New map shows Brazil's soyabean expansion threat to community nut oil

A rise in soyabean growing and cattle ranching in northern Brazil is threatening the region's nut oil forests, and the women who have long survived by harvesting them, researchers say. A group of Brazilian academics last week released a map that charts the threats to forests of babaou, a palm tree that provides a sustainable livelihood to a traditional community of about 300,000 "coconut breakers".
The threat comes in a region plagued by growing deforestation and land-use conflict, the researchers said. The "Social Cartography of the Babaouais", as the project is called, is based on research and observations by the coconut breakers themselves, the academics said.
It seeks to raise awareness of the threats to a traditional industry as the government pushes ahead with plans to expand large-scale grain farming in the same region. Right now, the work of the women "is a model of sustainability" and a key means of preserving the region's threatened forests, Jurandir Santos de Novaes, a professor at Maranhao State University (UEMA), said at a news conference to unveil the map.
"We hope the map can be used to counter these new development plans in the area," she said. The coconut breakers, known as quebradeiras, make a living from gathering babaou nuts from trees growing across an 18.5 million hectare (46 million acre) area of four states in Brazil's north and north-eastern regions: Maranhao, Tocantins.
The women's traditional work involves gathering the nut pods that fall from the palm trees and working in groups to break them open with a traditional technique passed down through generations. Brazil plans to expand grain production in some of the same areas as part of a new agricultural push called Matopiba - an acronym drawn from the first two letters of the states of Maranhao, Tocantins, Piauo and Bahia. It's considered the last agriculture frontier in the world and represents 10 percent of Brazil's grain production, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
The researchers said that data from Embrapa, Brazil's agricultural research body, suggests plans for Matopiba don't take into account small farmers and gatherers. The academics' detailed map identifies existing soyabean crops in babaou forest regions, as well as huge baba?u areas that have been enclosed by electric fences to prevent the entrance of quebradeiras. The map also shows where nature preserves have been illegally occupied by farmers, as well as deforested areas inside Indian reservations. It also maps all the large commodity companies that operate in the region.