Itaya amicorum

General threats to the habitat in which this species resides include: logging, cattle ranching, large-scale agriculture, coca (Erythroxylum coca) production, mining and industrial development. These threats have damaged huge tracts of land and recently are advancing on the relatively stable/intact ecoregions such as the Solimoes-Japurá moist forest (WWF 2001).

The conservation status of this species was assessed in the 1997 Red List of Threatened Plants as Rare, Endangered and Rare, respectively in Brazil, Colombia and Peru (Walter and Gillett 1998). It was assessed in the World List of Threatened Trees as Data Deficient (Bernal 1998). Subsequently is has been assessed in Colombia as Least Concern (Galeano and Bernal 2005). It is protected in Colombia as it is known from a remote locality in a national park (Bernal 1998). It is not listed on CITES and seeds from this species are not known to have been collected for ex situ conservation, although a cultivated specimen can be found at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Surveys in 2007 failed to find the palm in its type locality, near the Itaya River in Peru, and another visit to the region in 2009 showed that it remains a relatively difficult palm to observe. The few populations observed of this palm in Peru, were found in the highly threatened forests along the Iquitos–Nauta road, in the Department of Loreto. The Peruvian subpopulations are therefore considered to be vulnerable (F. Stauffer pers. comm. 2011). Although no specific plans exist to conserve this species, there are ongoing International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) projects in Non Timber Forest Products in the Amazon. A project entitled "Non-timber Production and Sustainable Development in the Amazon" is in place and has a budget of US$387,185 and the implementing agency is the University of Brasilia. The mission of ITTO is "to facilitate discussion, consultation and international cooperation on issues relating to the international trade and utilization of tropical timber and the sustainable management of its resource base" (Hwan 2002). Monitoring of the population is encouraged to better understand the status of this species in each subpopulation.