Abaetetuba (Brazil) (AFP) – Working in the sweltering heat of the Brazilian Amazon, Jose Diogo scales a tree and harvests a cluster of black berries: acai, the trendy “superfood” reshaping the world’s biggest rainforest. Acai has unleashed an economic boom for traditional farmers in the Amazon region, and been lauded as a way to bring “green development” to the rainforest without destroying it. But experts say it is also threatening the Amazon’s biodiversity, as single-crop fields of acai palms become increasingly common.
