The Amazon forest is a global environmental asset, but it is also part of a region with major development needs. Transforming the prevailing business models to ensure compatibility with biodiversity, forest preservation, and communities’ development is crucial. Bioeconomy can open a unique opportunity to do so. This chapter gives a snapshot of the development challenges of the Amazon region in Brazil, it discusses the importance of placing sustainability at the centre of Amazon’s development strategy, and it identifies three priorities for policy reforms, international partnerships and investment to unlock the bioeconomy potential in the Amazon.
Production Transformation Policy Review
Spotlight on Bioeconomy for Sustainable Development in the Amazon Region (Brazil)
Abstract
Covering about 6.7 million km² and spanning nine countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela), the Amazon forest is the largest tropical forest and river basin on the planet. The Amazon is home to extensive social and biological diversity. At least 1.5 million indigenous people speak over 300 languages and hold traditional knowledge on the use of forest resources, including the use of more than 1 000 plant species for productive uses in multiple areas, from agriculture to pharmaceuticals (ACTO, 2024[1]; FAO, 2011[2]). The Amazon is home to up to 5 000 species of animals and more than 50 000 species of plants, accounting for 10% of all global biodiversity (Science Panel for the Amazon, 2021[3]).
The Amazon is at a crossroads. Its forests, rivers and ecosystems are vital for world sustainable development, making it a global environmental asset in a territory marked by inequality, informality, and economic pressures that drive deforestation and limit community participation in benefit sharing.
For Brazil, achieving sustainable development in the Amazon could be a game changer for social cohesion, for economic competitiveness and also for unleashing new forms of partnerships within the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. Brazil is home to almost 60% of the Amazon rainforest (FAO, 2022[4]). This represents more than 20% of the global tropical forest area and 39% of Brazil’s land area [authors’ elaboration based on MapBiomas (2024[5]) and FAO (2022[4])]. The Amazon region in Brazil is home to roughly 22 million people, including more than 300 Indigenous groups, and is the site of both extraordinary natural wealth and deep socioeconomic disparities [authors’ elaboration based on IBGE (2022[6]) and FAO and UNEP (2020[7])]. Harnessing the biodiversity and socio-economic potential of the Amazon through bioeconomy offers an opportunity to reconcile conservation and environmental preservation with inclusive and sustainable economic development centred on innovation, science and traditional knowledge.
This chapter discusses the development challenges of the Amazon region in Brazil, clarifies why sustainability should be at the core of economic development strategies in the Amazon, and identifies three main priorities for policy reforms, partnerships and investment.
The term “Amazon region” in Brazil identifies a functional region that spans across nine states (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins) and 503 municipalities within the Amazon biome (Box 2.1). In 2024, about 80% of the region’s land area was covered by the native Amazon rainforest, with the State of Amazonas having the largest coverage of native forests in its territory (93% of its land area). The rainforest in the Amazon region co-exists with urban areas, including two of the 12 largest cities in Brazil, Manaus, with 2.1 million people, and Belém, with 1.3 million (IBGE, 2022[6]). In addition, about 53% of the territories of the states of Maranhão, Mato Grosso and Tocantins belong to the Cerrado biome, a tropical savanna covered by grasslands and sparsely forest areas, while 6% of the state of Mato Grosso is part of the Pantanal biome, whose vegetation resembles that of the Cerrado, but is adapted to seasonal flooding. Nevertheless, these areas are not considered here as part of the Amazon region, unless otherwise specified.
Overall, the Amazon region in Brazil accounts for 7.5% of the Brazilian GDP, 60% concentrated in only two states: Pará and Amazonas (IBGE, 2024[8]). In 2021, the region’s GDP per capita was roughly USD 5 700, about 30% lower than Brazil’s average and with significant variations across states. Mato Grosso had the largest GDP per capita among the Amazon states at USD 12 150 in 2021, more than two times larger than that of Pará and Acre and nearly four times that of Maranhão, which ranked the lowest in the region (IBGE, 2024[8]). Observing inequality dynamics is particularly relevant in a region that, as of 2021, had a population of about 22 million people (10% of Brazil’s total population) (IBGE, 2022[6]).
This report uses the following expressions:
Amazon region in Brazil: it covers the Amazon biome and consists of the subset of municipalities across nine states in Brazil (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins), where the Amazon rainforest is the dominant biome as a share of the municipality total land area, as defined by Brazil’s National Statistics Office (IBGE).
Legal Amazon: a functional region, legally defined, that covers the whole territory of nine states in Brazil (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins), whose territories are partially or entirely within the Amazon region.
Amazon: refers to the Amazon rainforest land area in its totality.
Amazon countries: refers to the nine countries holding a share of the Amazon (Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela).
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on IBGE (2024[9]).
The Amazon faces several development challenges (Figure 2.1). In the Amazon region in Brazil only 27.9% of the population has access to sanitation or water, a population coverage that is three times lower than the country average. According to estimates by the Brazilian National Statistics Office more than 50% of the workers in 2023 were engaged in informal economic activities (versus 39.14% for the entire country) and received less than half minimum wage (compared to 30% for the national average) [authors’ elaboration based on Brazilian Ministry of Social Development data (2024[10]) and IBGE (2024[11])].1 Access to electricity is also a challenge in the Amazon region in Brazil, especially beyond the main cities; 14% of the population in 2020 was not connected to the Brazilian national electricity system, preventing them from accessing clean and cheap electricity. Often, people in remote and sparsely populated areas in the rainforest rely on small-scale diesel thermal power plants, making electricity expensive and carbon intense. Digitalisation also lags behind with internet access covering only 80% of the Amazon region’s population in 2023, compared to a national average of 92%.
