- Recently praised by environmentalists, governments and companies as a solution for rainforest conservation, bioeconomy has been practiced for centuries by Amazon’s traditional communities.
- Despite their key role in generating income from the standing forest, these communities continue to reap the smallest share of the profits, according to a new book.
- Traditional people need more financing, better access to energy and improved roads to get their products into the market.
The concept of bioeconomy is increasingly present in international forums like the United Nations climate summits (COP) and G20 meetings. However, despite its recent incorporation by environmentalists, governments and companies, the idea of generating wealth while preserving nature is not new for Amazon communities.
“Our communities have lived in, managed and preserved the forest for millennia, using biodiversity, water and the land to guarantee their livelihoods with autonomy and abundance,” a group of 25 traditional communities stated in a letter published Nov. 14.
The document responded to a statement by Pará’s state governor, Helder Barbalho, in Baku, Azerbaijan, during COP29. In his speech, he said carbon projects would help Indigenous people “to feed themselves, to dream and to have quality of life, without having to propose as a solution for their communities illegal mining and mineral extraction.”
Amazon traditional communities are experts in making their living from small plots by collecting forest fruits and cultivating small gardens. Despite doing the job’s harder part, studies show that these families earn the smallest share of the profits.
In the case of Brazil nuts, for example, 79% of the profits go to the processing industry and only 11% remain with the forest communities. Regarding cocoa, rural producers and agro-extractives in Brazil get up to 6% of the money, while processing companies based in Europe get 24% of the profits. Large international chocolate producers, like Mars Inc. and Nestlé, own more than 70% of the profits.
The same logic applies to açaí, one of the Amazon’s most praised products. In February 2024, 1 liter (2 pints) of the pure fruit was sold for at most 8.26 reais ($1.34) in the Amazon states. In other countries, however, the same amount is sold for around 200 reais ($32.50), even after being mixed with different products.
“You go to a train station in Europe, and 300 milliliters [10 ounces] of açaí are sold for $15,” said Jacques Marcovitch, a professor at São Paulo University’s School of Economics. “This is not the case with soy and cattle, whose exporters benefit from the appreciation of the dollar and have an extraordinary income,” he said.
Marcovitch is one of the organizers of the book Bioeconomy for Whom? (available for free download here), which gathers 12 studies on the challenges of Amazon products’ supply chains. Written by 32 Brazilian scholars, the publication was launched in June 2024 in the Pará state capital, Belém.
Besides the abyss in profit distribution, the authors discuss other bioeconomy issues, such as the clashes between the market’s demands and the forest’s production pace. “The market wants a predictable supply over 12 months. But the forest doesn’t guarantee predictability; it can offer more or less depending on the climate and soil conditions,” Marcovitch said.
For Adalberto Luis Val, who has also organized the book, forest products cannot be mistaken for agricultural commodities. “In a super-biodiverse situation like the Amazon, we can’t think of products occurring on a large scale,” said Val, who is a researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research. “When you have very high biodiversity, species’ occurrence is minimal. There aren’t enough of them to supply world markets.”
While authorities and executives hail the bioeconomy as a magic solution for the environmental emergency, people working on the ground face structural problems, like poor access to energy and dire conditions of roads, which sometimes make it impossible to distribute their products.
For those constantly harassed by large ranchers and land-grabbers, remaining on the land is already a big challenge.
“There are many settlers who have had to sell their plots because of the difficulties,” said Raimunda Rodrigues, an agricultural worker from the sustainable development project Brasília (PDS Brasília) in the municipality of Altamira, in the Brazilian state of Pará.
Better known as Mariana, she created a women’s association in the land reform settlement, which is largely occupied by illegal cattle ranchers. In a 2.5-hectare (6.2-acre) plot, she grows fruits like cacao, piquiá and acerola, as well as a cassava plantation, and she sells the products at the local market. Her goal is to stimulate other women to do the same, but the group is still struggling to buy a refrigerator and a fruit-pulping machine.
“It’s easier to get money from the bank to buy cattle than for a project to work with standing forest,” she told Mongabay, during a visit to PDS Brasília in November 2024. “How do you do a bioeconomy this way?” she asked.
According to Val, organizing communities in cooperatives and producing information about these supply chains are crucial to empowering forest people. “We need to produce the necessary information so that we can have a thriving forest conservation system, but with social inclusion and income generation.”
Banner image: Despite the increasing demand for Amazon products, traditional communities working on the ground still receive the smallest share of the profits. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
A standing Amazon Rainforest could create an $8 billion bioeconomy: Study
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