PLANET4B grey literature Trade & GVCs case study Brazil & EU 20251015 v2 data

Supporting Sociobioeconomies of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers in the amazon Policy brief science Panel for the amazon Key messages (i) Amazon socio-bioeconomies are economies based around the sustainable use and restoration of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers to support the wellbeing, knowledge, rights, and territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), as well as all Amazonian residents and the global community. (ii) Socio-bioeconomies include a combination of activities that maintain productive and conserved multifunctional landscapes and cultural diversity, while promoting economic and social added value to the Amazon’s biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, including: the provision of numerous ecosystem services through the conservation and restoration of forest and aquatic ecosystems and the diversified production and processing of native plants (i.e., fruits, nuts, medicines), fish, and others. (iii) The numerous families and communities responsible for safeguarding ecosystem services and producing valuable biodiversity products are often those who benefit the least from the existing Amazonian economies. Strengthening and developing Amazonian socio-bioeconomies can provide a sustainable and just alternative to existing economic models and power structures. (iv) A focus on developing Amazonian socio-bioeconomies involves actively changing narratives about how the most value and wellbeing can be generated within the region. Instead of focusing on forgone profits from not pursuing deforestation or developing unsustainable river infrastructure for resources, energy, and navigation, we Rachael Garrett* • Joice Ferreira* • Ricardo Abramovay • Joyce Brandão • Eduardo Brondizio • Ana Euler • Daniel Pinedo • Roberto Porro • Emiliano Cabrera Rocha • Oscar Sampaio • Marianne Schmink • Bolier Torres • Mariana Varese *co-lead authors encourage policy makers to consider the foregone inclusive development opportunities from not investing in sociobieconomies. (v) A coherent and collaborative mix of policy interventions is urgently needed to support socio-bioeconomies. These include stopping activities that degrade the region’s forests and rivers,protecting IPLCs’ rights, establishing a participatory socio-bioeconomy design process, developing mechanisms to stimulate financing and demand for bioeconomy solutions and developing the enabling conditions and logistics to increase the supply of bioeconomy products. recommendations (i) Stop activities that threaten IPLCs, as well as sociobioeconomies, and establish safeguards against the misuse of the bioeconomy concept. (ii) Establish an inclusive and participatory socio-bioeconomy planning and collaborative implementation processes that builds on IPLC knowledge and institutions. (iii) Increase demand, finance, and marketing pathways for ecosystem services and high value, low impact products. (iv) Enhance connections between actors at many regions and scales to support knowledge sharing and value creation. (v) Put enabling conditions into place: logistics, land and resource rights, co-production of knowledge, governance, and enforcement capacities, following the Nagoya Protocol and Convention on Biological Diversity principles and respecting the rights of IPLCs. What are Socio-bioeconomieS of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers? Socio-bioeconomies are economies based around the sustainable use and restoration of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers to support the well-being, knowledge, rights, and territories of Indigenous people and local communities (IPLCs), Amazonian residents, and the global community 1 (See Figure 2). It places justice, especially for Indigenous women and youth, and diversity (including sociocultural diversity), as core values. It combats poverty and inequality, and aims to reduce structural inequities in value capture, power, and representation. Among Indigenous populations, ethicalnormative values underlying the sociobioeconomy are captured in the concept of Buen Vivir (good living) that highlights the intrinsic relationships between nature and people in local ecosystems, and the need to safeguard biological, cultural and social diversity 2,3. These value-based approaches are recognized in the constitutions of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru. Communityand family-based livelihoods based on use of diverse forest products and fisheries, as well as an array of traditional agroforestry systems (TAFS) are the oldest production systems in the Amazon and embody many dimensions of the socio-bieoconomy definition. These systems generate high value with low or even beneficial environmental impact, take advantage of the unique genetic resources of the region, and are pursued by some of the most marginalized communities in the Amazon 4,5 . They have shown strong growth and resilience over recent decades, despite receiving relatively little policy support, credit financing, and technical assistance 6–8 . For instance, Ecuadorian Kichwa peoples have included market-oriented products in their TAFS (called “Amazonian Chakra” a ) over the past 40 years, e.g., cocoa (Theobroma cacao L.), guayusa (Ilex guayusa Loes.), vanilla (Vanilla spp.), and rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) 9. These bioeconomies are already linked with Amazonian cities, and peri-urban areas and show great promise for further