SCALING THE AMAZON BIOECONOMY: RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES
December 1st, 2022 at 3:30pm ET
Industrial scale production of crops like cattle, soy, corn, and sugar has often laid waste to the environments where it is grown. What are the risks of bioeconomy expansion? How do we manage growth without harming the ecosystem and displacing native people? How can agricultural systems sustain ecosystem services, favor biodiversity, mitigate inequality, and avoid pesticides? Learn from successful examples with coffee and other species in The Andes and Brazil.
Alfredo Homma
Embrapa-CPATU
Alfredo Kingo Oyama Homma has a graduate degree in Agronomy from Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Master’s from Economy from Universidade Federal de Viçosa; and Ph.D. at Economy from Universidade Federal de Viçosa. His experience include agricultural economics and natural resources, Amazon, agricultural development, natural resources economy, extractive economy and environmental policy. CPATU is the Center for Agricultural Research of the Humid Tropics. Embrapa is a company focused on innovation, which focuses on generating knowledge and technologies for Brazilian agriculture. The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) was created by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa) in 1973 to develop the technological base of a genuinely tropical model of agriculture and livestock. The initiative has the constant challenge of guaranteeing food security to Brazil and a prominent position in the international food, fiber and energy market.
Aaron Ebner
Alianza Andina
Aaron Ebner has been living and working in campesino communities in Peru since 2010. The Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development supports the conservation of biocultural resources of indigenous communities through agroecology and agribusiness projects. AASD is currently working with a cooperative of farmers to increase incomes and conserve ecosystems in the buffer zone of Manu National Park. Aaron is passionate about the idea that the world has a lot to learn from traditional cultures and especially the campesinos of Peru.
David (Toby) McGrath
Earth Innovation Institute / UFOPA
Toby is Deputy Director and Senior Scientist at Earth Innovation Institute. Toby has worked for almost 30 years on the political ecology of Amazon development and conservation and more specifically on the evolution of smallholder settlement, land use and resource management. Within this broader field his work has focused on grassroots movements, the community-based management of floodplain fisheries and upland forests and on the integration of these informal management initiatives into formal policy and institutional arrangements for co-management of natural resources. For most of this time he has also been a professor at the Núcleo de Altos Estudos Amazônicos (NAEA) of the Federal University of Pará and more recently a professor in the Graduate Program in Society, Nature and Development of the Federal University of Western Pará (UFOPA), where he teaches courses on the political ecology of Amazon development and conservation.
James Baumgartner
The Ocean Ranch
James has dedicated his energy to creating an ecological future, with focus on regenerative aquaculture & clean protein for our food systems. The Ocean Ranch integrates regenerative aquaculture, agroforestry, and ecological water treatment producing seafood, fishmeal, and forest products with substantial social and environmental impact.
