Spatio-temporal patterns of Mauritia flexuosa fruit extraction in the Peruvian Amazon: Implications for conservation and sustainability

In the Amazon Basin, some non-timber forest products (NTFPs), such as the ecologically and economically important palm Mauritia flexuosa, are extracted intensively and across large areas - the ecological effect of which is unclear. In this study, we sought to better understand the scale and scope of M. flexuosa fruit harvest in the Peruvian Amazon, the destructive harvest of which has caused conservation concern for decades, by collecting data on the amounts and origins of the fruit entering the city of Iquitos, Peru - making harvest patterns spatially and temporally explicit for the first time. We achieved this by examining shipping logs and monitoring key ports and bus lines. During one year, we recorded 227 943 sacks (8206 mT) of fruit entering Iquitos, originating from at least 267 communities across the region's major watersheds. A large proportion of fruit originated from communities in the Medio Bajo Marañón and Tigre watersheds which consistently sent high volumes of fruit to Iquitos from November through March. However, from May through August a greater number of communities with frequent, low volume extraction in the Amazonas, Bajo Amazonas, and Napo watersheds contributed most fruit. It appears that this spatio-temporal shift in the exportation points of fruit reflects regional variation in fruiting phenology of M. flexuosa across the region. Finer scale trends could be influenced by social and market factors, especially market access as influenced by ship routes. The massive region-wide extraction that we report for this ecologically important NTFP has many potential ramifications for ecological change and carbon sequestration which warrant further study. Factors impacting extraction patterns as well as potential ecological consequences need to be properly examined before promoting NTFP extraction.