Corporate power in the bioeconomy transition: The policies and politics of conservative ecological modernization in Brazil

The bioeconomy transition is a double-edged sword that may either address fossil fuel dependence sustainably or aggravate human pressures on the environment, depending on how it is pursued. Using the emblematic case of Brazil, this article analyzes how corporate agribusiness dominance limits the bioeconomy agenda, shapes innovation pathways, and ultimately threatens the sustainability of this transition. Drawing from scholarship on power in agri-food governance and sustainability transitions, an analytical framework is then applied to the Brazilian case. The analysis of current policies, recent institutional changes and the case-specific literature reveals that, despite a strategic framing of the bioeconomy transition as a panacea for job creation, biodiversity conservation and local development (particularly for the Amazon region), in practice major soy, sugarcane and meatpacking conglomerates dominate Brazil’s bioeconomy agenda. In what can be described as conservative ecological modernization, there is some reflexivity regarding environmental issues but also an effort to maintain (unequal) social and political structures. Significant agribusiness dominance does not bode well for smallholder farmers, food diversity or natural ecosystems, as major drivers of deforestation and land-use change (e.g., soy plantations, cattle ranching) gain renewed economic and political stimulus as well as greater societal legitimacy under the bioeconomy umbrella

Commodity-Centric Landscape Governance as a Double-Edged Sword: The Case of Soy and the Cerrado Working Group in Brazil

Persistent ecological and socio-economic impacts from the expansion of industrial monocultures in the tropics have raised land use sustainability to the top of the environmental policy agenda. As major crops such as soy continue to experience growing market demand and threaten both natural ecosystems and traditional populations, a number of multi-stakeholder governance initiatives have been established around agricultural commodity chains or key landscapes. Effectiveness in curbing unsustainable land use, however, remains limited. In this context, innovative initiatives have blurred the lines to combine both supply chain and landscape governance. We analyze such arrangements-here conceptualized as commodity-centric landscape governance (CCLG)-with an in-depth case study of the Cerrado Working Group, a multi-stakeholder initiative led by civil society and the soy agribusiness to address land use change in that savanna landscape in Brazil. The paper examines how that initiative has come about, its agenda, as well as usually underexposed political dimensions using agenda-setting theory. The research is based on extensive fieldwork in Brazil, with data collected through document analysis and 56 key-informant interviews. The findings suggest that a sustainable development agenda for the Cerrado has been substantially narrowed to become mostly one of conversion-free soy supply, serving more the interests of that agroindustry and its consumers than those of the landscape\u27s most vulnerable stakeholders, such as local communities. While the Cerrado Working Group has importantly broadened the policy scope beyond commodity certification, its limited inclusiveness and a skewed agenda have led to instruments that target only soy farmers as beneficiaries. We conclude that, although effective for targeting conversion drivers, CCLG can crystallize and reinforce existing land use patterns by granting disproportionate power to dominant stakeholders, thus limiting the agenda to incremental changes. As a consequence, distant demand-side actors may exert greater governance authority than the landscape\u27s own population. If embodying norms of inclusiveness and equitable participation, CCLG may serve as an entry point, but it does not per se replace inclusive land-use planning and integrated landscape governance

Neglect paves the way for dispossession: The politics of “last frontiers” in Brazil and Myanmar

