Harvesting Mauritia palm fruit
A palm fruit harvester demonstrates the harness that enables safe climbing to the top of a 30-metre Mauritia flexuosa palm. Climbing palm trees without a harness is difficult and dangerous, so in many areas the trees are simply felled to harvest the fruits. Although local consumption of the fruit is generally low enough for this practice to be sustainable, increasing demand from outside markets is causing the palm trees to be cut down faster than replacements can grow. However, with training and basic equipment, palm fruit collectors can leave the trees standing to continue producing fruit for years to come.
Photo: Manolo Martín Brañas
Mauritia palm fruit
Fruits from the palm Mauritia flexuosa (aguaje fruit) are an unfamiliar sight in Europe, but they are increasingly valued on national and international markets for their high levels of beta carotene, phytoestrogens, and oleic acid. Mauritia is rarely planted but is widespread in naturally occurring palm swamps. The edible fruit are sold raw and peeled as snacks in town or made into ice cream, drinks, cakes and jam; some varieties are used to produce oil for soap-making and cosmetics. Aguaje fruit are also processed into food supplements and marketed internationally as a “super-food”. Although this non-timber forest product is helping to support community livelihoods, this is only possible if the harvesting is done by climbing the palms instead of cutting them down.
Photo: Dael Sassoon
Sacks of aguaje fruit stacked on a fallen tree
Ready for transport to local markets, these sacks of aguaje fruit are a common sight in many communities along the region’s rivers. At present, only a few communities harvest aguaje fruits by climbing the palm, so the practice of cutting the stems is still common. This puts the species at risk of over-exploitation. However, one international drinks company is beginning to work with a small number of communities to facilitate sustainable harvesting and certification on a commercial scale, providing a potential route both to sustainable development of rural livelihoods and long-term protection of the peatlands.
Photo: Lydia Cole
School bus
A covered wooden boat lies on the bank of a tributary of the Marañón river, waiting to take the children of Veinte de Enero to school in the next community. This type of boat may be powered by paddle or outboard motor, and the canopy provides protection from the strong sun out on the water. Dense forest vegetation, difficult wetland terrain, and seasonal flooding mean that boats are the most common form of transport in this region. There are only a few tens of kilometres of paved highway across the whole Pastaza-Marañón Basin, an area comparable in size to Scotland. Most communities live alongside rivers, and most families own at least a canoe.
Photo: Dael Sassoon
Indigenous life in the twenty-first century
A baby’s hammock decorated with gourds and seeds hangs in the living space of an indigenous family.
The Amazon is home to around 300 indigenous groups, including the Urarina, who number around 6,000 people. Urarina cultural identity is closely linked to the seasonally flooded forest ecosystem and the resources they gather from it. But modern materials find their place too; this hammock is made from a combination of synthetic and natural fibres and hung with seeds and gourds which are thought to confer protection on the child.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Harvesting Mauritia palm shoots
Indigenous Urarina women harvest the young shoots from Mauritia flexuosa palms growing in a peatland palm swamp close to their community. Harvesting is done in the driest season of the year which, even so, involves wading across a flooded forest floor. Palm fronds are cut from the growing point of the Mauritia palm using a machete, and from this raw material women spin fibres before weaving them into textiles. Palm-fibre textiles are synonymous with Urarina identity, and in particular women’s identity and role in the home and community. The textiles have cultural, social, and monetary value and are central to the transmission of knowledge between generations.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Mauritia palm fibre
This ball of thread has been spun from the fibre of young Mauritia palms. The knowledge and skills required to extract and spin the thread is passed down from mothers to daughters.
The fibres are first teased apart, then boiled in water to remove the green chlorophyll before being dried in the sun. The fibres are spun using both hands and feet to simultaneously tension and twist the strands into continuous lengths, to form an even thread.
Seven different plant species are used to produce and dye the fibre. This image shows the fibre in its natural colour.
