In the Amazon, identifying a species by name is only the first layer. Traditional knowledge covers season, place, the part used, preparation and harvesting limits, and it requires consent before it is published.
A single mature acai palm in the floodplains of Para, northern Brazil, works as a vertical micro habitat that feeds and shelters at least 47 species of birds and bats, plus more than a hundred insect species.
Beneath the leaf litter of Pará, Brazil nut trees work as distribution centres for phosphorus and nitrogen, anchoring the mycorrhizal network that keeps neighbouring trees alive.
At least fifteen animal species in the Amazon rely on the fruit of the palm Astrocaryum aculeatum to get through the lean season. The same tucumã that sustains macaws, tapirs and agoutis defines the riverside breakfast of Para and now reaches Europe as a prized plant oil.
In white sand campinas and flooded igapós, where the soil offers almost no nitrogen, a group of Amazonian plants flipped the food pyramid and learned to capture animals in order to survive.
Brazilian researchers found that a giant fern growing along Amazonian creek banks absorbs arsenic and heavy metals, turning riverside vegetation into a living water filter.
A single flower can reach 40 centimetres across and open for only one or two nights a year. That fleeting cycle has turned lakes and creeks in Para into the stage for a community based ecotourism that spreads income and eases pressure on the forest.
The andiroba tree and the flooded varzea forest sustain an extractive economy that keeps the rainforest standing and yields a natural repellent oil.
Copaiba oil is tapped without felling the tree and feeds a global chain of natural cosmetics, sustaining the income of thousands of Amazonian families.
A single adult Ceiba pentandra sends more than a thousand liters of water from deep soil into the sky each day, feeding the flying rivers that carry rain across South America.
