FROM DECLARED ORIGIN TO TERRITORIAL VERIFICATION: RELATIONAL TRACING AND GOVERNANCE IN AN ARTISANAL PEQUI (Caryocar spp.) OIL SUPPLY CHAIN IN BRAZIL

Artisanal non-timber forest product chains often reach urban markets without documentary records, limiting verification of provenance, producer participation, and product trajectories. This study examines how fragmented commercial information can support the exploratory reconstruction of supply relationships in an artisanal pequi (Caryocar spp.) oil chain and identify opportunities for greater transparency. Documentary review, official statistical and institutional databases, direct observation, and relational tracing were combined across 89 sales points in four public markets and the Teresina Wholesale Supply Center in Piauí, northeastern Brazil. Twenty-nine sales points reported selling pequi oil. Seventeen provided territorial references or interstate commercial-route information, including 12 references to localities within Piauí and five references to external territories or interstate routes. Five identified suppliers or redistribution channels without a production location, and seven provided neither a declared origin nor a traceable supply connection. Institutional mediation enabled territorial access to Boa Hora, while independent confirmation of a specific producer-supplier relationship verified one productive linkage to the urban commercial circuit. All other reported origins remained unverified commercial claims. Provenance information was unevenly distributed among vendors, intermediaries, institutions, and producing territories. Intermediation supported market access and redistribution but concentrated information at particular nodes, reducing downstream producer visibility while supplying leads for territorial verification. The study proposes declared origin as an evidentiary category between missing provenance and documentary traceability and relational tracing as a potentially transferable exploratory method for under-documented forest-product chains. Governance should preserve minimum product and provenance information across transactions without shifting disproportionate compliance burdens to women extractivists and other small-scale producers.