- Women from the Yine Indigenous community in Peru are working to harvest and process the seeds of the murumuru, a native Amazonian palm tree.
- The community of Monte Salvado, where many Yine people live, borders the Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve and Alto Purús National Park, two areas that are often traversed by Indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation.
- Community leaders warn that illegal loggers have been destroying the forests of these isolated communities, forcing them to travel to the Yine people’s communal lands to seek food and help.
- Families in Monte Salvado earn their income through the sustainable collection and processing of Brazil nuts and murumuru seeds, and by selling handicrafts made from the seeds.
As Linda Alvarado, a young Indigenous Yine leader, travels through the forest in the depths of the Peruvian Amazon, she collects clusters of murumuru seeds. These honeycomb-shaped structures fall from the Astrocaryum murumuru palms that reach heights of up to 10 meters (33 feet). Alvarado and her “sisters,” what she calls the other women from the community of Monte Salvado in the Madre de Dios region, use these seeds to craft necklaces and bracelets bearing the script of the Yine people.
The Yine are an Amazonian Indigenous people from southern Peru. Since precolonial times they’ve traveled to exchange products with other Amazonian and Andean communities. The community of Monte Salvado, where Alvarado lives, borders Madre de Dios Territorial Reserve and is also within the buffer zone of Alto Purús National Park. Both protected areas are home to Indigenous peoples choosing to live in isolation.
Over the past 20 years, sightings of these isolated communities have increased. One of the most recent sightings was in October 2024, when a group of about 100 members of the Mashco-Piro, an uncontacted Indigenous community, intercepted a boat whose passengers included Jorge Hernani Alvarado, the protection agent for FENAMAD, an association of Indigenous groups from the Madre de Dios region. Jorge is also the brother of Linda Alvarado.
“The Mashco-Piro are forced to move to other territories because illegal loggers are invading their land and affecting their way of life,” said Linda Alvarado, the deputy head of the community of Monte Salvado. “The Indigenous people in voluntary isolation are not responsible [for this], but the loggers who are putting pressure on them [are]. There should be no logging around the territorial reserve. This is why it is important for us to take care of the forests and prevent deforestation by finding alternative work.”
Building a business from murumuru
According to Linda Alvarado, it was in 2014 when members of her community began to harvest the seeds of the murumuru palm. This Amazonian tree has a solid trunk and bushy leaves that can measure up to 8 m (26 ft) each. They shell and dry the seed clusters that fall from the trees, then use the seeds in handicrafts.
“They taught us how to produce jewelry, and that is how we got involved in processing seeds,” Alvarado said.
There are currently 35 women from Monte Salvado who produce necklaces, earrings and bracelets using murumuru seeds and together form a committee known as the “Murumuru Women.”
“We sell the necklaces for 35 soles [$9.70] each,” Alvarado said. “We also already managed to finalize the purchase of this product by a company.”
She said the sustainable use of the murumuru is an opportunity to diversify the Yine economy. The forestry authorities under the regional government have approved a management declaration allowing the women to collect, process and transport the seeds, she said. She adds the seeds are also in high demand for their oil content, used in the cosmetics and personal care industries.
Unprocessed murumuru seeds sell for 6 soles ($1.65) per kilogram, or 75 cents per pound. Seeds that have been shelled and dried sell for triple that amount.
“The process of drying murumuru seeds must be [done] very carefully and in a special dryer, since the moisture content must be reduced to prevent mold growth,” said Cristina Soto, a specialist in the promotion and management of natural resources for the Peruvian arm of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS Peru). “Even collecting seeds that have recently fallen from the tree is complicated and requires special protective equipment.”
The community doesn’t yet have specialized equipment to dry the seeds, but it does have a management plan for sustainable resource use. Of the 36,000 hectares (about 89,000 acres) of land in the community, 176 hectares (435 acres) are used for harvesting the seeds, while the rest of the land is used to propagate the species.
The community signed a conservation agreement with the nearby Alto Purús National Park, with support from FZS Peru and the Legacy Landscapes Fund (LLF), aimed at purchasing proper equipment for processing seeds and training Yine community members in business management.
Murumuru seeds contain vitamins A and C, and are high in oleic acid, used in the production of beauty products such as soaps, shampoos and hair oils.
“In the three years of developing the conservation agreement, studies will be carried out on the murumuru’s productive potential and on the characterization of its value chain, which will allow for the sustainable management of this resource and the fair and equitable distribution of the economic benefits,” Soto said.
Harvesting Brazil nuts
Linda Alvarado said she remembers learning how to help her father harvest Brazil nuts when she was 9 years old.
“The community has worked with Brazil nuts for more than 20 years,” she said. “This work is led by the men and is done together as a family. We women lead the harvest of the murumuru.”
Brazil nuts are a highly commercialized product in the Madre de Dios region, where this Amazonian tree, Bertholletia excelsa, is abundant enough for the seeds to be harvested. Brazil nuts are consumed as cereals or ground into flour for export They contain fiber, protein, fats and carbohydrates. The Brazil nut tree can reach 30 m (about 100 feet) in height in about 20 years.
The community of Monte Salvado works to harvest this species on 733 hectares (1,811 acres) of its forests.
“Each family has pre-identified parcels from which they harvest Brazil nuts. They collect the seeds as a group and then we sell the product as a group, in portions of 60 kilograms [about 130 lbs] each,” said Alvarado, who, at 25, is the youngest woman leader of the community.
A 60-kg batch of Brazil nuts nets 680 soles (about $190). The harvest occurs from January to March, while the murumuru harvested runs from May to August.
“Almost the entire year, the community works to harvest the seeds in our forest,” Alvarado said. “This allows us to have an income and lead the initiatives, between the women and men, but the most important [part] is that this organized labor by all the families in the community allows us to understand that we must take care of the trees and prevent them from being cut down.”
Banner image: Over the past 20 years, sightings of Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation have increased in the community of Monte Salvado. Image courtesy of FZS Peru.
This story was first published here in Spanish on March 31, 2025.