**6. Discussion and conclusions: envisioning the future for the Amazon**

applications of new products and processes. These infrastructures, operating in remote regions of the Amazon, are also proof of concept of how the newest available and accessible technologies can reach and benefit the whole spectrum of the social pyramid, from their

ACLs also include a focus on the realm of biomimetic, that is, the functions, processes and mechanisms of living organisms that, once learned, can provide insights and solutions for engineering new technologies and innovative products. They also leverage applications, including the high-end of genetic resources and genomics; prototype innovative processing of materials through the diverse links of value chains—raw materials, intermediate products,

To illustrate the potential of ACLs, we designed the three following conceptual examples of applications, based on currently available technologies and equipment. A final design should incorporate new technological solutions specifically tailored for solving implementation and scaling challenges and include consultation with local communities for accessing their spe-

A line of Amazon Creative Labs will deal with value chains feed by inputs from local biodiversity and an example of that is themed after nutraceutical Cupulate, a chocolate made from the seeds of Amazon fruit Cupuaçu, instead of cacao. From forest picking to creating a final product that combines basic Cupulate with other products of very high nutritional value, the lab also includes utilizing a 3D food printer for unique chocolate designs and precise dosage of the added natural micronutrients. A by-product of Cupulate-making is cupuaçu pulp, which is then freeze-dried in a value chain of its own. Heavy-lift electric-powered drones can help overcome logistics challenges the region poses, by easily and quickly taking loads of

Another example of ACLs focus is the Brazil Nuts value chain, known for the discrepancies between its higher cost for consumers and the low remuneration local people who harvest it from the forest receive. To change this, in one end, the ACLs will target extractivism issues, like processes precariousness that halts productivity and seeds' price, with accessible technological resources including GIS mapping, micro-controlled sensors arrays (for health safety on seed's harvesting and storing) and comprehensive traceability systems (origin and processes). At the same time, ACLs will carry out further locally based nut processing, using equipment that extracts oil and flour, by-products with greater trading value. With top technical education and processes precisely controlled with the aid of computers, sensors and biotechnological checks for sanitary standards, it becomes possible to output export-grade quality products strait from the forest vicinities. Those inputs also allow bringing to small villages the manufacture of even more processed products targeted to the natural cosmetics

Another line of ACLs will tackle the potential of making Amazon local inhabitants aware of the genetic value of biodiversity and to take part in genome sequencing projects. The lab will take participants into a knowledge journey departing from the biodiversity that can be seen all the way to the microscopic and nanoscopic structures of it, and to the grasping of the

nutraceutical cupulate sculptures and bars to a nearby gateway.

everyday life to new work opportunities.

204 Land Use - Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future

all the way to finished products.

cific needs, priorities and potentials.

and nutraceuticals markets.

Systemic risks to the maintenance of the Amazon forest due to the synergistic combination of the main human drivers of change—namely regional climate change due to both deforestation and global warming, and augmented forest vulnerability due to fires—poses an urgent challenge to avoid an irreversible threshold being transgressed that would threaten to turn over 50% of the forest in degraded savannas in the second half of this century [2].

The natural resource-intensive mode of development (the Second Way) is the dominant mode of development and receives generous government subsidies for its continued advancement. Investments in conservation, forest restoration and a sustainable economy in the global tropics of about \$20 billion annually receive less than 3% of total investments. The bulk of investments (around \$770 billion annually) goes to the expansion of commodities frontier of cattle, grains, oil palm [66] and also to road, energy and mining infrastructure, which are also key drivers of deforestation [67]. One more detrimental effect of such path is the increasing rural violence in the Amazon. Brazil has the highest number of assassinated rural and environmental leaders since 2015, with more than 140 killings, mostly in the Amazon [68].