The Amazon region in Brazil has also struggled to diversify its production and export basket, limiting development opportunities. Services and public administration account for 54% of the regional value added, followed by mining and manufacturing, accounting for 32%, and agriculture (mostly crops) for 14% in 2021 [(Authors’ elaboration based on (IBGE, 2023[12])]. Manufacturing, albeit present, takes place mostly in the Manaus Free Trade Zone (FTZ) (Box 2.2). Overall, the region is export-oriented, with exports routinely surpassing imports. However, exports tend to be driven mostly by primary and extractive activities with low value-added, notably due to a long-standing tradition in mining and metals extraction and agriculture (Figure 2.2). The People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) has become the main destination of exports from the Amazon region, accounting for 43% of the total value in the period 2020-2024, followed by the European Union (with 14%); Canada, Malaysia and Japan (with 4% each), and the United States (with 3%).
Access to water, sanitation, electricity and internet in Brazil and in the Amazon region, latest year available
Note: Access to electricity refers to access to the integrated national electricity system. Data refer to the Legal Amazon in the absence of statistics at the municipality level.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on IBGE (2024[11]).
Composition of exports by product in the Amazon region in Brazil (% export value), 2020-24
Note: Categories using the Harmonised System for classification of products at the 2-digit level. “Pearls and precious or semi-precious stones” refers to the Harmonised System’s category “natural or cultured pearls, precious or semi-precious stones, others” while “wood and articles of wood” refers to the category “wood and articles of wood; wood charcoal”.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on UN Comtrade data (2025[13]) and MDIC COMEX Stat (2025[14]).
Established in the 1960s as a special economic zone, the Manaus Free Trade Zone (FTZ) offers tax incentives from both local and federal governments to manufacturing firms, especially (but not exclusively) in assembly industries, to produce goods, such as cell phones, computers, motorcycles, and other electronics. Its main goal is to create jobs and foster the local development and regional integration of the Amazon region in Brazil. The FTZ offers tax incentives including exemptions from import and export duties, as well as other taxes on industrial production, with benefits contingent on meeting minimum production requirements within the FTZ and not limited to export-oriented activities.
These incentives have attracted multinational firms, which import components from other Brazilian states and from abroad to both export and to sell to the domestic market. Overall, there is evidence that this movement has already contributed to the creation of employment and value added in the city of Manaus. From 1970 to 2010, the GDP per capita in the State of Amazonas (whose capital is Manaus) increased sevenfold, compared to less than a twofold increase in São Paulo, helping to narrow regional disparities. However, the FTZ consistently reports a trade deficit, which raises concerns about its long-term sustainability. In 2024, export flows were mostly channelled to Argentina (26% of the total), the United States (21%), Colombia (13%) and Peru (11%).
Initiatives to diversify activities at the FTZ by increasing its production interlinkages with local value chains and biodiversity are already in place. The Amazon Bio-business Centre (CBA) at the FTZ, for example, was created in 2002 as an initiative of Brazil’s Ministry of Development, Industry and Trade to develop innovative bio-products based on the local biodiversity. It has laboratories that offer technical services, such as physical-chemical and microbiological analyses, efficacy tests, and toxicological safety assessments. Additional fiscal incentives for R&D in bioeconomy and for sustainable production practices are also available, including the approval of the “Fund for Sustainable Development of the States of the Western Amazon and Amapá” in 2025 – to diversify economic activities in the region – and of specific R&D national fiscal incentives for bioeconomy research in the region, in 2023.
Exports to Amazon countries tend to be more diversified towards bioeconomy-related goods, compared to exports to other trading partners (Figure 2.3). Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela accounted for only 3.5% of the total exports from the Amazon region in Brazil from 2020 to 2024, increasing somewhat from 2% during 2015-19. The top 5 products exported from the Brazilian Amazon region to these partners include corn (16%) and soya-bean oil (14%), which are also popular with other destinations, as well as food preparations (29%). The latest includes those made with flour and a category grouped as “other food preparations”, which tend to include products like foods and beverages derived from açaí and guarana (and others), associated with local bioeconomy products, and that are registered in this group in the absence of other export codes. By contrast, exports to other partners are dominated by mining (“ores, slag and ash”, 50%) and “oil seeds, grains and seeds”, associated with the production of soybean-related goods (16%).
Top 5 products exported from the Amazon region in Brazil (% total export value), 2020-24
Note: Amazon countries are Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, French Guiana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Categories using the Harmonized System for classification of products at the 4-digit level, including the following codes: 0202, 1005, 1201, 1507, 2106, 2601. Within the category “other food preparations”, one can find foods and beverages as well as food supplements based on typical bioeconomy goods from the Amazon, registered in cases where there is no specific code to register the export. “Oil seeds, grains and seeds” refers to the Harmonised System’s category “oil seeds and oleaginous fruits; grains, seeds, others”.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on MDIC COMEX State (2024[21]).
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the Amazon region in Brazil has become more diversified in recent years, with an increase in the share of investments oriented towards sustainable activities. Greenfield FDI to the region accounted for about 5% of the total in Brazil from January 2020 to July 2025, a level similar to that of Peru (4%) and higher than Colombia and Ecuador (around 1% each). Most investments are undertaken by firms from the United States (27% of the total), France (17%) and Sweden (16%) (Figure 2.4). In this period, Greenfield FDI to the Amazon region went mostly to renewable energy projects (52% of the total, including solar and wind energy), wood products (16%, for biomass production) and metals (15%). This represents a shift from the pattern observed from 2003 to 2008, the earliest period with available data, when 64% of foreign investments were associated to metals, especially iron and steel (35%), aluminium, gold and silver (20%) and copper and nickel (7%) (Figure 2.5). A similar sectoral shift can also be observed in the other Amazon countries. Brazil accounted for 85% of all greenfield FDI that went into the Amazon, with the other countries accounting for the rest (15% of the total). In this period, 65% of the investments to the Amazon region in these countries went to renewable energy and 30% to metals, while from 2003 to 2008, 93% of the investments went to coal, oil and gas and 7% to metals.