expansion, adaptation, and added-value. Yet, to avoid the conflation of sustainability with specific products, a socio-bioeconomy view emphasizes that equitable value generation from highly diverse agroecosystems or native ecosystems is needed 10 . a As recognized in the FAO list of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), the Amazonian chakra can be defined as “a sustainable land-use model in which productive spaces located within the farm are managed by families under an organic and biodiverse approach, valuing ancestral knowledge”. FIGurE 1: Sociobioeconomies based on sustainable use, cultural diversity, and economic and social value added to biodiversity in the Amazon region. Illustration: Dedê Paiva | www.dedepaiva.com.br local PersPectives, global resPect The bioeconomy concept is far from simple or unanimous. In fact, some people and local organizations even have reservations about using the term at all. It is common to use additional qualifications to make sure principles like equity and diversity are encompassed, such as sociobioeconomy, sociobiodiversity bioeconomy, inclusive bioeconomy, restorative bioeconomy, bioecological bioeconomy, or simply new bioeconomy. There are already plenty of successful local initiatives that only need more support to scale up and to produce broader impacts in the region. These local voices must be heard and respected and should be pivotal in any plan for the development of the bioeconomy in the Amazon region. FIGurE 2: Examples of activities that fit well with the bioeconomy concept. why are new bioeconomy visions needed? A half century of deforestation, degradation, commodification, and exploitation of ecosystem goods and services in the Amazon has not brought widespread development and now threatens the economic value of already deforested and degraded areas 11. While crop production and exports associated with deforestation have contributed to macroeconomic improvements in Amazonian countries at times 12, value through forest clearing activities has been captured mainly by international actors and domestic elites 13. Former and recent policies for the Amazon have not focused sufficiently on improving the wellbeing of communities living there, especially concerning how to achieve a structural economic transition away from low value extractive activities to high value production, manufacturing, and services. Despite converting large amounts of natural capital into food, energy, and material exports over the FIGurE 3: facts and figures about socio-bioeconomy threats and opportunities in the amazon. Sources: a Smits, J, and I. Permanyer. ‘The Subnational Human Development Database’. Scientific Data 6, no. 190038 (2019). b. Costa, F. ‘A Economia Dos Sistemas Agroflorestais Na Amazônia: uma Trajetória Crítica Para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável’. Made/ uSP., 2022. c. Nobre, C.A. New Economy for the Brazilian Amazon. São Paulo: WrI Brasil; 2023. Available from: www.wribrasil. d. MAPBIOMAS. ‘MapBiomas Amazon Collection 4.0’, 2023. e. Coslovsky, S. ‘Oportunidades Para Exportação de Produtos Compatíveis Com a Floresta Na Amazônia Brasileira’. Amazônia 2030, 2021. f Nobre, C. et al. ‘Amazon Assessment report 2021’. New York: united Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2021. g . Ding, H. et al. ‘Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land rights in the Amazon’. WrI, 2016. h Leal, C.G. Amazon Water Impact Index (AWII). Ambiental Media, 2021. last thirty years, Human Development Index (HDI) in Amazonian countries remains well below the HDI of the region’s largest trading partners 14 and has come at the expense of degrading the regional natural wealth (Figure 3). There has been a lack of investment in education, innovation, and sustainable infrastructure to add value to goods produced from the region 15 or equitably reinvest profits into health and educational systems. It is time to recognize that Amazonian countries inherited a flawed externaland internal-colonial vision that development comes from converting socio-biodiversity wealth into deforestation-causing homogeneous commodities in a global market. To generate inclusive development, a greater focus on distributed economic opportunities, improved connections with urban centers, and synergies between multiple sectors of the economy (environment, industry, health, and education) is needed. Socio-bioeconomies can bring benefits for rural and urban communities in public health and food security domains, including the availability of healthy and nutritious foods such as fish, fruits and nuts. Eliminating forest and river degradation activities can reduce harmful mercury contamination and the transmission of vectorborne diseases like malaria, chikungunya and zika, while supporting bioeconomy products like quinine (as an antimalarial) and latex (for condoms) to alleviate public health problems. Likewise, eliminating deforestation and degradation can help maintain a local climate envelope and other ecosystems services that supports agricultural yields on existing areas. To envision a new economic paradigm overcoming existing narratives around flawed economic accounting or conservation planning approaches that characterize avoided deforestation, resource extraction and commodification at a cost is needed. There is a harmful focus on the foregone profits from cropland or pastures as a downside of conservation activities. Problematically, there has been little attention to quantifying the opportunity costs of a lack of investment