Summary

This study examines the impacts of the development of the principal extractive products of the Amazon and identifies the main factors affecting sustainable welfare benefits for extractive groups. These include tenure instability, policies favouring alternative land uses, aviamento, commercialization systems, commercial pressures resulting in resource depletion where the extraction method is destructive, and the boom-bust nature of export markets that inevitably lead to substitution by a synthetic or planted product. The future of extractivism depends on better remuneration for extractors, whether through the market or not, tenure and institutional reforms (i.e. extractive reserves), and successful diversification through integrated natural forest management. The cultivation of formerly wild plants in agroforestry systems should also be given high priority. Extractivism on its own, and under present market conditions, has major limitations as a response to deforestation pressures, but there are important strategic and humanitarian reasons for its support while longer term solutions are being developed.