Brazil nut hauling effort gets easier with zip lines and ‘Amazon Waze’

Every year, the arrival of the rainy season and the swelling of the Anauá River indicate it’s time for the Wai Wai Indigenous people to go upriver to collect Brazil nuts. They spend the next few weeks in campsites in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest, wandering through the nut groves and filling thousands of bags with the so-called hedgehogs, the woody fruit pods that hold the nuts. Brazil nuts, known locally as castanha, are popular worldwide, where they’re often marketed as Amazon nuts or Pará nuts. They’re the main source of income for around 60,000 Amazonian people living in Indigenous and riverine communities. In the Wai Wai territory, in Brazil’s Roraima state, the nuts are also a crucial part of the diet, blended with cassava flour to eat, or made into broth, juice or oil. However