A convergence of factors creates a worrisome contemporary pattern of resource dispossession of local populations in developing countries. Growing market demand for commodities, states’ interest in expanding their fiscally fertile territories, and environmental conservation pressures have promoted resource frontiers, where locals all too frequently lose access to land, water and livelihoods. To add momentum and legitimize outsiders’ agendas, such locations are sometimes framed as “last frontiers” – the final places of possibility. While various forms of resource “grabbing” have gained increased attention, we argue that a crucial dimension of frontier dynamics – neglect and its role in facilitating dispossession – warrants further study as it tends to be overlooked. Drawing on the frontiers and political ecology literature, this article analyzes how neglect by state authorities, markets, and environmental organizations paves the way for dispossession in those landscapes. We compare two cases: the Matopiba soy frontier in the savannas of Brazil\u27s Cerrado and the Chin Hills of western Myanmar. Our results show how neglect is critical to imaginatively frame regions as “empty” places of possibility, excluding local actors economically from development and politically from governance initiatives. We argue that neglect not only precedes but is an enduring feature of resource frontiers, and identify four consecutive phases: (I) pre-frontier abandonment, (II) selective support to outsiders, (III) overlooked harms to communities, and (IV) socially exclusive sustainability agendas. As environmental concerns gain increasing global salience, Phase I sometimes leaps to Phase IV as international actors pounce to control what they regard as “last frontiers” for conservation. We conclude that external actors’ inaction enables local communities’ dispossession as much as their actions. This raises critical policy and scholarly questions about actors\u27 responsibility and accountability, not only for harms done but also for systematically failing to heed local actors’ aspirations and needs

Environmental malgovernance in Brazil: what to do in the face of purposeful destruction?

Deforestation has grown significantly during Jair Bolsonaro’s term by cutting funding, monitoring capacity, and enforcement rights from Brazil’s environmental agencies. But is his presidency the only one to be held accountable? Consumers, traders, and financiers have also profited from this, as Mairon G. Bastos Lima (Stockholm Environment Institute) and Karen da Costa (University of Gothenburg) analysed

Má governança ambiental no Brasil: o que fazer diante da destruição proposital?

O desmatamento aumentou significativamente durante o mandato do presidente Jair Bolsonaro, com os órgãos ambientais sofrendo cortes de financiamento e redução de sua capacidade de monitorar e fazer cumprir os regulamentos. Mas somente a presidência deve ser responsabilizada? Consumidores, comerciantes e investidores também lucraram com a situação, segundo análise de Mairon G. Bastos Lima (Instituto Ambiental de Estocolmo) e Karen da Costa (Universidade de Gotemburgo)

Herbal medicine promotion for a restorative bioeconomy in tropical forests: A reality check on the Brazilian Amazon

Herbal medicine has experienced a renaissance both for health reasons and as part of a bioeconomy for regions rich in biodiversity and traditional knowledge. Medicinal plant value chains can promote local development and sustainable livelihoods that are critical for forest frontiers in need of inclusive economic alternatives. This sector can become an example of restorative bioeconomy, which not only maintains but enhances nature\u27s contributions to people – notably to historically marginalized actors such as Indigenous peoples. However, a reality check is due. Using the Amazon as an emblematic case study, this article examines Brazil\u27s context and policy framework on herbal medicine promotion. It draws from a literature review as well as 23 key-informant interviews and field visits to 10 local herbal medicine value chain initiatives. Our findings expose a closing window of opportunity, as while deforestation and forest degradation advances, Brazil\u27s herbal medicine promotion has fallen short of its potentials for development and inclusiveness. Insufficient attention to traditional knowledge or to research on Brazil\u27s native biodiversity, regulatory stringency without converse support to integrate marginalized actors, and ambivalent social acceptability of herbal medicine have been key barriers to advancing the sector. We conclude that herbal medicine offers a clear case of restorative bioeconomy with double potential to address historical inequalities both on healthcare access and socioeconomic inclusiveness, but delivering on that requires much more participatory research, attention to local capacity enhancement, and a better understanding of herbal medicine promotion in multicultural social settings

Large-scale collective action to avoid an Amazon tipping point - key actors and interventions