Photo: Charlotte Wheeler
Extracting dye from peatland plants
An Urarina woman in the community of Nuevo Pandora explains to researchers how to produce dye. The leaf pulp produces one of the dyes used to colour aguaje palm fibre prior to weaving. Different plants are used to produce red, orange and black dyes. The Urarina women have a detailed understanding of which plants to use, how to process them, and how to obtain strong colours. This plant knowledge is a good example of the cultural heritage that connects the Urarina to the swamp ecosystem. The important place of peat swamp plants in the traditional practices and cultural identity of the Urarina is one of many arguments for the conservation and careful management of these special ecosystems.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Weaving palm fibre thread
This Urarina woman is weaving a textile known as ela or cachihuango from aguaje palm fibre using a backstrap loom. While other indigenous groups in the Amazon also use Mauritia fibres to make textiles, the loom and the combination of colours used are characteristic of the Urarina and reflect Urarina knowledge of and adaptation to living in the peatlands and flooded forests of their territory. Palm fibre textiles have strong symbolic value. In some communities, the fabric is used after death to wrap the body, keeping the soul warm on the journey to the spirit world.
Textiles are also bartered and sold beyond the communities where they are made. In 2019 the ela was awarded National Cultural Heritage status in recognition of its importance to the culture and identity of the Urarina. In contrast with the internationally recognised woollen textiles from the Andes, Urarina skills are only just being formally recognised within Peru.
Photo: Charlotte Wheeler
Forest resources make forest homes
Children at Nuevo Pandora play football in the foreground while their parents work on the framework for new houses behind. At the foot of these timber frames piles of palm leaves are drying before being hoisted up to make the roof of a new home. As children grow up and marry, and the next generation start their families, new homes are needed. Building a house involves harvesting timbers of all sizes and other raw materials from the forest. It can also involve calling in extra hands from neighbouring communities to help with a day of harvesting and dragging out materials from the forest. Workers are rewarded with food and home-brewed alcohol at the end of a long day.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Oil pipelines in Urarina territory
Researchers training community members to map and photograph oil spills using hand-held mobile phone and GPS devices. The Pastaza-Marañón Foreland Basin is one of the most active areas of oil exploration and extraction in the Amazon. It includes the North Peruvian pipeline which transports crude oil more than 1000 kilometres from the forest to processing points on the Peruvian coast. The pipeline crosses numerous indigenous territories and oil spills are not uncommon in this ageing and remote infrastructure. Communities are concerned about the impact of oil spills on health, wildlife and the environment. Evidence of the location, extent and effects of spills collected by the community will strengthen their requests to government and oil companies to clean up after spills.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Harvesting Mauritia palm fruit
A palm fruit harvester demonstrates the harness that enables safe climbing to the top of a 30-metre Mauritia flexuosa palm. Climbing palm trees without a harness is difficult and dangerous, so in many areas the trees are simply felled to harvest the fruits. Although local consumption of the fruit is generally low enough for this practice to be sustainable, increasing demand from outside markets is causing the palm trees to be cut down faster than replacements can grow. However, with training and basic equipment, palm fruit collectors can leave the trees standing to continue producing fruit for years to come.
Photo: Manolo Martín Brañas
Mauritia palm fruit
Fruits from the palm Mauritia flexuosa (aguaje fruit) are an unfamiliar sight in Europe, but they are increasingly valued on national and international markets for their high levels of beta carotene, phytoestrogens, and oleic acid. Mauritia is rarely planted but is widespread in naturally occurring palm swamps. The edible fruit are sold raw and peeled as snacks in town or made into ice cream, drinks, cakes and jam; some varieties are used to produce oil for soap-making and cosmetics. Aguaje fruit are also processed into food supplements and marketed internationally as a “super-food”. Although this non-timber forest product is helping to support community livelihoods, this is only possible if the harvesting is done by climbing the palms instead of cutting them down.
Photo: Dael Sassoon
Sacks of aguaje fruit stacked on a fallen tree
Ready for transport to local markets, these sacks of aguaje fruit are a common sight in many communities along the region’s rivers. At present, only a few communities harvest aguaje fruits by climbing the palm, so the practice of cutting the stems is still common. This puts the species at risk of over-exploitation. However, one international drinks company is beginning to work with a small number of communities to facilitate sustainable harvesting and certification on a commercial scale, providing a potential route both to sustainable development of rural livelihoods and long-term protection of the peatlands.
Photo: Lydia Cole
School bus
A covered wooden boat lies on the bank of a tributary of the Marañón river, waiting to take the children of Veinte de Enero to school in the next community. This type of boat may be powered by paddle or outboard motor, and the canopy provides protection from the strong sun out on the water. Dense forest vegetation, difficult wetland terrain, and seasonal flooding mean that boats are the most common form of transport in this region. There are only a few tens of kilometres of paved highway across the whole Pastaza-Marañón Basin, an area comparable in size to Scotland. Most communities live alongside rivers, and most families own at least a canoe.
