When Vilma Zegarra was eight years old, she accompanied her parents on long treks into the Amazonian rainforest here to gather Brazil nuts. “The men had to haul out huge sacks of nuts, so my job was to carry the machetes,” she recalls. Now, at age 40, she harvests her own Brazil nuts in the Tambopata Reserve in the southeastern department of Madre de Dios. Every January, she and her family make the long river trip to reap the rainforest’s bounty during the four-month nut gathering season. Tambopata’s 678,774 acres (274,690 has) were set aside to help protect the immense biological diversity of the jungle in Peru’s southeastern Madre de Dios department. Because of the Brazil nut harvesters the area was designated a reserve... [Log in to read more]