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Organic Raw Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) are grown in the Madre de Dios region of Peru in the lush Amazonian rainforest at the intersection of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia--one of the most fruitful Brazil nut production lands in the world. Indigenous individuals from local Amazonian communities gather the wild brazil nuts and bring them down river to a centralized market which is done with age-old techniques and in a pristine way, which allows the consumer to receive nuts of the utmost superb quality. These individuals are licensed to undertake such sustainable forest products harvesting as a part of a Peruvian governmental incentive program that allows them to do so in place of more non-sustainable activities such as slash and burn agriculture. We deal specifically with a large and constant group of nut gatherers that have been certified organic by the INSTITUTE FOR MARKETECOLOGY a IMO controlled Swiss based certifier since 2000, Certificate Contract # 21119.
Brazil nut trees are canopy-dominants that grow to 165 feet and have a life span of several hundred years. Their reproductive biology is extremely specialized and is dependent on a healthy forest ecosystem and its diversity of life. Pollination of this tree is so specialized that Brazil nuts have never been effectively grown in plantations. Metallic-green colored Euglossine orchid bees are required to pollinate Brazil nut flowers. The trees bear grapefruit-sized fruits that remain on the tree for 15 months and contain some 20 seeds (nuts) per fruit.
The people living in the Brazil nut rich forests share a common resource base, a forested ecosystem of profound global biodiversity significance. Their quest for improving their lives will ultimately determine the fate of these forests and will have a significant impact on the health of the entire planet.
ELF supplies its customers with premium quality Brazil nuts harvested by families in Peru and Bolivia who greatly value and rely on healthy rainforests for their livelihood. Eating a Brazil nut (or splashing on some of ELF's Brazil nut oil) literally saves the rainforest! For more information on Brazil nuts and conservation programs surrounding them visit:
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Organic RAW Brazil
Nuts
The Brazil nut-rich forests that span the intersection of Amazonian Peru, Bolivia and Brazil are the world's most biologically diverse ecosystems. The region supports the greatest known species densities of birds, butterflies and a number of other animals. For example, a single square kilometer supports twice as many butterfly species as the entire United States and more than 10 % of the entire world total.
The fruits can only be opened by small rodents called agoutis that scatter the nuts around the forest by burying much of the crop. Agoutis may take the fruits a thousand feet away from the parent tree and often bury some of the seeds for the future. If the agouti forgets where its cache is, the seeds may germinate into seedlings. Thus the nuts may live to grow into seedlings, be eaten by rodents, rot, or end up being served at a party in the United States !
Castañales (Brazil nut harvesting concessions) offer one the few positive bottom-line economic examples where the density of a renewable natural resource other than timber is sufficient to justify the existence of large forested areas against unsustainable uses such as cattle ranching. Brazil nuts, which are opened up by harvesters within the primary forest, represent more than half the yearly income for thousands of families in the region, and so far have politically justified the protection of these natural areas. People can actually make a living harvesting these nuts from wild forests – a strong economic reason that keeps the trees standing! 
