Iratapuru et la noix du Brésil : une expérience de durabilité en Amazonie brésilienne

The reservation for sustainable development of the Iratapuru river is exploited by the community of the São Francisco village. Due to its efforts to organize itself and to improve the life conditions of its member, but also due to a massive state and federal support, this village has become a symbol of the efforts made towards “traditional communities” of the Amazon. Its exemplarity has become greater after 2004, when an innovative form of partnership has been established with a great cosmetic firm, Natura Inc.. But the new relationship between those partners raises a number of question, about its consequences from a geographical point of view or about the legitimacy of each of the institution managing the reservation. This article offers a synthesis of those questions. First, we present the geographical context and the principal activity of São Francisco, the gathering and selling of the Brazil nut. We then show how the partnership with Natura comes after a long list of attempts to develop the local economy. Lastly, we underpin some questions that remain despite the image of a reasoned exploitation of natural resources, such as the limits of the role of Natura towards the COMARU cooperative, its economic partner, and towards the community, whose image is a part of Natura’s marketing