Photo: Dael Sassoon
Indigenous life in the twenty-first century
A baby’s hammock decorated with gourds and seeds hangs in the living space of an indigenous family.
The Amazon is home to around 300 indigenous groups, including the Urarina, who number around 6,000 people. Urarina cultural identity is closely linked to the seasonally flooded forest ecosystem and the resources they gather from it. But modern materials find their place too; this hammock is made from a combination of synthetic and natural fibres and hung with seeds and gourds which are thought to confer protection on the child.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Harvesting Mauritia palm shoots
Indigenous Urarina women harvest the young shoots from Mauritia flexuosa palms growing in a peatland palm swamp close to their community. Harvesting is done in the driest season of the year which, even so, involves wading across a flooded forest floor. Palm fronds are cut from the growing point of the Mauritia palm using a machete, and from this raw material women spin fibres before weaving them into textiles. Palm-fibre textiles are synonymous with Urarina identity, and in particular women’s identity and role in the home and community. The textiles have cultural, social, and monetary value and are central to the transmission of knowledge between generations.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Mauritia palm fibre
This ball of thread has been spun from the fibre of young Mauritia palms. The knowledge and skills required to extract and spin the thread is passed down from mothers to daughters.
The fibres are first teased apart, then boiled in water to remove the green chlorophyll before being dried in the sun. The fibres are spun using both hands and feet to simultaneously tension and twist the strands into continuous lengths, to form an even thread.
Seven different plant species are used to produce and dye the fibre. This image shows the fibre in its natural colour.
Photo: Charlotte Wheeler
Extracting dye from peatland plants
An Urarina woman in the community of Nuevo Pandora explains to researchers how to produce dye. The leaf pulp produces one of the dyes used to colour aguaje palm fibre prior to weaving. Different plants are used to produce red, orange and black dyes. The Urarina women have a detailed understanding of which plants to use, how to process them, and how to obtain strong colours. This plant knowledge is a good example of the cultural heritage that connects the Urarina to the swamp ecosystem. The important place of peat swamp plants in the traditional practices and cultural identity of the Urarina is one of many arguments for the conservation and careful management of these special ecosystems.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Weaving palm fibre thread
This Urarina woman is weaving a textile known as ela or cachihuango from aguaje palm fibre using a backstrap loom. While other indigenous groups in the Amazon also use Mauritia fibres to make textiles, the loom and the combination of colours used are characteristic of the Urarina and reflect Urarina knowledge of and adaptation to living in the peatlands and flooded forests of their territory. Palm fibre textiles have strong symbolic value. In some communities, the fabric is used after death to wrap the body, keeping the soul warm on the journey to the spirit world.
Textiles are also bartered and sold beyond the communities where they are made. In 2019 the ela was awarded National Cultural Heritage status in recognition of its importance to the culture and identity of the Urarina. In contrast with the internationally recognised woollen textiles from the Andes, Urarina skills are only just being formally recognised within Peru.
Photo: Charlotte Wheeler
Forest resources make forest homes
Children at Nuevo Pandora play football in the foreground while their parents work on the framework for new houses behind. At the foot of these timber frames piles of palm leaves are drying before being hoisted up to make the roof of a new home. As children grow up and marry, and the next generation start their families, new homes are needed. Building a house involves harvesting timbers of all sizes and other raw materials from the forest. It can also involve calling in extra hands from neighbouring communities to help with a day of harvesting and dragging out materials from the forest. Workers are rewarded with food and home-brewed alcohol at the end of a long day.
Photo: Lydia Cole
Oil pipelines in Urarina territory
Researchers training community members to map and photograph oil spills using hand-held mobile phone and GPS devices. The Pastaza-Marañón Foreland Basin is one of the most active areas of oil exploration and extraction in the Amazon. It includes the North Peruvian pipeline which transports crude oil more than 1000 kilometres from the forest to processing points on the Peruvian coast. The pipeline crosses numerous indigenous territories and oil spills are not uncommon in this ageing and remote infrastructure. Communities are concerned about the impact of oil spills on health, wildlife and the environment. Evidence of the location, extent and effects of spills collected by the community will strengthen their requests to government and oil companies to clean up after spills.
Photo: Lydia Cole