in activities that could generate high value from the healthy standing forests and flowing rivers. As an example, the value chains of 30 bioeconomy products were found to generate uSD 1.4 billion in income and employ 224,600 workers in the Amazon in 2019 16. It is estimated that Brazil alone could generate 8.2 billion (uSD) per year by 2050 relative to existing economic activities by investing in sociobioeconomies 17. This contrasts with the relatively low returns of existing food and mineral commodities 18. Like most economic growth accounting, the estimates of value generated by these commodities do not account for the social costs associated with their production, including a loss of water and air quality, food and health security, and other ecosystem services that cost society >8K per hectare (in 2023 uSD), including lost revenue in existing agricultural areas 11,19. hoW to achieve Socio-bioeconomieS of healthy standing forests and flowing rivers? 1. Stop activities that threaten ipLcs and socio-bioeconomies and establish safeguards against the misuse of the bioeconomy concept. It is necessary to avoid further threats to IPLCs and socio-bioeconomies by strengthening forest and river degradation control efforts. Such improvements should include, among others b: turning undesignated forest landsc and other areas into protected and sustainable use areas; stricter protections (and associated enforcement) against forest degradation, water pollution, and waterway alterations; expanding, improving, and integrating systems to monitor deforestation-risk supply chains; strengthening community-level ecosystem monitoring systems; canceling and blocking efforts to register private lands in Indigenous or protected areas; taking into account the impacts of infrastructure on deforestation, forest degradation, and river connectivity; the creation of a central intelligence hub for all deforestation and degradation control activities; and experimenting with various market-based policy tools like a forest reserve trading program and payments for environmental services. It is essential that dialogues about sociobioeconomies are treated with scrutiny (Figure S1). Sociobioeconomies have the potential for both over-exploitation and misinterpretation. Monocultures and single aquaculture species should not be substituted for diversity under the guise of “bio” production 20 and investments and control of socio-bioeconomies must not go to a narrow set of multinational companies or domestic elites. Focus should be placed on b Many of these suggestions are present in the fifth phase of Brazil’s Plan for the Control and Prevention of Deforestation. c Public forestlands not allocated by the federal or state governments to a specific tenure status. d Their official statement noted (as translated) “We propose our best: the experience of our historical societies and cultures, built on our traditional and ancestral knowledge, in addition to our deep knowledge of nature. The socio-bioeconomy that we defend is based on science and technology to improve the production of forestry and fishery products, enabling us to process, store, and market socio-biodiverse products while respecting our ways of life”. e Examples include red de JóvenesIndígenas for all of Latin America and the Caribbean and the various Amazonian-specific networks within it, including the rede de Juventude Indígena (the Indigenous Youth Network in Brazil, which focuses on social media campaigns), Movimento Mebengokre Nyre (Kayapó youth movement) in Brazil, and the La red Ñuqanchik Maronijei Noshaninka in Peru. addressing power asymmetries and maximizing the diversity of social organization forms (e.g., cooperatives, family agriculture, Indigenous associations) that participate in sociobioeconomies 21. Another risk of efforts to enhance sociobioeconomies is that they may inadvertently draw attention away from non-forest biomes (including the Cerrado savanna, the Chaco region, and the Chiquitano dry forests). For these reasons, efforts to launch sociobioeconomies of healthy ecosystems should be launched simultaneously across the world, but in particular in potential spillover zones across the Amazon biome 22. 2. establish inclusive and collaborative socio-bioeconomy planning processes Participatory processes are needed to gather input, understand values and weigh tradeoffs in the creation of land and water use, community, and economic development plans. The creation of crossscalar and inter-community networks to help identify and magnify bottom-up experiences with sociobioeconomies will require a sustained effort, resulting in a cross-country political effort. Amazonian IPLCs must be active participants in this effort, especially given their historical marginalization. Statements made by IPLC representatives who gathered in Pará, Brazil in 2021 in a counter-event to the World Bioeconomy Forum already indicated that the standing forest bioeconomy better aligns with theirwishes than current economic approaches d. Building on the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization and the more recent 2019 Leticia Pact, the creation and improvement of Pan-Amazonian institutions could greatly enhance the effectiveness of developing the bioeconomy. A Pan-Amazonian [economic] union could enhance marketing opportunities. Amazon-wide policy initiatives could enable policy coherence and reduce negative spillovers across countries. Greater emphasis must be channeled to cross-learning from research and development, sharing data intelligence, monitoring, and