Conference Agenda

Tackling climate change and promoting biodiversity conservation are two closely related objectives. This panel discusses these issues based on research in Brazil. Brazil is a mega-biodiverse country and has been in the international spotlight for some time due to concerns over Amazon deforestation with implications for the global climate. Over the last years Brazil has gone through rapid political changes, but a significant socio-environmental concern remains the situation of indigenous peoples who have faced exclusion in economic and political terms for centuries and also suffered disproportionately from the Covid-19 pandemic. At the international level, there are various norms and commitments that seek to address this, not least the 2030 Agenda which has pledged to “leave no one behind”. However, such international norms do not always produce the desired effects when implemented. At the national level, too, Brazil has several innovative mechanisms to improve access and benefit-sharing for indigenous peoples and other communities in the Amazon and rural areas, but here it is also crucial to examine how these play out in practice. This panel therefore looks at the interplay between the commitments, norms and mechanisms at different levels and seeks to examine how effective they are in implementing various conceptions of justice and allocation in a context that is marked by strong power and resource asymmetries. As the demands for a sustainability transition increase internationally and in Brazil, central questions include how costs and benefits of such a transition are distributed and how rights and livelihoods are affected, but also what new demands are emerging. The panel seeks to examine the capacity of various governance arrangements to produce fair and equitable allocations, to recognize the diverse voices and knowledge that permeate them, and to act to repair the history of social exclusion and environmental destruction.

The Amazon is the world largest tropical forest facing multiple demands from global, national and local actors. Strategies to reconcile multiple (and sometimes conflicting) demands - e.g., conservation, social justice, and economic growth - have been highly contested in the region. On one side, market-based mechanisms - e.g., carbon trade, compensation schemes, certification models and agrofuel projects - have been proposed as win-win situations with no regards to environmental degradation, inequalities and territorial dispossession. On the other side, territorial rights, community-based governance, sustainable production systems, and forest-based policies have been crafted by local actors to address social justice and nature conservation but with limited success in scaling up their local economies. In the context of increased global crises (climate, health, economy) and national political tension over the last decade, bioeconomy or bio-based economy has emerged as a new promise to tackle the Amazon dilemma. This ‘new’ economic strategy for forest-rich regions claims to reconcile market-based with social justice perspective through promotion of nature-based sustainable production systems and inclusion of traditional and peasant populations. The fast-growing use of this term by a large range of actors, from international donors to local governments raises concern on how this ‘new’ perspective is conceptualized, by whom, and under which grounds. The paper takes a political ecological perspective and offers a critical analysis of bioeconomy and bio-based economy as a polysemic term appropriated by actors with contrasting views on nature and development nexus, power positions, and economic assets. I will describe how the bioeconomy paradigm is unfolding in the Brazilian Amazon by describing the ways bioeconomy/bio-based economy is being used across different actors at international (e.g., OTCA and IDB), national (e.g., MMA), subnational (e.g., Amazonian states) levels, and networks and programs (e.g., Parceiros pela Amazonia, Science Panel for the Amazon, Amazon 4.0). I will analyse commonalities, contrasting and connecting elements across these initiatives, and will address counter-narratives from marginalized actors rejecting or re-appropriating it to their own purposes. The discussion will address the possible outcomes of this new trend - space for agency from local actors to develop their local economies or a new trap for the creation of a 'forest frontier'?

