As the most biodiverse ecosystem, how can we properly value the Amazon forest? Even though one hectare has more species of flowering plants than all of Europe, rampant deforestation has brought the region to an ecological tipping point. The forest is under-researched and not adequately valued for its bio-economic potential. As part of the Amazon Third Way Initiative, Maria Koch-Weser and Carlos Nobre invite the scientific community to invest in and study the region. They call for an “Amazon Institute of Technology to enable an Amazon Green Deal” to engage in: 1) Systemic discovery of flora, fauna, and ecosystem functions, 2) Applied research and bio-economic product development, and 3) Remediation and reforestation of lands degraded by clear-cutting and mining. There is hope today, with small, active efforts like the Rainforest Business School and bio-economy platforms like Green Rio, but much more is needed and yet to come. For more information, visit: Amazon Third Way Initiative / Amazon 4.0
Published October 16, 2020
Participants
- Maritta Koch-Weser of the Amazon Third Way Initiative
Transcript
Maritta Koch-Weser:
0 program in Brazil. So let us talk about Amazonia. Let me pitch for a new science-based economy that will truly value Amazonia’s unique biological resources and especially add value to its standing intact rainforests. Amazonia is the world’s most biodiverse ecosystem on land and very importantly in water. Just look at this slide. This slide shows what this means. Scientists tell us that there are as many angiosperm species in 100 square meters of Amazon forest as there are in all of Europe. As you know Amazonia is a critically important and utterly threatened biome.
It is the world’s largest tropical rainforest and it has key functions for our planetary climate. The climate agenda cannot be reached without halting deforestation in Amazonia. The Amazon rainforests have evolved over millions of years. Nutrients circulate in their rich vegetation. However once stripped of their vegetation Amazonia’s denuded soils are almost worthless, as this slide shows. The forest only exists because it exists. It is a self-contained system. Without forests, the tipping point towards [term unclear] is now fast approaching especially in southeastern Amazonia. Over the last 50 years some 20 percent of Amazonian forests some 800 000 square kilometers have been cleared and far more has been damaged.
Satellite monitoring shows the destruction of tens of thousands of square kilometers of Amazonian rainforests year after year for decades now. Biological resources go up in flames they go up in flames before mankind would ever have explored their value. Take Brazil it holds 67 percent of Amazonia. And true, 50 percent of its land is protected but they’re protected in theory only, not always in practice. Nature protection and indigenous reserves have been legislated but they are now more than ever before under attack. So enough of watching. Amazonia is simply under-researched and hence standing forests are not valued for the bioeconomic promise.
To add value to standing intact forests before they would be destroyed in a business-as-usual scenario, the region must see an unprecedented quantum leap in scientific research otherwise greed, ignorance, and chainsaws will prevail. Science then is the high road towards stopping destruction. And here’s my pitch to you: remember the Apollo 11 mission. On July 20, 1969, science and unrelenting human endeavor brought man from earth to the moon in quote-unquote, “One great leap for humankind,” astronaut Armstrong’s famous words. ” and the impossible became possible. In our age of the fourth industrial revolution Amazonia finally deserves the equivalent of such a choice of such a space program.
”. 0 the program led by Professor Carlos Nobre at São Paulo university is about a truly disruptive alternative path. It calls for a major and lasting investment in science to protect and develop the value of standing forests. This path that takes its cue from the region’s indigenous peoples is what we want. The indigenous peoples have learned to thrive within the forest for millennia to this very day, here in a recent picture taken by Sebastião Salgado, the famous photographer. Only mega advances in science can transport the Amazon into a new era before it is too late.
So far seriously underfunded Amazonian science centers are unequipped to produce a major turnaround. The order of magnitude and speed matter. Amazonia needs the equivalent of the Goddard Space Center that brought us the Hubble telescope and research on Mars. Or if you will Amazonia needs an MIT for the Amazon basin, equipped and funded for cutting-edge advances in science and for academic leadership. So we invite you to consider the establishment of an Amazon Institute of Technology, enabling an Amazon Green Deal. Its tasks: first, basic research and systemic discovery of Amazon biodiversity, of ecosystemic functions, flora, fauna, and microorganisms.
Second, applied research and bioeconomic product development based on standing forests and flowing rivers from traditional plant and fish-based products to microbiological and nanotechnology products. The Amazon institute of technology must also be about building back and reclaiming with sustainable agroforestry and afforestation systems where natural systems have been damaged by deforestation or contaminated by polluting mining operations. In 2020, beginnings, both technical and political, kindle hope. A new, small bioeconomy now exists with advances in community-based decentralized labs, agroforestry science, new bioeconomy platforms like Green Rio, and a first rainforest business school in Manaus, and far more.
This is then the time when science and finance must join—you must join—together to invest in an Amazon institute of technology. Thank you very much.