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The regeneration of Brazil nut trees depends on tree-fall gaps in the forest. However, shifting cultivation fallows also create comparable biotic and abiotic opportunities for the dispersion and establishment of this gap-loving species. At the same time, the ability of Brazil nut trees to resprout enables fallow individuals to survive successive slash-and-burn cycles. Recognizing the importance of shifting cultivation for the food security of forest dwellers, we investigated whether the high level of Brazil nut regeneration found in cultivation fallows could be explained by the resprouting capability of Brazil nut trees, the number of cultivation cycles, past agricultural use and distance to the nearest conspecific productive adults. We found that the Brazil nut tree population density increased from 8.86treesha−1 to 13.69treesha−1 and 27.09treesha−1 at sites after one, two and three or more shifting cultivation cycles, respectively. As a consequence of resprouting, after a certain number of shifting cultivation cycles, the fallows become dominated by Brazil nut trees, and the landholders may decide to preserve them and to exclude enriched sites from future agricultural use. Protected for their extractive value, the secondary forests spontaneously enriched with Brazil nut trees are allowed to develop into nut-producing forests that have reduced chances of conversion into crops or pastures, thus reversing the classical process of Amazon forest degradation.

Brazil has been and continues to be one of the global leaders in biofuel production. Half of Brazil’s sugar-cane feedstock production goes towards ethanol production. This paper focuses on the evolving diplomatic relations between Brazil and various African countries to promote the development of biofuels technology as an alternative and renewable source of energy. A cursory search on the Internet for 'Brazil Africa biofuels' provides an immense amount of information on the biofuel-related activities taking place across the Atlantic. Brazil’s foreign relations with Africa have been getting stronger, especially since Brazilian Labor Party President Lula da Silva came into power in 2003 In addition to the biofuels market, Brazil has also been active in organizing capacity building workshops about biofuels amongst African regional political organizations at the highest level. Africa leaders think that the South-South partnership such as the one Brazil is pursuing in Africa is a way of maximizing African interests. Like China, Brazil is being used by African governments to counter the traditional colonial and neo-colonial economic domination by Europe of its key infrastructures. The diversification of development partners is something that is desirable. However, African policy makers must be prepared to cope with unintended consequences of the rush to embrace a new technology. To minimize those adverse side effects, biofuels strategies should incorporate adequate environmental and societal impact assessments including protection of farmers from being removed from their land and the protection of ecosystems from loss of biodiversity in the face of putting land into biofuels production.