policy that support socio-bioeconomies 23. Within countries, allocations of national research budgets should improve the geographic distribution of educational and innovation research institutes to enhance the capacity of Amazon-based organizations (rather than historical centers of wealth and power)24. These could build on the structures of the InterAmerican Network of Academies of Sciences (IANAS) and the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). Efforts should also be made to include and harness the tremendous potential of younger generations. Given their engagement with social and visual media, youth could be important leaders and amplifiers of media campaigns. Bioeconomy planning processes should thus engage with IPLCS, with Indigenous youth networks, as well as nonindigenous movements e. 3. increase finance for socio-bioeconomy to push and pull innovations 3.a) Redirect harmful subsidies redirecting finance from activities that actively harm the existing socio-bioeconomy through deforestation and degradation to sustainable agroforestry, sustainable management of timber and nontimber forest products, sustainable aquaculture and community-led nature tourism is important. The potential for communitybased ecotourism, for example, is immense in the region and can be integrated within the category of sustainable-use reserves and spread knowledge, concern, and financing to conserve socio-biodiversity 1 . 3.b) Research and development finance and financial terms International and domestic finance is needed to support socio-bioeconomies (e.g., the Green Climate Fund’s new Amazon Bioeconomy Fund, Brazil’s Amazon Fund). This funding can be directed to conservation for ecosystem services (e.g., via carbon and biodiversity markets) or to research and innovations for socio-bioeconomy production and processing. The foci of this research must be defined in collaboration with Amazonian populations and regional research institutions ensuring that they benefit from research. The development of state or Amazon-level portfolios for investable bioeconomy activities would be useful for connecting small-scale projects to distant climate and development fund investors. There is a need to improve and adapt existing financing mechanisms by allowing: i) small or community-based enterprises to obtain loans without formalized tenure arrangements and ii) a longer-time horizon for repayment than traditional agricultural finance to accommodate the long-term nature of socio-bioeconomy investments. Future research funding and themes include: i) improving the quality and shelf-life of bioeconomy products; ii) identifying thresholds and practices for sustainable harvesting, including logging/ timber and numerous non-timber forest products; iii) documenting and testing governance arrangements supporting just use and marketing of socio-bioeconomy products; iv) understanding market bottlenecksand logistical constraints; v) understanding socio-ecological feedbacks, including changes in underresearched ecosystem services like soil health and pollination, as well as impacts of climate change; and vi) identifying financial mechanisms and policies that can successfully support innovations. 3.c) Sustainable Infrastructure, marketing and value chain finance The development of socio-bioeconomies requires sustainable infrastructures that can improve the welfare of Amazonian populations and enhance Amazonians’ access to information, energy, and capacities to market and add value locally to Amazonian products. Infrastructure needs include transportation, electricity, storage and cold-storage facilities, food processing, digital connectivity and information technology to address challenges of perishability, seasonality, and low species abundance without losing the decentralized and equitable nature of bioeconomy collection 25. Electrification is crucial to help Amazonians reduce their dependence on diesel oil, as well as for micro-industrialization of products to add value and improve shelf-life, cold transport chains, and lighting. The gaps in food processing infrastructure are illustrated by the example of the Brazil nut (Bertholletia excelsa). The Brazil nut is a high value global commodity, that is mostly harvested from healthy natural (rather than planted) forests. Bolivia, Brazil and Peru are the largest exporters. Yet, in many regions of Brazil, the product is exported with almost no processing due to, among other reasons, challenges with meeting international sanitary standards 26. In contrast, Bolivia and Peru made advances towards solving these bottlenecks. Greater exchange and technology sharing would benefit Brazil substantially, and cooperation could increase the global availability of Brazil nuts. Additional investment is needed in marketing bioeconomy products. To reach new markets it is necessary to further develop bioeconomy product brands and labels and coordinate national and international tax incentives and trading policies. Access to the internet and literacy about fair prices and direct marketing opportunities will allow greater buying and selling power. Media campaigns are also needed to show the benefits of the bioeconomy and related products in the Amazon basin. Infrastructure and marketing arrangements must be planned and implemented with the active participation of the local populations that will benefit from it, not just external consumers. The private sector and international development banks could be used as a source of financing, but only with strong safeguards for co-creation and rights protections for Amazonian communities. 