Announced greenfield FDI projects in the respective Amazon regions of Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador by origin country, and sectors (% total, January 2020-July 2025)
Note: This figure refers only to the Amazon region in the respective countries. The figures represent the share of the total announced greenfield projects in the period. In Brazil, the data refer to the Legal Amazon in the absence of statistics at the municipality level. Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on Financial Times (2025[22]).
Announced greenfield FDI projects in the Amazon region in Brazil by sector (% total number)
Note: Data refer to the Legal Amazon in the absence of statistics at the municipality level.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on Financial Times (2025[22]).
To foster sustainable development in the Amazon region in Brazil, it is essential to address the root causes of local development challenges. To ensure sustainable development, it will be important to update the prevailing economic model and ensure that the region diversifies its economic specialisation, which remains anchored on low-value-added activities, mostly in agro-related production and mining. It is equally important to identify new ways of doing business that can add value in a way that is compatible with environmental preservation, social inclusion and cohesion, benefiting from the variety of resources in the Amazon. In this context, the bioeconomy approach, as described in Chapter 1 of this report, could help unlock the development potential of this region, with benefits for Brazil, the whole Amazon and the global economy.
A key issue for the Amazon region in Brazil would be transforming agriculture to increase the value-added of bioeconomy goods and ensure the sustainability and inclusion of local communities. Brazil is the second largest exporter of agricultural goods and producer of biotech crops in the world (ITC, 2024[23]). The Amazon region in Brazil represents almost 15% of Brazil’s agricultural production value, which stood at USD 145 billion in 2024 (IBGE, 2025[24]). In 2024, bioeconomy-related goods – such as açai, cocoa, cassava and coffee – made up the largest share of agricultural production in more than 75% of the municipalities in the Amazon region (IBGE, 2025[24]). Nevertheless, the region specialises in monoculture with around 60% of its total agricultural production coming from three crops (soybeans, corn and cotton), of which soybeans account for around 40% (Figure 2.6). Transforming these crops into sustainable activities, raising their productivity to avoid land expansion and increasing the relative value of bioeconomy agriculture products are crucial to unlock sustainable development in the Amazon region in Brazil. This will require blending scientific and traditional knowledge (for a discussion on the role of innovation and science for bioeconomy in the Amazon region in Brazil, please refer to Chapter 3 of this report).
Agricultural production value by product in the Amazon region in Brazil (% total, 2024)
Source: IBGE Municipal Agriculture Production Survey (2025[24]).
The bioeconomy approach to agriculture fosters diversification into new products and ensures that this diversification happens in alignment with environmental preservation, social inclusion and productivity. Açaí, cassava, cocoa and coffee, for example, which have proven potential to transform the economy towards bioeconomy, account for about 27% of total agriculture production (Figure 2.6). Indeed, the production of these so-called sustainable non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which allow for the exploitation of forest resources by small-scale farmers and local communities in a way that is compatible with the forest conservation, has increased in the Amazon region in Brazil (Figure 2.7). While it is hard to measure the dynamics in this market, recent estimates suggest that açaí, cocoa, and Brazil nuts amount to a USD 2 billion market value (Nobre et al., 2023[25]). The rise of NTFPs can be explained by the growing global demand for nutraceuticals, which led to an increase in the açaí production value of 150% from 2015 to 2022, reaching more than USD 1 billion market value in 2022 (IBGE, 2024[26]). This, however, has also led to an increase in the land area devoted to açaí production by more than 600% in the Amazon, mostly in the State of Pará (Embrapa, 2023[27]), raising concerns that it could be turning into a future monoculture.
NTFPs production value in the Amazon region in Brazil, index, 2014-2022, base year 2014 = 100
Note: The figure estimates the cumulative changes over time in the production value, based on the production increase for each year. Production value for Açaí is available only from 2015 to 2022.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on IBGE Municipal Agriculture Production Survey (2025[24]).
Brazil is also actively engaged in ensuring forest restoration to recover degraded areas in the Amazon region, as part of its efforts to foster sustainability. The bioeconomy paradigm helps to look at forest restoration as a knowledge-intensive activity, which could open business opportunities. The Brazilian Federal National Plan for Native Vegetation Recovery (Government of Brazil, 2025[28]) has a target of recovering 12 million hectares by 2030, and 40% of this area is in the Amazon (Instituto Escolhas, 2023[29]). Contrary to a view in which deforestation creates economic value in a vicious cycle, recovering and conserving forest areas break these dynamics by enabling profitable opportunities in activities linked to ecosystem services, including R&D for seed varieties, agronomy, ecologically related services and seedling nursery. The Brazilian Amazon region has around 36 million hectares of degraded areas that could be restored (Lapola et al., 2023[30]). If this whole area is restored, carbon credits alone could yield substantial revenues to be channelled to the region. For example, carbon prices – still quite volatile – fluctuated between USD 58 and 75 during 2024, which would amount to between USD 6 and 9 billion per year in carbon credits [authors’ estimation considering the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) price in 2024 and Global Forest Watch (2024[31])].
