throughout Amazonia. As many extractive industries around the globe currently dwin dle fast due to over-exploitation, our results will also highlight potential strategies for similar products world-wide and act as a base on which to determine how to safeguard the future of other non-timber forest products.