It is becoming crystal clear that trying to reconcile resource-intensive development with conservation is not leading to lasting and permanent solutions. Deforestation rates are still very high and do not show a tendency to go down near zero and rural violence is on the rise. Social inequalities in the Amazon remain high and are not improving at a fast pace at least to bring social indicators to the national averages of the Amazonian countries. Imposing strict conservation to protect large swathes of the forest has had clear successes over the last decades in the Amazon—about 50% of the Amazon forest is under some kind of protection. However, that in itself does not guarantee protection forever for tropical forests and eventually may affect the livelihoods of local population as is the case documented for Madagascar [69] who may bear a high cost for forest conservation.

The Amazon Third Way Initiative seeks to demonstrate the urgent need for a conceptual, educational and entrepreneurial revolution—a revolution based on knowledge, traditional and scientific. The current economy of meat, grain and timber in the Brazilian Amazon is less than \$10 billion a year. The economy associated to biological assets of Amazon biodiversity in a few industries (food, cosmetics, oils, etc.) is already worth 30% of that and distributes income in fairer ways and benefits more of the local population. However, that is a tiny portion of the potential of a sustainable economy hidden in the biological and biomimetic assets of Amazon biodiversity that the Amazon Third Way initiative attempts to address and give visibility to. We will be estimating the real hidden economic value of these assets in a next phase of the initiative.

and R&D centers are profound. Partnerships among public and private R&D innovation labs to create a number of hubs of innovation throughout the region is necessary. This would accelerate new research and development leading to new products and innovations relevant for many industries locally and worldwide. Amazonian countries with immensely valuable natural assets would have an additional source of income to help protect these resources and support indigenous and traditional communities. These funds would create a new incentive on the part of communities and governments to protect rather than destroy natural habitats. The interest in understanding and sustainably using our biological and biomimetic assets could propel a new era of scientific exploration of life on the planet. Large new markets for sustainably sourced innovation could be created. Technology companies and start-ups seeking to demonstrate compliance with the Nagoya Protocol could be certified, through the

The Amazonia Third Way Initiative: The Role of Technology to Unveil the Potential of a Novel…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.80413

207

In sum, development policy in the Amazon has historically taken two pathways. The first embraces nature conservation and protects large swathes of territory from any human activity. The second approach has focused on conversion or degradation of forests for the production of agricultural commodities like meat and soya or tropical timber at the forest frontier, and also mineral commodities and the build-out of massive hydropower generation capacity. These uses together have been historically responsible for the massive deforestation of the

There is, however, a Third Way within reach in which we aggressively embrace high-tech innovation and look at the Amazon as a tremendous source of biological and biomimetic assets that can provide new, innovative products and services for current and new markets. System-level change in the Amazon as proposed cannot be executed single-handedly. On the contrary, we are proposing collaboration with leading public, private, academic and philanthropic actors for the journey ahead, engaging Indigenous and traditional communities across Amazonian countries, uniting the best capabilities of regulators, R&D centers, univer-

The Amazonia Third Way can be the most effective Land Use Change Planning policy for the Amazon because it is fully based on a standing forest-flowing river bio-economy. If successful, this new development model can be applied to all tropical regions helping to preserve the Earth's great biological diversity. We have an important choice to make. The future of the Amazon and its impact on the planet lie so clearly in the balance. Time is not on our side, but

This work has been supported by the National Institute of Science and Technology for Climate Change via CNPq Grant Number 573797/2008-0 and FAPESP Grant Number 2008/57719-9 and additional financial support by the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) and Moore Foundation. We express our thanks to Juan Carlos Castilla-Rubio and Luciana Castilla for

their contributions to the development of the Amazon Third Way Initiative.

sities, technology start-ups and visionary companies all over the world.

transparency that distributed ledger technology offers.

Amazon.

we can still choose the Third Way.

**Acknowledgements**

The Amazon forest is not a void of human presence. Diverse communities live all over the region. Even some communities of new settlers of the 1970s and 1980s have looked to find ways of generating income in agroforestry systems. There is rich traditional knowledge in many of indigenous and caboclo communities. Supporting the diversity of communities and economic pathways for a standing forest-flowing rivers economy is mandatory.