Restoration programmes would need to go hand-in-hand with existing initiatives to tackle deforestation and improve land use in the Amazon region in Brazil, as outlined in the national Action Plan for Deforestation Prevention and Control (PPCDAm), first launched in 2004 and updated in 2023 (Government of Brazil, 2023[32]). Despite the challenges in ensuring enforcement in this respect, there has been tangible progress (OECD, 2015[33]): deforestation in Brazil reduced by 39% in the period 2004-2013 and 54% in the period 2014-2023 in comparison with the period 1994-2003 [authors’ elaboration based on (INPE, 2025[34])]. During this period, as part of the PPCDAm, Brazil has implemented initiatives in the Amazon and other biomes to foster productive bioeconomy activities, to monitor and control deforestation, to improve land and territorial planning and to provide economic incentives and funding for environmental protection. One example is the implementation of new systems to monitor deforestation, such as the DETER (Real-Time Deforestation Detection System), created in 2004 and managed by the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) (Government of Brazil, 2021[35]). This public satellite-based system provides real-time evidence alerts of deforestation in the Amazon, enabling a rapid emergency response. In addition, land use regularisation has also played a pivotal role in Brazil’s conservation and bioeconomy programmes. The country established a new Forest Code in 2012, updating a legal framework originally introduced in the 1930s (Brazil’s first forest code, Law 23 793, approved in 1934) and subsequently improved over time (Embrapa, 2012[36]; Government of Brazil, 1934[37]). The 2012 code introduced new rules to protect native vegetation and strengthen rural land-use regulation by setting minimum conservation requirements for rural properties, coupled with economic and non-economic instruments to support compliance (including environmental regularisation programmes, a national registry system for rural properties and credit and tax benefits).
Unlocking the bioeconomy potential in the Amazon region in Brazil requires updating policy frameworks, fostering targeted and tailored public support and undertaking effective international collaboration and scaled-up financing. The private sector, local communities and all levels of government have a role to play and should act in a co-ordinated way. To ensure that sustainability is at the core of business development in the Amazon region in Brazil, the following three priority areas for reform appear crucial.
Closing sustainable infrastructure gaps
A key priority is closing infrastructure gaps to foster sustainable development. Transport infrastructure in the Amazon region in Brazil is limited by the geographical characteristics of the territory and by historical investments linked to national energy security or to transport infrastructure corridors that prioritised commodities exports on a large scale (Schaeffer et al., 2023[38]). Most of the Amazon region’s railways, for example, connect mining production areas to ports (as in the case of the 892 kilometres Carajás railway), operating as fast-track corridors for commodity exports and, in the past, lacked any planning to connect and enable local development. Diversification towards sustainability activities will require updates in infrastructure tailored to the new, community-led business ventures that can be developed under a bioeconomy approach. In the State of Pará, for example, indigenous communities report high freight costs with intermittent availability; in the States of Amazonas and Amapá, most agricultural producers face continuous electricity shortages or lack any connectivity to electricity grids (WWF Brazil and FGVces, 2021[39]). Limited connectivity is also a major challenge in the Amazon and reduces the productivity of sustainable production activities. For example, forest conservation units in the state of Pará face high production costs with workers walking up to 10 kilometres within the preserved forest to collect nuts (Clement et al., 2024[40]).
Innovative multi-model logistics solutions, connecting river transport with other modes efficiently, are needed to overcome structural isolation both within Amazonian cities and with the rest of Brazil and neighbouring countries. The Amazonian territory is known for its dense forests, immense size and pronounced rainfall and river flood seasons, which prevent transportation access or increase logistic costs. The city of Manaus in the State of Amazonas (home to the FTZ), for example, is 1 935 km away from the capital Brasilia and is connected to the rest of the country mostly by planes and boats. In practice, an 889 km road (BR 319), inaugurated in 1976, already connects Manaus to the city of Porto Velho (capital of the State of Rondônia, also in the Amazon region in Brazil) and then to the rest of the country, but the environmental and mobility challenges to maintaining this road within the forest has caused a rapid deterioration of its conditions and pavement. A trip from Manaus to Porto Velho via the BR 319 takes on average 30 hours and can take up to four days during rainy seasons (versus 12 hours in the 1970s) (Government of Brazil, 2021[41]). Updating this road has been part of government plans, while concerns with deforestation and the expansion of the agricultural frontier have been carefully considered by public environmental agencies. Alternatively, river transportation has been an important logistic solution, especially in more remote areas, generally those that produce bioeconomy-related goods. In the state of Amazonas, the municipality of Codajás, located 240 km away from the capital Manaus, is responsible for roughly 1% of the Açaí production of the Amazon region in Brazil and is accessed through the Solimões river only, a 1 700 km river originating in Peru and ending in the city of Manaus (IBGE, 2017[42]; Government of Amazonas, 2025[43]). Nevertheless, it is important to note that only 12% of the 380 000 km of rivers in the Amazon region in Brazil are navigable and even the navigable ones often have their capacity impacted by dry or rainy seasons (Sekerinska et al., 2025[44]). Further transport planning and investment are thus needed to build a new sustainable multi-modal transport system (including river transport and ports, existing roads and railways, and airports) to improve connectivity for bioeconomy production areas while reducing costs and accommodating varying climate and navigation conditions.
Improving digital connectivity is also critical for the development of new economic activities, particularly in areas beyond the large urban centres or hubs of extractive production. For example, only 3% of the municipalities in the Amazon region in Brazil have mobile download speed above the national average (Figure 2.8). Nevertheless, digital connectivity in the Amazon is better than the national average in the capital cities and their surrounding municipalities as well as in intermediary cities already established as agricultural production hubs. These cities include the municipality of Santarém (known for its export-oriented port) and Castanhal (an economic hub for agriculture), both in the state of Pará, and other cities across the region, known for the production of cattle, mining and soy.