Finance for climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation have been debated since the 1990s. Indigenous Peoples (IP) have also been calling for direct access to funding for keeping their livelihoods and protecting their territories, whilst mitigating climate change and conserving biodiversity. This new development emerges in a context in which most of the existing finance mechanisms affect their cultures, traditions, and territories, but very little goes to indigenous and local community land tenure and forest management. The research’s objective is to identify and analyze how IP define financial instruments in the context of indigenous organizations’ demand to have a seat at the negotiating table for climate-forest policy funds in their territories. Firstly and foremost, they demand recognition of their knowledge in combating climate change and conserving biodiversity, their rights to their traditional lands, and their fundamental rights. However, as these mechanisms are situated in a broader political economy and political ecology context, they may perpetuate the current system and risk co-opting resistance. The research focus is on Podáali, the Indigenous Fund for the Brazilian Amazon, developed in 2017 by the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB). Indigenous peoples created this mechanism to ensure their autonomy in decision-making for implementing local projects designed by indigenous communities. The paper maps the fund’s characteristics- main actors, guiding principles, governance structure, potential partners and financiers, scope and autonomy justifications - and its implications. The paper also explores how Podáali has been presented at COPs side-events to potential donors, investors and governments. The main sources of information are interviews, news articles, meeting minutes, and Podáali website. Finally, the research assesses to what extent Podáali represents an attempt to reconceptualize or present an alternative narrative to climate justice, mitigation, biodiversity conservation and well being, or to recognize different ways of living and managing forests, carbon, and financial resources (epistemic justice). By examining this case, the paper aims to understand governance processes by focusing on the voice and experience of indigenous peoples in creating pluralistic arrangements in the Brazilian Amazon, and also in dealing with the challenges involved in translating and negotiating with financiers that operate with the political economy logic.

Connecting biodiversity, climate change, and the bioeconomy while prioritizing justice and allocation requires collaboration among governments, businesses, communities, and civil society. To achieve this, several initiatives have been proposed, including the implementation of Payment for Environmental Services (PES) programs. PES aims to promote environmental conservation or recovery through economic incentives and has been praised for creating business opportunities for the private sector while meeting environmental policy objectives. However, the limited experiences with PES in developing countries demonstrate a gap between the theoretical framework and the actual implementation of the program. In Brazil, the potential resources estimated for PES are much higher than the actual value of the few projects that have been implemented, due to difficulties in public policy implementation. These difficulties include institutional weakness, lack of political interest, and a limited number of stakeholders. The purpose is to identify the relationship between administrative and political capacities and the existence and continuity of payment for environmental services in Brazilian municipalities. This study presents results from empirical research, with data extracted from the Survey of Basic Municipal Information (MUNIC) carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 2017 and 2020. The results show that PES programs are restricted to only 15% of municipalities and less than one-third of the municipalities that had positive answers in 2017 repeated their response in 2020. The study found that population, territory, regional location, and institutional capacity for environmental management are associated with the continuity of PES programs. These results highlight that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the successful implementation of PES programs and that it depends on specific circumstances, including local institutional capacities. This conclusion requires further attention and research in environmental economics literature, which tends to present PES as a universal solution.

The use of biodiversity holds significant economic potential which could potentially also foster social inclusion and biodiversity conservation. However, a major issue is how the economy of biodiversity will be regulated to comply with international treaties such as the Convention on Biodiversity and the Nagoya Protocol, which aim to establish a fair and equitable sharing of benefits generated by access to genetic resources and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities. There are trade-offs between the impact of regulation on bioprospecting activities and its ability to promote social justice. Regulations that are too restrictive may prevent the benefits to be shared from being produced. Regulations that are too lax may encourage biopiracy and fail to ensure that holders of traditional knowledge receive a fair value for their knowledge. In addition, it is necessary to define what modalities will be available for benefit sharing, the form of payment, and the parameters that establish the amount to be paid. In this context, Brazil established new legislation on biodiversity in 2015, regulating access to its genetic heritage and access to associated traditional knowledge. The new law sought to streamline biodiversity-based business and provide legal certainty for bioprospecting activities. To this end, it established precise mechanisms and legal parameters for benefit sharing. This paper analyzes how well the new Brazilian governance system for access and benefit sharing can generate fair and equitable benefit sharing. For this purpose, we analyzed data from interviews with representatives of different social sectors, policy papers, and quantitative data on benefit sharing in Brazil. The results show that, although the new legal framework made progress in the definition of legal mechanisms, the results in terms of benefit-sharing are negligible due to design problems, implementation failures, and lack of government priority.