- Amazonia’s extraordinary biodiversity could support new medicines, foods, biomaterials, and other high-value products, as highlighted in the IDB’s latest publication, Amazonia: A Journey Toward Prosperity & Resilience.
- However, turning this potential into sustainable growth requires bringing together scientific research, entrepreneurship, traditional knowledge, and meaningful community participation.
- To make that happen, the region will need to strengthen local innovation ecosystems, simplify access and benefit-sharing rules, improve coordination and funding, and build trust among governments, businesses, scientists, and communities.
Imagine a tree once considered useless, even dangerous, becoming the foundation of a thriving local industry. In Colombia, the monkey-pot tree (Lecythis minor) was once felled for wood, while its toxic seeds were largely ignored. That changed when scientists discovered that its nuts contained a valuable form of selenium.
Local women were trained to collect and process the nuts, creating jobs and, over time, helping strengthen a sense of community pride. The oil is now used in high-end cosmetics, and the tree is protected by the same communities that once overlooked it.
This story captures the essence of the bioeconomy: scientific discovery, community engagement, and sustainable value creation.
What Is the Amazonian Bioeconomy?
At its core, the bioeconomy encompasses economic activities based on the sustainable use and transformation of biological resources into products and services. It is not simply about extracting and selling raw materials. It uses science and technology to create higher-value products—from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics to foods and biomaterials—while conserving and, ideally, restoring biodiversity.
A Vast Source of Innovation
As highlighted in our latest report, Amazonia: A Journey Toward Prosperity & Resilience, the potential is enormous. This is an agenda the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is actively advancing through the Amazonia Forever regional coordination program, which supports sustainable development across eight Amazonian countries.
Amazonia is one of the most biologically productive regions on Earth and is home to more species of plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms than any other terrestrial ecosystem. This biological wealth could provide the basis for new medicines, enzymes, materials, and other innovations. Only a fraction may be suitable for economic use, but even a small, carefully managed share could support new industries in areas such as bioenergy, bioplastics, and natural fibers, creating opportunities for Amazonia and beyond.
Where Innovation and Communities Converge
The bioeconomy, however, is not only about science and technology. It is equally about people. Indigenous peoples, riverine communities, and small farmers hold deep knowledge of local species and ecosystems. Their participation is essential not only for reasons of equity, but also because it can make innovation more effective, legitimate, and better adapted to local realities.
The most promising models combine scientific research, entrepreneurial vision, and traditional knowledge to build value chains that benefit local communities while conserving nature.
An Ecosystem Still Taking Shape
Despite this potential, Amazonia’s bioeconomy remains underdeveloped. Most activity is still fragmented, at an early stage, and unevenly distributed. Brazil has developed a relatively advanced policy framework, including a National Bioeconomy Secretariat and public financing mechanisms.
Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, meanwhile, are building their own policy ecosystems. Across the region, however, coordination and funding remain limited, and clear strategies for scaling up are still lacking.
Scientific research is gaining ground as a growing number of institutions begin working on bioprospecting, biotechnology, and agroecology. Yet investment remains limited, and much of the region’s scientific and technological capacity is still concentrated outside Amazonia itself.
The private sector, in turn, remains only modestly engaged, although there are signs of change. In Brazil, the share of bioeconomy startups located in the Amazon is nearly double the national average, even though their overall density remains low (Figure 1). Initiatives such as Amazonia BioStartups are helping early-stage ventures grow, often in collaboration with local communities.
The sector is also beginning to attract larger companies. Natura Cosméticos, for example, with support from IDB Invest, issued a US$240 million sustainability-linked bond to expand its portfolio of Amazonian bioingredients, supporting more than 10,000 local families and helping conserve 2.2 million hectares of forest.
What Is Holding the Bioeconomy Back?
Several barriers still limit the growth of bioeconomy entrepreneurship in Amazonia. To begin with, research and entrepreneurial ecosystems remain fragmented, particularly within Amazonian territories, where applied research centers, technology transfer hubs, incubators, and accelerators are often scarce. As a result, much of the value creation takes place downstream, far from the source of biodiversity.
Institutional coordination is also a challenge. Ministries, research organizations, and development banks do not always work toward shared objectives, while public commitments are often not matched by adequate funding.
At the same time, regulatory complexity creates an additional obstacle. Access to genetic resources and traditional knowledge is governed by frameworks aligned with the Nagoya Protocol, but implementation can be burdensome and may discourage research and collaboration.
More fundamentally, all these barriers are compounded by a persistent lack of trust among governments, scientists, companies, and communities, shaped by long histories of exclusion and extractivism.
Four Priorities for Action
What will it take to turn this potential into a stronger and more inclusive bioeconomy? Four priorities stand out:
1. Invest in research and entrepreneurial infrastructure within Amazonia. Applied research centers, technology transfer capabilities, incubators, and pilot plants need to be built in the region, connected to national and international networks but rooted in local realities.
2. Make access and benefit-sharing regulations clearer and more practical. Standardized protocols, digital platforms, and trusted intermediaries can make compliance more predictable while safeguarding equity and legitimacy.
3. Strengthen policy coordination and provide dedicated public funding. Bioeconomy strategies should bring together biodiversity conservation, entrepreneurship, education, Indigenous rights, and territorial planning, while ensuring predictable support for early-stage ventures and capacity building.
4. Build trust and promote co-creation. Participatory research models, community protocols, and trusted intermediaries can help bridge cultural and institutional divides and make innovation more inclusive and legitimate.
A Long-Term Opportunity for Amazonia
The Amazonian bioeconomy is not a silver bullet, but it is a powerful lever for change. Amazonia can create value chains that are both sustainable and inclusive, better suited to local supply chains and decentralized production, and more compatible with the region’s ecological and social realities.
Large-scale, low-value activities like bioenergy may have a role, but the real opportunity lies in knowledge-based, value-added uses that integrate science, entrepreneurship, and traditional knowledge.
Realizing this vision will require deliberate, long-term effort to reshape the conditions under which scientific discovery, private entrepreneurship, and community participation interact. Only by advancing innovation, nature, and local communities together can Amazonia realize its full potential and become a model for sustainable development worldwide.
This blog is part of a joint analytical effort by teams across the IDB, with valuable contributions from Arturo Galindo.