Average mobile internet download speed by municipality (Amazon region in Brazil denoted by purple borders)
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on Ookla (2024[45]), Speedtest by Ookla Global Fixed and Mobile Network Performance Map Tiles, https://github.com/teamookla/ookla-open-data?tab=readme-ov-file
Scaling up efforts to better connect the infrastructure agenda with a sustainable local development plan will be important. The Brazilian Growth Acceleration Plan (PAC) (Casa Civil, 2024[46]) aims to address this gap and includes initiatives to improve social and economic infrastructure in the Amazon region in sectors such as education, health, water and sanitation, logistics and energy. Nevertheless, investments in competitiveness-related infrastructure for production, such as energy, telecommunications and logistics, which could potentially support bioeconomy value chains, make up only 7% of the total projects of the PAC (or 22% of the USD 410 billion invested), with social infrastructure accounting for the lion’s share.
Cross-border co-operation will be crucial to ensure sustainable infrastructure upgrades. Cross-border co-operation with other Amazon countries is needed, as in the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), launched in 2000 by the South American Infrastructure and Planning Council, formed by ministries of planning and infrastructure from 12 countries in South America.The initiative has a dedicated infrastructure programme for Amazon countries with at least 20 implemented projects, such as a bridge over the Madeira River in the Amazon to better connect Brazil and Peru. Another initiative in this respect is the “Alliance for Sustainable Resilient and Integrated Transport in the Amazon”, launched in November 2025 during COP30 in Belém by all Amazon countries, with the support of the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) (World Bank, 2025[47]). The Alliance will develop a Regional Action Plan with a roadmap to promote multi-modal connectivity and improve transport efficiency in the Amazon. In addition, co-operation to improve infrastructure and governance to combat deforestation is also in place. In 2019, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Suriname signed the Leticia Pact for a co-ordinated action for the preservation of natural resources of the Amazon, including information sharing, strengthening monitoring systems to track forest cover, fires and biodiversity, and actions for integrated management of protected areas (OECD et al., 2022[48]).
Mobilising adequate financing
Fostering bioeconomy for sustainable development in the Amazon requires financing that matches the level of ambition of this transition. Brazil received, from 2015 to 2023, 27% of the total monetary flows of biodiversity-related finance among the Amazon countries, a share lower than Colombia but higher than the other countries (Box 2.3). More resources need to be leveraged for bioeconomy-related sectors and channelled through different means depending on the objectives.
Securing adequate impact-oriented funding. This includes early-stage investments or activities with large environmental and social benefits with limited profitability. The Amazon Fund, launched in 2008 and managed by the National Development Bank of Brazil (BNDES), is a welcome initiative to fund sustainable production, land management initiatives, deforestation monitoring and control programmes and science and innovation investments with impact on deforestation reduction (BNDES, 2025[49]). This fund disburses non-reimbursable resources to private and public actors and can receive investments and donations from national and international partners. It is managed by a Steering Committee (COFA) established by law. The committee has a tripartite governance structure with representatives from ten agencies of the Brazilian federal government, state representatives of the nine states of the Amazon region and six representatives of civil society, including indigenous communities. The committee establishes the guidelines for the use of financial resources, monitors project implementation and ensures co-ordination with other Amazon projects.
It is important to note that the Committee fosters projects that go beyond conservation and reforestation, promoting the sustainable use of Amazon resources and ensuring that innovation in bioeconomy in the Amazon is aligned with environmental sustainability goals. The fund provides non-reimbursable support to projects fostering community-based innovation and facilitates matching funds coming from other actors, including the private sector. So far, the Amazon Fund has attracted about USD 862 million in donations, already committing USD 850 million for investment projects covering more than 60% of the forest conservation units (i.e. conservation areas) and roughly 30% of the indigenous lands in the Amazon region (BNDES, 2025[50]). In going forward and to increase impact, it would be important to diversify the use of this mechanism (or create similar ones) for a wider range of bioeconomy activities, through the facilitation of reimbursable matching funds and the use of grants for de-risking medium and long-term investment.
A new initiative to diversify impact-oriented funding mechanisms for the Amazon is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), launched by the government of Brazil during COP30 in November 2025 in Belém (Tropical Forest Forever Facility, 2025[51]; COP30 Brazil, 2025[52]). This innovative mechanism financially rewards countries that maintain conserved and recovered areas of tropical forests, supporting their national policies and programmes with continuous monetary payments. These payments are reduced in case of deforestation or degradation. Unlike previous instruments, such as the Amazon Fund, the TFFF thus does not rely on project-based grants and does not compensate for reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation. The TFFF is also innovative as it is a blended finance mechanism (not donation-based), relying on a specific fund to leverage USD 25 billion of initial sponsor capital (from governments and others), complemented by up to USD 100 billion in senior debt issuance (fixed-income bonds). This capital will be managed by international asset managers (to be selected), with returns allocated first to cover the senior debt services, then to pay the interest on sponsor capital and, finally, to finance results-based forest payments to participating tropical forest countries.
Biodiversity-related development finance directed to Amazon countries reached USD 2 billion per year on average over 2015-2023, peaking in 2022, when total flows reached nearly USD 5.4 billion (Figure 2.9), the same year as the adoption of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) in December 2022.
Note: The figure shows the full value of all flows reported to the OECD. For details on what is covered under each category and for a breakdown of figures by provider type, see OECD (2026[53]).