4. enhance connections between actors and sectors at many scales urban-rural linkages provide key investment opportunities for both urban and rural agroecological and production activities 27. Developing various value-added and service activities around the bioeconomy in Amazonian urban areas through tax breaks and targeted finance can help diversify and increase the number of jobs in socio-bioeconomies 10. Public purchase programs and price guarantee policies could create a stable and circular market for forest products. The school lunch program in Brazil (Programa de Aquisição de Alimentos) purchases agroforestry and small-scale aquaculture products from family producers to support food provision in schools. The pre-natal subsidy in Bolivia (Subsidio Universal Prenatal por la Vida) for pregnant women has increased the national market and consumption of Brazil nut and other products derived from agroforestry systems in the Amazon (e.g., cocoa). Another example is the latex scheme in Acre, Brazil, which helped create a stable market for rubber tappers and reduce sexually-transmitted disease through condom manufacturing. 5. put enabling conditions into place 5.a) Strengthen IPLCs’ land rights There are 2.2 million Indigenous peoples in the Amazon accounting for 4.6% of the population on 27% of the area 28,29. There are also numerous local communities, including Afro-descendent communities and forest and river dependent communities of mixed descent. These communities’ livelihoods and cultural survival depend on healthy standing forests and flowing rivers. Protected areas, including those under Indigenous management, have fared significantly better than other governance approaches to reducing deforestation in the Amazon 30. Yet >50% of Indigenous lands are facing threats from cropland and pasture expansion, incursions for large-scale fisheries and infrastructure, land invasions, fossil fuels and mining prospecting and extraction 31 . Strengthening Indigenous land rights means enacting laws, or enforcing existing ones, that provide official recognition to the rights they have over their territories and improve communities’ abilities to monitor and deter deforestation and forest and aquatic degradation f. 5.b) Support cooperatives and small enterprises, especially for women and youths Cooperatives and community enterprises play a decisive role in promoting socio-bioeconomy products (e.g., cocoa agroforestry cooperatives in Colombia and CAMTA in Pará, Brazil). The lessons learned from positive examples, should be analyzed and discussed with other Amazonian communities to identify potential models for successful cooperative production, processing and management. A challenge faced by community enterprises is their low access to training in management and business. In parallel to research innovations, investment must forecast mechanisms by which small enterprise and cooperative businesses can be incubated for technological improvement and stable market access 32 . Women play a disproportionate role in the collection and sale of socio-bioeconomy products. Engaging them in collective organization and social movements can improve their material outcomes, as well as their visibility, environmental and political awareness 33. Examples include women’s participation in arapaima fishery management in Amazonas, Brazil 34 and in babassu-palm in Maranhão, Brazil for cosmetics value chains 35,36, as well as indigenous communities in Bolivia. Greater financial support and capacity-building is needed to support cooperatives and community enterprises, especially women’s collective micro-enterprises. conclusion Policy interventions coherent across instruments (in tackling multiple needs) and collaborative across the Amazon is needed to support sociobioeconomies. Policy interventions should include developing incentives to stop activities that degrade forests and rivers in the Amazon and increase activities that protect them for the benefit of IPLCs and Amazonian communities. These policy processes and investments should be participatory and inclusive, developing mechanisms to stimulate financing and demand for socio-bioeconomy solutions as well as conditions and logistics to increase the supply of socio-bioeconomy products and services. Doing so, policymakers in the Amazon and beyond can take meaningful and urgently needed steps to promote the conservation and recovery of biodiversity, reduce the risk of tipping points, and enhance the provisioning of ecosystem services that are vital for a flourishing sociobioeconomy in the Amazon. acKnowledgments The authors are grateful to the following people for comments and suggestions on this policy brief: Alfredo Homma, Christopher Jarrett, Daniel Larrea-Alcázar, Erika Berenguer, Federico Ernesto Viscarra, Fernanda Sánchez, Frederico Brandão, Guilherme Oliveira, Jacques Marcovitch, Javier Ortiz, Judson Valentin, Maria r. Murmis, Mauricio Verkooijen, Philip Fearnside, rafael Feltran-Barbieri, Sergio Margulis, Sven Wunder, Sebastian Heilpern. SPA Steering Committee: Carlos Nobre, Marielos PeñaClaros, Adalberto Val, Fernando roca, Susan Trumbore, Luciana Villanova, and Jonas Nelson. Copyediting: Eliran Oz. Translation: Federico Ernesto Viscarra and Isabella Leite Lucas. f Efforts like bill PL490 being put forth in the Brazilian Congress (known as the “Marco Temporal”) to invalidate Indigenous land claims not established at the time of the 1988 Constitution are a huge step in the wrong direction.