Building Sustainable Futures with Camu Camu: The Women of ASMUCOTAR
Food sovereignty is justice work. Creating routes for the sustainable use of land while also protecting it against exploitation, occupation, and extractivism, indigenous communities have long built practices of food sovereignty that restore their lands and their agency over them. In Colombia’s Amazon, a women’s group has been successfully building and leading a sustainable, profitable business by harvesting camu-camu, a wild fruit richer in vitamin C than most citrus fruits. In doing so, they have not only built a mechanism for their sustenance, but have also demonstrated how a non-timber forest resource can generate income in protected areas within their rainforests. Their method has endured powerfully as a conservation strategy.
Making a start
In Tarapacá, a village in Colombia, a group of women began their initiative toward the sustainable use of natural resources from the Amazon rainforest. They had a key goal: Sustaining their communities through a steady source of income without depleting the natural resources of the Amazon rainforest. They found the precise resource to help them do this in the fruits of the forest. Having grown up in the Amazon, these women carry ancient knowledge and treat the protection of their natural environment as much a priority as sustaining themselves. To them, reforesting an area after cutting it down to make way for their chagra, or traditional farming system, is fundamental.
A group of 30 women came together to set up Asmucotar in 1994, to set up a mutual support network for women who had no one to look after their children while they worked on the fields. They realized they were able to work well toward their goals, addressing challenges faced by their community without having to rely on the government. They began working by organizing raffle draws, making and selling empanadas and sancocho (stew) to raise funds for themselves and the community at large. With time, they made enough money to afford a plot of land, on which they set up an educational institute with the support of the local government.
For these women, the camu-camu fruit, also called the minuake or guanano or guyabo, is a wild fruit that is integral to their traditional diet. However, the fruit is considered exotic in other parts of Colombia. The acidic fruit contains more vitamin C than most citrus fruits, attesting to the biodiversity of the region. It grows along the riverbanks and lakeshores, as well as on the plains that are flooded by whitewater rivers called várzeas. The fruit can only be harvested once a year, originally in December-February, but more recently, because of climate change, only in March-April.
In 2011, Asmucotar gained its first license from Corpoamazonia to carry out its activities. They were able to harvest up to 75% of camu-camu fruits on 21 hectares of land near Lakes Pechibot, Juro de Brasil, and Santa Clara.
Sustaining whole communities
Activities like livestock farming have long been a challenge to the Amazonian forests, which has made the community consciously decide not to expand the activity beyond the current spread of land it occupies. They treat this segment as a nature reserve and focus on protecting the rainforest.
In 2009, the Amazonian Scientific Research Institute (SINCHI) offered to support Asmucotar in their endeavour, which led to the creation of a management plan for Corpoamazonía, the environmental authority in charge of the Colombian Amazon, and its subsequent implementation. As camu-camu is non-timber, there was no need to eliminate the individual plants, as it happens with timber products. Corpoamazonía agreed, and issued a new resolution to regulate the sustainable use of non-timber resources. This allowed local communities to apply for permission to use these resources sustainably.
With this, local communities were able to sustain themselves, tackle poverty, and conserve their environmental resources. At every turn, their agency was foundational and no one but they themselves made any decisions concerning their use of the resources. Their regulations also helped prevent large scale deforestation in the region.
Looking ahead
Now armed with its second license, Asmucotar continues to work in collaboration with SINCHI and consistently monitors the plant species. They secure all the resources needed to buy the equipment necessary to process the fruit. The initiative also employs indigenous people, who handle the full value chain, starting from harvesting, preparing, and processing the fruit.
Driven by the goal of sustaining themselves misroute depleting their natural resources, the women remain the stewards of their communities and their natural environment. A major lesson from their endeavour reminds us that communities have agency over their ancestral lands and that plurinationalities can sustain themselves in prolific ways. Another major lesson for feminist foreign policy is that resources can be used sustainably without depleting their natural capacity to regenerate.
References
Lizcano, M. F. (2023). Amazon women create sweet business success with wild, vitamin-C packed fruit. https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/amazon-women-create-sweet-business-success-with-wild-vitamin-c-packed-fruit/
Blare, T., & Donovan, J. (2018). Building value chains for indigenous fruits: lessons from camu-camu in Peru. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, 33(1), 6-18.
Montufar, E. S. (n.d.). Recognizing the Contributions of Colombia's Indigenous Women. https://biodiversitylinks.org/stories/recent-stories/colombias-indigenous-women