Source: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics from OECD (2026[53]), Biodiversity and Development Finance 2015-2023: Contributing to Target 19 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d26526ad-en, and the DAC Creditor Reporting System (database) and on mobilised private finance, https://data-explorer.oecd.org/, complemented by the Total Official Support for Sustainable Development (TOSSD) database, https://www.tossd.org.
Over this period, the composition of financing sources evolved. DAC (Development Assistance Committee) members have traditionally been the largest source of development finance but its share has decreased over time (with roughly 77% in 2015; 60% in 2022; and 37% in 2023), yet multilateral institutions account for an increasingly large share of total biodiversity-related support (from 22.3% in 2015 to 57.4% in 2023). In 2022, private finance mobilisation through development finance amounted, exceptionally, to over USD 1.2 billion (or 20% of the total, due to a debt-for-nature swap activity in Ecuador), but overall (together with private philanthropy) did not yet constitute a major and consistent source of development finance for the Amazon basin countries.
A total of 25 DAC members provided biodiversity-related development finance to at least one Amazon basin country over 2015-2023. The four largest DAC providers were France (38.8%), Germany (27.7%), Norway (10.3%), and the United States (6.6%).
The distribution of funding among the recipient countries is uneven. Colombia received the largest share of total biodiversity-related development finance, with 38.6% of the total share (over USD 7.5 billion), followed by Brazil (27%), Ecuador (16.8%), Bolivia (8.3%), Peru (7.8%), Guyana (0.8%), Suriname (0.5%) and Venezuela (0.2%). When focusing exclusively on DAC members’ contributions, the pattern remains similar: Colombia received 46.7% of the total (nearly USD 4 billion), followed by Brazil (23%), Peru (11.2%), Bolivia (10.1%), Ecuador (7.5%), Guyana (1.1%), Suriname (0.4%) and Venezuela (0.1%). These allocations contrast with the countries’ geographical shares of the Amazon basin, more than half of which lies within Brazil.
Funding has also been concentrated in a limited number of sectors. The six most prominent are general environment protection (39.3%, over USD 7 billion), water supply and sanitation (14.2%), financial systems (11.8%), other multisector activities (10.4%), forestry (5.5%), and agriculture (5%). In terms of financial instruments, standard loans and grants dominate, representing 53.8% and 30.6% of total flows, respectively. However, the type of instrument was not reported for roughly 8% of the total amount.
Source: Authors’ estimates based on OECD-DAC statistics (OECD, 2026[53]).
Fostering financing for the expansion phase. The Amazon region in Brazil lacks the capital to foster business development of innovative projects in the bioeconomy during expansion phases. Of total Brazilian venture capital invested in agriculture and biotechnology between 2021 and 2023 (which amounts to 0.5% of world venture capital in the field), 58% was in São Paulo; while the Amazon region accounts for 8% of the total [authors’ elaboration based on (Crunchbase, 2024[54])].2 To increase venture capital in the Amazon or for Amazon-related projects, both the public and private sectors are needed to implement innovative solutions that overcome existing financial market constraints in LAC. Recent venture capital dynamics in LAC have slowed down with USD 5.4 billion in deals in 2023 versus USD 25.1 billion in 2021 (OECD et al., 2024[55]). Multilateral development banks are stepping in to foster venture capital development in the Amazon region in Brazil, as for example the “Amazônia Regenerate Accelerator and Investment Fund”, launched in 2024 and managed by the Brazilian asset manager KPTL, with support from the IADB. This USD 11 million venture capital fund invests in start-ups that are active in the Amazonian bioeconomy. This type of initiative can be expanded through targeted domestic programmes relying on the experience of the BNDES with equity funds, such as the seed capital fund Criatec launched in 2007, and of the Brazilian Innovation Agency (Finep), in financing innovative projects.
Securing long-term financing for restoration projects. Fostering bioeconomy through knowledge-intensive services requires targeted financing arrangements. This also holds true for forest restoration initiatives that can become a springboard for the development of more sophisticated services and products. Forest restoration projects often have an execution and impact time scale of more than 20 years, making them highly risky for private investment (World Bank, 2019[56]; World Bank, 2019[57]). National development banks can play a pivotal role and, in Brazil, BNDES already launched, in 2024, the “Restoration Arc”, a programme using concessional loans and grants to fund up to USD 40 billion in investments to restore, by 2050, 24 million hectares of degraded areas.
Securing a minimum income for sustainable agriculture. Smaller agricultural holdings (with less than 10 hectares) make up about 32% of total farms in the Amazon region in Brazil, a lower share compared to the national average (50%), and to states in the country’s Northeast region (66%), where agricultural practices linked to family farming are widespread. The participation of smaller agricultural holdings in terms of land area is even lower: about 1% of the total in the Amazon, vs 2% in Brazil. This pattern is linked to the type of production patterns across geographies and challenges related to land registry and property rights regularisation in the Amazon. As a result, the distribution of such smaller agricultural holdings varies by states in the Amazon: in Mato Grosso, for instance, that hosts part of the Cerrado biome, where large scale commercial agriculture is common, only 15% of holdings have less than 10 hectares while in Amazonas, fully covered by the Amazon biome, this number is 52% and, in Maranhão, this number is 54% (Figure 2.10). To advance, it is important to increase the registration and regularisation of smaller properties, mobilise adequate financing and targeted technical assistance to smallholders and to make these conditional to the implementation of sustainable production practices to foster diversification in the Amazon. Local banks need to develop capacities to work with smallholders in the Amazon also by partnering with development banks.