The destruction of the Amazon is a major global environmental issue, not only because of greenhouse gas emissions or direct impacts on biodiversity and livelihoods, but also due to the forest\u27s role as a tipping element in the Earth System. With nearly a fifth of the Amazon already lost, there are already signs of an imminent forest dieback process that risks transforming much of the rainforest into a drier ecosystem, with climatic implications across the globe. There is a large body of literature on the underlying drivers of Amazon deforestation. However, insufficient attention has been paid to the behavioral and institutional microfoundations of change. Fundamental issues concerning cooperation, as well as the mechanisms facilitating or hampering such actions, can play a much more central role in attempts to unravel and address Amazon deforestation. We thus present the issue of preventing the Amazon biome from crossing a biophysical tipping point as a large-scale collective action problem. Drawing from collective action theory, we apply a novel analytical framework on Amazon conservation, identifying six variables that synthesize relevant collective action stressors and facilitators: information, accountability, harmony of interests, horizontal trust, knowledge about consequences, and sense of responsibility. Drawing upon literature and data, we assess Amazon deforestation and conservation through our heuristic lens, showing that while growing transparency has made information availability a collective action facilitator, lack of accountability, distrust among actors, and little sense of responsibility for halting deforestation remain key stressors. We finalize by discussing interventions that can help break the gridlock

Connected Conservation: Rethinking conservation for a telecoupled world

The convergence of the biodiversity and climate crises, widening of wealth inequality, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the urgent need to mobilize change to secure sustainable futures. Centres of tropical biodiversity are a major focus of conservation efforts, delivered in predominantly site-level interventions often incorporating alternative-livelihood provision or poverty-alleviation components. Yet, a focus on site-level intervention is ill-equipped to address the disproportionate role of (often distant) wealth in biodiversity collapse. Further these approaches often attempt to ‘resolve’ local economic poverty in order to safeguard biodiversity in a seemingly virtuous act, potentially overlooking local communities as the living locus of solutions to the biodiversity crisis. We offer Connected Conservation: a dual-branched conservation model that commands novel actions to tackle distant wealth-related drivers of biodiversity decline, while enhancing site-level conservation to empower biodiversity stewards. We synthesize diverse literatures to outline the need for this shift in conservation practice. We identify three dominant negative flows arising in centres of wealth that disproportionately undermine biodiversity, and highlight the three key positive, though marginalized, flows that enhance biodiversity and exist within biocultural centres. Connected Conservation works to amplify the positive flows, and diminish the negative flows, and thereby orientates towards desired states with justice at the centre. We identify connected conservation actions that can be applied and replicated to address the telecoupled, wealth-related reality of biodiversity collapse while empowering contemporary biodiversity stewards. The approach calls for conservation to extend its collaborations across sectors in order to deliver to transformative change

Toward multipurpose agriculture: Food, fuels, flex crops, and prospects for a bioeconomy

Each day, agriculture becomes more highly integrated into an increasing number of industries. Agriculture has never been only about food; cotton, tobacco, and other nonfood agricultural commodities (not to speak of spices and luxury foods, such as sugar and coffee) have for centuries been important to livelihoods and the economy. Yet, thanks to developments in biotechnology, the scope of agriculture is broadening quickly, and it may expand significantly in the coming years

The Bioeconomy–Biodiversity Nexus: Enhancing or Undermining Nature’s Contributions to People?

Bioeconomy has become fundamental for a post-fossil-resources society, in line with climate change mitigation ambitions. Although it does not have a single, consensual definition, the bioeconomy encompasses various bio-based value chains and economic activities relying on biodiversity. How these burgeoning developments may affect biodiversity, however, still needs further examination. This article explores the bioeconomy–biodiversity nexus through the lens of nature’s contributions to people (NCPs). Drawing from the bioeconomy literature and Amazonian experiences, we argue that the bioeconomy may: (i) help conserve or restore habitats, (ii) improve knowledge on biodiversity, (iii) valorize livelihoods and increase social participation, and (iv) aid in moving beyond the commodification of nature. However, none of these achievements can be taken for granted. To date, the bioeconomy has focused mainly on extracting goods from nature (e.g., food, energy, or biochemicals), often at the expense of NCPs that require integral ecosystems and are decisive for a sustainable society in the longer run. Moreover, we assert that it is critical to discern the beneficiaries of various contributions, as “people”, in reality, are composed of distinct groups that relate differently to nature and have different preferences regarding trade-offs. The NCPs framework can help broaden synergies in the bioeconomy–biodiversity nexus, but inclusive governance remains critical