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Sustainable palm fruit harvesting as a pathway to conserve Amazon peatland forests

Nature Sustainability volume 5, pages 479–487 (2022) Cite this article

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Abstract

Sustainable management of intact tropical peatlands is crucial for climate change mitigation, for biodiversity conservation and to support the livelihoods of local communities. Here, we explore whether sustainable fruit harvesting from Mauritia flexuosa palms could support these linked goals by increasing fruit production and incomes across the 2.8 million hectares of the most carbon-dense ecosystem in Amazonia: the lowland peatlands of northeastern Peru. M. flexuosa is dioecious, and fruits are typically harvested by felling female palms; the proportion of female palms therefore provides a good indicator of the health of a stand. Across 93 widely distributed sites, we found that the proportion of female palms increases with travel time to the urban market, and overall, fruit harvesting has halved the current potential production and income from this resource. However, significantly more female palms are found where fruit are harvested by climbing. We estimate that region-wide uptake of climbing could eventually increase potential fruit production by 51% and increase its gross value to US$62 ± 28.2 million yr–1. These findings demonstrate the high cost of unsustainable resource extraction in Neotropical forests and outline a practical path to conserve and sustainably exploit one of the most carbon-rich landscapes on the planet.

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Fig. 1: Relationship between the proportion of female palms and travel time to Iquitos for 93 palm swamp forest stands across the Pastaza-Marañón basin.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Map showing modelled variation in the proportion of female Mauritia flexuosa trees in palm swamp forests in the northern Peruvian Amazon.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: Map of estimated travel time to Iquitos from across Loreto.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 4: Estimated total potential regional income based on different resources from northern Amazon Peruvian forests.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Data availability

The datasets used in the analysis in the current study are available within the article and Supplementary Information.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (grant number 5349; ‘MonANPeru: Monitoring Protected Areas in Peru to Increase Forest Resilience to Climate Change’ to T.R.B. and O.L.P.) for funding a Masters by Research scholarship to C.G.H.P. at the University of Leeds and subsequent time for manuscript preparation, fieldwork by C.G.H.P. for this study in 2019 and establishment and re-measurement of forest plots in the palm swamps of Loreto during 2017–2019. Data collection was also funded by the BOSQUES research group of IIAP (led by D.d.C.T.), the projects ‘Protecting biodiversity and livelihoods in the wetlands of Peruvian Amazonia’ (agreement no. 220-2018-FONDECYT, to J.d.A.-P., E.N.H.C. and K.H.R.), which was funded through the Newton-Paulet Fund by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (UK) and CONCYTEC (Peru) and delivered by the British Council, and ‘ARBOLES: A trait-based understanding of LATAM forest biodiversity and resilience’ (agreement no. 001-2019-FONDECYT; to E.N.H.C.), which was supported by CONCYTEC, the Newton Fund, the Embajada Británica Lima and NERC. Data analysis and writing was also supported by the project ‘Novel approaches to understand the state of biodiversity and support livelihoods: the distribution and degradation levels of Mauritia flexuosa stands in Amazonia’ (grant agreement 41469429; to T.R.B. and D.d.C.T.), which was funded through the Newton-Paulet Fund by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (UK) and CONCYTEC (Peru) and delivered by the British Council. E.N.H.C. also acknowledges support from a NERC Knowledge Exchange Fellowship (NE/V018760/1). We thank Amazónicos por la Amazonía (AMPA), Pacaya Samiria and Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserves managed by the Peruvian Protected Areas Authority (SERNANP) and the many communities that hosted fieldwork as part of this study for their assistance and permission to conduct this study. We thank D. Williams and T. Milleron for discussions about earlier drafts of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana, Iquitos, Peru

    C. Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango, Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado, Jhon del Águila-Pasquel, Gerardo Flores Llampazo, José M. Reyna Huaymacari, Dennis del Castillo Torres, Julio Irarica Pacaya & Manuel Martín Brañas

  2. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    C. Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango, Steve J. Carver, Frederick C. Draper, Oliver L. Phillips, Gordon Mitchell, Jon Lovett & Timothy R. Baker

  3. School of Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK

    Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado & Katherine H. Roucoux

  4. Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Johan de Jong & Marielos Peña-Claros

  5. Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana, Iquitos, Peru

    César J. Córdova Oroche, Gabriel García Mendoza, Leticia Gatica Saboya & Eliseo Ramírez Paredes

  6. Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Frederick C. Draper

  7. School of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Frederick C. Draper

  8. Laboratory of Geo-Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Sytze de Bruin

  9. Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Marieke van der Zon

  10. Equipo Primatológico del Perú, Iquitos, Peru

    Gabriel García Mendoza

Authors
  1. C. Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango
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  2. Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado
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Contributions

C.G.H.P., E.N.H.C. and T.R.B. conceived the study; C.G.H.P., T.R.B., O.L.P. and E.N.H.C. designed the study. C.G.H.P. and T.R.B. analysed the data; C.G.H.P. created the maps and wrote the paper. J.d.A.-P., J.D.J., J.M.R.H., C.J.C.O., G.G.M., G.F.L., E.R.P., J.I.P., L.G.S. and M.M.B. led or took part in the field data collection, and T.R.B., O.L.P., D.d.C.T., E.N.H.C., K.H.R. and J.d.A.-P. contributed funding. S.J.C., F.C.D., S.d.B., M.P.-C., M.v.d.Z., G.M. and J.L. provided materials for data analysis and mapping. All co-authors commented on and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to C. Gabriel Hidalgo Pizango.

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Hidalgo Pizango, C.G., Honorio Coronado, E.N., del Águila-Pasquel, J. et al. Sustainable palm fruit harvesting as a pathway to conserve Amazon peatland forests. Nat Sustain 5, 479–487 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00858-z

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