In this respect, an interesting mechanism was introduced by Costa Rica that pioneered the introduction of a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in 1997. The programme, managed by the Ministry of Environment, provides cash transfer contracts of up to ten years to reward farmers, notably smallholders, who preserve or regenerate forest areas. It enabled a reduction of emissions related to deforestation by 20% on average during the 2000s (Murillo, Castillo and Ugalde, 2014[58]). In Brazil, farmers undertaking sustainable agriculture and conservation are already rewarded by at least two types of initiatives. First, a “Minimum Price Guarantee Policy for Sociobiodiversity Products” ensures a minimum purchase price for 17 native Amazonian products. Secondly, a federal PES law was approved in 2021. These initiatives are complemented by local ones, notably the “Bolsa Floresta”, created in 2008 by the State of Amazonas. This cash transfer programme was implemented in 16 conservation units (38% of the state’s units) and supported 9 000 rural families that committed to protecting primary forest areas. In ten years, it has decreased the deforestation rates in the state by 43% and increased households’ income by 200% (FAS, 2021[59]; BNDES, 2024[60]).
Distribution of agricultural holdings by size, 2017
Note: Ha: hectares. Data refer to the Legal Amazon due to the lack of available data. In Brazil, the legislation defines the rural property size by a measure called “fiscal module”, converted to hectares with different criteria for each municipality in the country. In this definition, large properties have up to 15 fiscal modules, medium have between 4 and 15, small have 1 to 4 and micro properties have less than 1. The average size of one fiscal module for all municipalities in Brazil is 38 hectares. In the figure, we group properties according to their size in hectares, based on this reference and on the classification of properties that IBGE presents in its 2017 Agricultural Census.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on IBGE (2017[42]).
Supporting innovation in SMEs, communities and smallholders
Enabling innovation is the key to unlocking the bioeconomy potential in the Amazon region in Brazil. Chapter 3 discusses how to foster innovation in the Amazon with an emphasis on making innovation inclusive and equitable. The following paragraphs focus on addressing the challenges faced by SMEs, communities and smallholders in undertaking sustainable innovation in the bioeconomy in the Amazon region in Brazil:
Bioeconomy-related activities are mostly carried out by SMEs in the Amazon region in Brazil. SMEs generate 77% of the employment in these sectors (including agriculture and fishing, food and beverages, wood, leather and pharmaceuticals) in the region, versus 59% for other economic sectors in 2021. At the national level, these shares are respectively about 45% and 58% (Figure 2.11). The predominance of SMEs in bioeconomy activities in the Amazon region in Brazil increases the challenges to innovate and implement environmentally sustainable practices; these firms lack the scale, both financially and in terms of human resources, to adequately invest in innovation and standards. Brazil needs to expand the support and the available funding for expansion phases in the Amazon region, as discussed in the previous sub-section, combining funding with acceleration mechanisms, technical assistance and fiscal incentives, as Colombia and Malaysia have done (Box 2.4).
The following are some lessons learned from experiences in Colombia and Malaysia, where specific policies to strengthen high-technology start-ups in the bioeconomy took place.
The Colombia BIO Program and MAPBIO acceleration mechanism
The Colombia BIO Program was created in 2015 by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation to promote bioeconomy activities based on the country’s biodiversity. To address the programme priority of developing new bio-based product applications, the government implemented the Bioeconomy Project Acceleration Mechanism (MAPBIO), a business acceleration mechanism to support start-ups to advance innovative solutions to the commercial stage.
The MAPBIO was launched together with Innpulsa, a government agency under the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Tourism that has supported entrepreneurship and start-ups since 2012, and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), an inter-governmental organisation founded in 2012 to promote sustainable economic growth initiatives in developing countries. This initiative provides capital mobilisation, technical assistance and networking for innovative firms. It can fund up to USD 35 000 per project, and each year, different regions are prioritised. In 2023, the MAPBIO 3.0 prioritised firms and solutions in the Pacific and Amazonian departments.
The Bio-based Accelerator Program in Malaysia
In Malaysia, the National Biotechnology Policy is executed by the Bioeconomy Corporation, a development agency owned by the Ministry of Finance that also reports to the Ministry of Science, Industry, Technology and Innovation. This agency’s mission is to have Malaysia as a global hub for bioindustries by identifying investment opportunities to support new businesses through finance and developmental services for R&D or more advanced development stages.
In 2019, the Bioeconomy Corporation created the Bio-based Accelerator Program, an initiative to support start-ups, micro businesses, and large companies to undertake activities in biotechnology based on science, technology and automation. The programme already supported 143 companies in agricultural, health care, and other industries. It includes training for the workforce, regulatory advisory services, facilitation for capital access, marketing support, and laboratory infrastructure for product development, among others. The selected companies develop capabilities and receive accreditations to reach a “BioNexus Status”, which allows them to receive government tax incentives.
Source: For the case of Colombia, OECD/UN/UNIDO (2019[61]) and presentation from Natalia Beatriz Comba Gonzáles (Colombia Bio Program Coordinator, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Colombia) at the Peer Learning Group (PLG) Meeting “Bioeconomy for Sustainable Development in the Amazon Region”, Azores, 2 July 2024, “Promoting Value Chains in the Colombian Amazon: Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities”. For Malaysia, government policy documents including Bioeconomy Corporation (2024[62]).
Branding and certifications are crucial to foster innovation in the bioeconomy. In 2023, the Ministry for Industrial Development and Trade (MDIC) announced a governmental “Amazon Seal” to certify services and goods from the Amazon that follow sustainable standards (Government of Brazil, 2023[63]). The seal is still not operational: after public consultations, legislation formalised the programme in 2024, and a committee (with 10 members from government agencies and 3 members from the industry and civil society) was created in 2025 to define the criteria for a good or service to be eligible. Among the guidelines already approved to define the eligibility criteria is the need for a minimum percentage of use of inputs from Amazonian biodiversity and for undertaking production activities in the Amazon (Government of Brazil, 2025[64]). Priority will be given to food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals, cosmetics, bioenergy and textiles.