From a more general standpoint, sustainable development pathways based on natural resources exploitation should in principle put the local populations as priority. That is not the case for the Amazon currently (low HDI and other social indicators). Therefore, the Third Way Initiative also proposes that new sustainable paradigms have the development policy as a central tenet. The sustainable economy should first and utmost be means of wellbeing to the Amazonian people. That is not the case of the Second Way, where the Amazon is seen important for intensive resource exploitation for the Amazonian countries as a whole and taxation of the resource wealth should redistribute benefits as public services for all in the Amazon. However, a regressing taxation system does not realize that.

The Amazon has a number of good examples of biology laboratories and a number of entrepreneurship initiatives that beyond economic development target social responsibility and deployment of sustainable biodiversity value chains. They are true pioneers into the new era of sustainability. However, they are as yet a small minority. They may even accrue national and international visibility and are role models, but in critically insufficient numbers to create momentum economically and socially to give clout to the rupture needed to put Amazon on a different track.

The new model must rely on these existing good examples, on the diversities of forest communities across the Amazon, on state-of-the art knowledge generations laboratories and innovative entrepreneurship and build up from there.

In due course, one has to build up momentum for enhancing the policies that are necessary to uplift the Third Way; investment in zero-deforestation value chains; reducing the enormous subsidies for commodities that drive deforestation; but as importantly invest in knowledge generation through a network of advanced biology laboratories in the Amazon, in Amazonian Countries and internationally in association with private R&D labs and science-based startups and creation of innovation ecosystems throughout the regions. That is a pre-requisite to the development of local next generation bio-industries in towns and cities of the future.

By attracting venture capital and productive investments both for R&D and for industries, the political interest in the Third Way will rise in the eyes of governments to a tipping point in which government investments and subsidies will start to flow to this other type of economy, even on the absence of visionary governments that would see the potential of a new Amazon bio-economy and would design the pathways to reach it.

The implications of harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution to unlock the economic value of the Amazon's biological and biomimetic assets for governments, start-ups, corporations and R&D centers are profound. Partnerships among public and private R&D innovation labs to create a number of hubs of innovation throughout the region is necessary. This would accelerate new research and development leading to new products and innovations relevant for many industries locally and worldwide. Amazonian countries with immensely valuable natural assets would have an additional source of income to help protect these resources and support indigenous and traditional communities. These funds would create a new incentive on the part of communities and governments to protect rather than destroy natural habitats. The interest in understanding and sustainably using our biological and biomimetic assets could propel a new era of scientific exploration of life on the planet. Large new markets for sustainably sourced innovation could be created. Technology companies and start-ups seeking to demonstrate compliance with the Nagoya Protocol could be certified, through the transparency that distributed ledger technology offers.

In sum, development policy in the Amazon has historically taken two pathways. The first embraces nature conservation and protects large swathes of territory from any human activity. The second approach has focused on conversion or degradation of forests for the production of agricultural commodities like meat and soya or tropical timber at the forest frontier, and also mineral commodities and the build-out of massive hydropower generation capacity. These uses together have been historically responsible for the massive deforestation of the Amazon.

There is, however, a Third Way within reach in which we aggressively embrace high-tech innovation and look at the Amazon as a tremendous source of biological and biomimetic assets that can provide new, innovative products and services for current and new markets. System-level change in the Amazon as proposed cannot be executed single-handedly. On the contrary, we are proposing collaboration with leading public, private, academic and philanthropic actors for the journey ahead, engaging Indigenous and traditional communities across Amazonian countries, uniting the best capabilities of regulators, R&D centers, universities, technology start-ups and visionary companies all over the world.

The Amazonia Third Way can be the most effective Land Use Change Planning policy for the Amazon because it is fully based on a standing forest-flowing river bio-economy. If successful, this new development model can be applied to all tropical regions helping to preserve the Earth's great biological diversity. We have an important choice to make. The future of the Amazon and its impact on the planet lie so clearly in the balance. Time is not on our side, but we can still choose the Third Way.
