ABSTRACT
For more than a decade Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa) have been one of Bolivia’s most important forest exports. Paradoxically, national policies and initiatives to support the management of Brazil nuts in Bolivia’s northern forests have generally taken a back seat to timber management and other economic development programmes. The Brazil nut sector emerged despite the lack of a clear policy framework defining access to the resource or specific guidelines for its management. In fact, those policies that most shaped Brazil nut production were not intended to address their management, but were instead linked to macroeconomic policy to promote non-traditional exports, to expand infrastructure, to increase Brazil nut processing capacity and to formalize property rights.