Targeted technical assistance is essential to support SMEs and local communities. In 2017, only 10% of Amazon Region producers in Brazil had access to technical assistance services (Luiz, 2019[65]). In the context of bioeconomy value chains, expanding technical assistance enables sustainable and more productivity-enhancing techniques while also improving knowledge on product and export standards. A regenerative agriculture perspective, in which producers are able to increase productivity while enhancing soil and nature biodiversity and ecosystem services, requires innovative techniques to overcome conventional large-scale agriculture based on scale and standardisation (EASAC, 2022[66]; Embrapa, 2024[67]).
Introducing these techniques – such as crop rotation, non-burning agriculture and erosion control – can support smallholders in increasing productivity in an environmentally sustainable way. EMBRAPA is supporting farmers to implement low-carbon production systems in the Amazon such as no-burn agriculture systems to replace the use of fire to clear areas for production, thus increasing soil quality and decreasing deforestation risk. Another example of an innovative production system implemented by Embrapa is the Integrated Crop-Livestock-Forestry System, that integrates agricultural, animal farming and forestry systems in the same land area through crop succession or crop rotation to improve soil quality. Technical assistance should be integrated into a set of other policy instruments to increase production competitiveness, as in the case of Peru (Box 2.5).
These challenges are more significant when considering the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in the bioeconomy production ecosystems in the Amazon. In 2017, 74% of the açaí production in the region was undertaken by family-based-agroforestry enterprises (Costa et al., 2024[68]). Among these small producers are indigenous, riverine communities, families involved in agroforestry, among others, who have historically carried out agricultural production by creating knowledge and innovating to enhance productivity while protecting forests. Studies report that Indigenous people, for example, plan activities for planting, harvesting and hunting by drawing on techniques to predict weather and season changes through the movement of birds or patterns of the stars in the sky (Instituto Socioambiental/FORN, 2016[69]). This is an example of the use of traditional knowledge, that has been extensively used for production in the Amazon, as will be further discussed in Chapter 3. Another example is the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, located in the municipality of Tefé, in the State of Amazonas, and founded in 1999 as a non-profit research institution linked to Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The institute works closely with local communities to develop and employ sustainable agriculture innovative solutions relying on local knowledge (Mamiraua Institute, 2024[70]). Its Pirarucu Fishery Management Program, launched in 1999, developed equipment for real-time fish population monitoring by drawing on community techniques, which has increased the pirarucu fish population by 620% after being considered nearly extinct in 1996.
Share of employment by firm size, %
Note: SMEs: Small and medium enterprises. Data refer to the Legal Amazon due to the lack of available data. Bioeconomy-related sectors here include the following industry codes according to the National Classifications of Economic Activities of Brazil (CNAE 2.0): 01, 02, 03, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 21.
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on IBGE (2022[71]).
The “Ruta Productiva Exportadora”, led by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru, is a multi-sectorial programme to support 500 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and 6 000 small agricultural producers to increase exports and internationalisation in Peru across 24 regions in the country. Initiatives are implemented with a territorial perspective in co-operation with different ministries (agriculture, production and foreign trade, and environment) and public agencies.
Depending on each region’s potentialities and infrastructure and service’s needs, the programme supports 20 selected bioeconomy supply chains (coffee, cocoa, banana, mango and quinoa, among others) and relies on new and existing instruments such as:
Export capacity building and technical assistance for production, including capabilities development for sustainability services and new businesses and production models.
Reforms to increase foreign markets’ access, including trade agreements (22 agreements with 58 economies), and a digital platform to support trade deals.
Encouraging the use of an existing Bio-trade seal, specific brands for exported products, and certifications for organic production trade.
Planning multimodal logistical corridors to address the lack of connection of the Amazon with distribution and processing sites. In Peru, improvements are planned for a logistic corridor in the north and south of the Amazon to connect it to the main ports in the Pacific, but also to the borders of Brazil, Colombia and Bolivia.
Source: Mariella Amemiya, General Director of Foreign Trade Development Policies, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism, Peru, “Promoting bioeconomy value chains in the Peruvian Amazon Region”, presentation at the Peer Learning Group (PLG) Meeting “Bioeconomy for Sustainable Development in the Amazon Region”, Azores, 2 July 2024; (Cosiplan, 2024[72]).
To unleash the bioeconomy potential in the Amazon region in Brazil, public policies will need to place a particular emphasis on: i) closing infrastructure gaps to ensure connectivity for all, with a particular emphasis on smallholders and indigenous communities; ii) ensuring adequate financing at all stages of business development, from early stage to expansion; iii) developing targeted tools to foster SMEs and community-led business development including by providing technical assistance and business services for certifications.
Brazil needs to scale up its policy efforts to match its ambitions of addressing the major socio-economic challenges of the Amazon region and fostering sustainable and inclusive economic development. While there is a clear political will to advance in this direction, the existing policy tools and the available funding can be expanded towards this goal. International partners should also increase their support to make economic development opportunities in the Amazon a reality compatible with the well-being of the local communities and the conservation of the environment.
Making bioeconomy work for sustainable development in the Amazon essentially requires fostering innovation through partnerships, at all levels of government, internationally, with the private sector and with local communities, with a focus on bioindustries. The third chapter of this report focuses on this issue in more detail.
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