Astrocaryum huaimi

There are no known direct threats to this species. However, habitat loss is known to be taking place across parts of its range and is likely to be causing declines, though this has not been quantified. Based on satellite imagery from 2000 (European Commission Joint Research Centre 2003) approximately 30% of vegetation within the extent of occurrence had been disturbed by human activities, predominantly intensive agriculture. Between 2001 and 2018, a further 13% of tree cover within the extent of occurrence is estimated to have been lost (Global Forest Watch 2020). Much of this species' range falls within the Cerrado ecoregion, considered to be a biodiversity hotspot with only 20% of its original vegetation remaining (Myers et al. 2000), with the expansion of commercial agriculture being the primary driver of habitat loss (Beuchle et al. 2015). This region is also poorly covered by the protected area network with only around 6% of natural vegetation under formal protection (Françoso et al. 2015). Within the Brazilian part of this species' range, there are numerous active and potential mining concessions which are highly likely to contribute to further significant habitat loss (Global Forest Watch 2020). Habitat loss has been less pronounced in Bolivia and the Amazonian parts of this species range. However, the Chiquitano Dry Forests ecoregion in Bolivia has been experiencing increasing rates of deforestation over the last few decades. Fire is also a major and growing threat to this region, with approximately 1.4 million hectares of forest lost since July 2019 (Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza 2019, Romero–Muñoz et al. 2019). These fires are being driven by the expansion of commercial cattle ranching and soybean agriculture and with current legislation in Bolivia designed to encourage agricultural expansion, this trend is likely to continue (Romero-Muñoz et al. 2019).

This species has been recorded from several protected areas (IUCN and UNEP-WCMC 2020) and there is also an ex situ collection (BGCI 2020).