With decline in higher valued timbers, overexploited in managed areas, lesser species begin to be utilized, due to recognition that many species have desirable mechanical properties. This has broadened the value base of the timber resource and reduced the area necessary for management for a given revenue target. Spatial analysis (Merry et al., 2009; Guidece et al., 2012) has revealed the potential for substantially superior timber revenues to be generated from managed areas in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon.

# **2.3  Non-Timber Forest Products, Game, and Fish**

Considerable research and investment has been dedicated to the potential and limitations to development of value chains based on non-timber forest products (NTFP) (Peres, 2000; Anderson, 2002; Clay & Clement, 1998; Arnold & Ruiz-Perez , 2001; Belcher et al., 2005; Belcher & Ruiz-Perez, 2007, Muñiz-Miret et al., 1996; Nunes et al., 2012).

The panacea of NTFP as a “savior” of the Amazon forest, widely disseminated in the 1980s (e.g. Peters et al., 1989), has been widely called into question, due principally to the localized concentrations of such products, and their correlation with poverty and forest dependence (Southgate, 1998). Wunder (1990) carried out the most complete analytical review of NTFP production concentration in the Brazilian Amazon, based on national vegetal extractive statistics (IBGE, various years). A survey by May (2002), undertaken at the request of the FAO, included a review of information available on NTFP production, sustainability and profitability, in the Amazon, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest biomes of Brazil.

Recent work by scholars associated with Britaldo Soares-Filho in the Brazilian and Peruvian Amazon have identified areas in which the spatial concentration of Brazil nut resources could serve as a basis for local development, generating state and private revenues from value-added processing (Nunes et al., 2012). <mark>This study developed and used a spatially-explicit rent model of Brazil nut production to assess yields and potential rents from the Brazil nut concessions in Madre de Dios, Peru, under three scenarios of processing and management (unshelled, shelled, shelled-certified nuts). The authors estimated potential annual production in the region to be 14.1±2.4 thousand tonnes of unshelled nuts, which at 2008 regional sale prices corresponds to rents of between US$ 3.1±0.5 ha</mark><sup>-1</sup> <mark>year</mark><sup>-1</sup> <mark>for unshelled nuts to US$ 8.4±1.4 ha</mark><sup>-1</sup> <mark>year</mark><sup>-1</sup> <mark>for shelledcertified nuts. I</mark> nvestments needed to scale-up certified production in all Madre de Dios concessions <mark>and approximately triple rents are in the order of US$ 14−17 ha</mark><sup>-1</sup> <mark>.</mark> The study also concluded that the Brazil nut industry in Madre de Dios presents a unique opportunity to harness conservation with sustainable development. If upgraded to certifiedshelled production, the rents associated with Brazil nut collection combined with ecotourism and sustainable logging will compete with or trump rents of traditional agriculture in Madre de Dios (Table 1). Even so, the success of this industry depends on investments needed to expand processing, lower production costs, stabilize a market floor price, and command a price premium 12 | P a g e