The Amazon bioeconomy: Beyond the use of forest products

In 2021, the World Bioeconomy Forum and the Amazon Socio-Biodiversity Meeting placed the Amazon rainforest at the center of the global bioeconomy debate, as part of a planetary roadmap towards a sustainable and prosperous future. Albeit a wide breadth of definitions, the current debate in the Amazon is mainly based on a forest-product-based bioeconomy and has raised concern over sustainability and equity of the benefits among its population. We argue that an Amazon bioeconomy must transcend the mainstream forest-based products approach by assuring: (i) zero deforestation, (ii) strengthening the Amazonian millennial cultural and economic practices of traditional population, (iii) diversification of methods, and production valuing biodiversity as a response to widespread monoculture plantations, and (iv) equitable benefit sharing with local communities. Ongoing and future bioeconomy projects that genuinely aim to conserve the remaining Amazon Forest and promote socio-ecological benefits must consider these guiding principles.