Narrator: Brazil nuts don't come from farms.
They're collected deep in the Amazon rainforest,
often by Indigenous people.
Narrator: But harvesting them is not easy.
Collectors gather, crack, and haul
110-pound loads out of the jungle.
Narrator: But this industry nearly collapsed 20 years ago,
when middlemen paid farmers just pennies per ton.
Narrator: So harvesters banded together
to sell directly to factories,
increasing their income significantly.
Now, the industry's at risk again,
this time because of deforestation.
We visited the Apiaká tribe
to see how they saved this big business once before
and if they can do it again.
Almost every other nut that you can buy in a store
comes from massive plantations.
But Brazil nuts can only be forged in the wild.
They grow across this region,
spanning Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru.
The industry supports 60,000 families
in the Brazilian Amazon. Many are Indigenous.
Villagers say 95% of their community
works in the industry during the season.
Each morning, workers load up their dinghies.
They commute 10 miles along the Rio Dos Peixes.
Then they hike into the rainforest.
Evanilson Crixi Morima is the president of the Apiaká tribe.
Narrator: They're headed to Brazil nut trees that grew
thanks to these guys, the agoutis.
The rodents bury the fallen pods to eat later.
So when the rodent has a bad memory,
there will be a new tree.
If the rodent is eaten by a jaguar, there will be a new tree.
Narrator: The Brazil nut trees
can live to be 500 years old.
They reach 165 feet tall, as high as a 15-story building.
And their trunks over 6 feet wide.
Enrique: They are usually above every other trees
in the canopies.
Narrator: Collectors wait for the pods to drop naturally
between November and May.
That's what makes this such a sustainable nut.
Each tree drops about 300 pods every season,
and they can come down at 50 miles per hour.
If you are down there
and one of these things fall on your head, you're dead.
Narrator: Then they get to work cracking.
Narrator: They make their way back, this time carrying bags
that are roughly 100 pounds.
Narrator: Workers will spread them out in beds
to dry them in the hot sun.
Narrator: The Apiaká once numbered in the tens of thousands,
but they haven't had an easy past,
facing massacres, persecution, epidemics,
and enslavement from rubber tappers.
And now, there's less than 1,000 Apiaká left.
In the 1900s, they started selling and exporting
nuts to Europe.
They depended on middlemen from big cities,
who made the trip to their remote village
to buy nuts for just 6 cents a ton.
Narrator: It wasn't lucrative enough,
and many families left the industry altogether.
Enrique: It collapsed. It collapsed big time.
When the price of the nuts is so low,
then it is not an incentive for people to harvest it.
Narrator: While agricultural cooperatives
aren't a new concept,
environmental technician Antonio Vieira Gimelo
thought it might work for the Apiaká.
So he joined four tribes across Mato Grosso
into one cooperative called Coopavam.
The collectors would then sell directly to the cooperative,
cutting out the middlemen completely.
And the idea saved the local nut industry.
Narrator: That's about a $1.64 a ton.
It may not sound like much, but it's a 2,000% increase
from the 6 cents collectors made before.
Workers then transport the dry nuts
to a processing factory in the town of Juruena.
Narrator: Once the nuts arrive, workers transfer them to the dryer.
They'll stay here for 10 to 12 hours.
Narrator: The factory tries to stock up
so they have enough supply to last
the six months of the off-season.
They're dried again for four days to extend the shelf life.
Then they head to get steamed to loosen up the shell.
Narrator: Although harvesting them is labor-intensive,
Brazil nuts are some of the cheapest nuts,
used to fill space in bags of mixed nuts.
I personally like cashews better.
I know I like almonds better.
Probably I have eaten too many.
Narrator: But Coopavam has managed to make it profitable.
It processes 370 million tons of Brazil nuts
a year in this factory
and brought Apiaká families back into the industry.
The nuts will get packaged and sold
to be used in snack packs, chocolate bars, and cakes.
Some of the biggest customers?
The US, Netherlands, and Germany.
Now, the industry is facing another challenge: deforestation.
Narrator: Nearly 5 million acres of the Amazon were cleared in 2021
to raise cattle and grow soy, African palm, and corn.
Enrique: What they want is land,
and they just get rid of all the forest.
They're not after the wood.
Narrator: The state of Mato Grosso
has one of the worst rates of deforestation in Brazil,
and the Apiaká don't have enough resources
to protect their land themselves.
Now, the government does protect Brazil nut trees,
meaning it's against the law to cut one down.
That's why you'll see single Brazil nut trees
standing alone in fields.
Brazil nut trees depend on an ecologically healthy forest.
Narrator: They can't survive
without the cooler temperatures of the rainforest
or the special bees that pollinate them.
Over time, they stop producing Brazil nuts.
It takes about 15 years for a tree to die slowly.
It's a very sad picture.
It makes me very sad just thinking about it.
Narrator: So can the locals save
Brazil's nut economy again?
One way to do that is by investing more
in diversified final products, like this nut oil.
The oil sells for double the price of raw nuts,
and making it saves broken nuts from going to waste.
It's used in everything from food to cosmetics.
Narrator: Advocates say the solution
could also be as simple as marketing.
By some estimates, locals can earn three times the profit
from Brazil nuts than from illegal logging.
Brazil nuts are also one of the most sustainable nuts,
and growing this industry could give locals a reason
to preserve their ecosystem.
And that's the value and the magical thing of Brazil nuts,
is that by consuming every nut, we are protecting forests
and we are doing our little bit
of actually saving the Amazon.