When he discovered Amazonian açaí ice cream in the early 70s in Ceará, during a university sports competition, the world-renowned climatologist Carlos Nobre did not yet envision that the fruit would be one of the targets of such a grand project led by him: the Third Way/Amazonia 4.0. The concept was presented at an event by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in Panama, and focuses on sustainability, changing the development paradigm of the Amazon region. For the academic community at Unicamp, it was presented during the celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Institute of Geosciences, in the lecture “The risks to the Amazon of climate change and land use – Amazon 4.0: a new paradigm of sustainable development”.
With the IG auditorium full, the climatologist, who has been studying the Amazon for 40 years, approached the biome from four perspectives: as a regional entity of the Earth System in the Anthropocene; the risks to the forest caused by climate change and land use; the possibility of stopping deforestation; and the Third Way or, as he defined it, Amazon 4.0, in which he presented a new paradigm of sustainable development for that region. In an interview with Unicamp website, Carlos Nobre detailed the concept of Amazon 4.0.
According to the scientist, Brazil's agricultural model has been, since the 4th century, a model developed in other parts of the world that involves the replacement of natural biomes. “What we fail to see is that there is a huge unexplored potential for biodiversity, especially in tropical forests. We have some examples, few examples, but powerful ones. One of them is açaí, which, like other Amazonian biodiversity used regionally, has exploded worldwide,” he pointed out. According to Nobre, the total value of açaí is second only to meat in the Amazon and is expected to surpass it in the not too distant future. “Açaí in an extractive system, that is, in the middle of the forest, can have an average profitability of 10 times that of meat. In an agroforestry system, it can be up to XNUMX times more profitable,” he says. Another positive point of açaí in relation to meat is that the former benefits a much larger number of people, better distributing income. Nobre points out that large agricultural farms concentrate a lot of income with the owners, in addition to benefiting few employees, who are at most class D. “There are many families in this agroforestry system that begin to migrate from class D to class C. This economy of biodiversity proves to be powerful, but the added value of these products is still not done in the Amazon”, he reveals.
Carlos Nobre states that there are more than 50 products derived from açaí, but that they were not developed in the Amazon. The biome produces numerous primary products, such as açaí, nuts and cocoa, which at most undergo pre-processing in that region. “Most açaí-derived products were developed in the United States. The transformation industry is practically non-existent in the Amazon, but the potential for biodiversity products is gigantic. We don’t marry this potential for harnessing biodiversity with industry,” he says. According to the concept launched by Nobre, açaí, which is a staple food for inland populations in the Amazon, can lead to sustainable development in that region, creating thousands of jobs and, at the same time, promoting environmental conservation.
According to Nobre, “for the first time in recent history, technology is no longer an obstacle. There is an opportunity to develop industry in the Amazon on various scales, from local, in small communities, to cities, to add value”. Nobre recalls that, in general, developed countries are industrialized because it is through adding value that increases income and quality of life. In the case of the açaí industry, which has its largest importer and processor in the United States, more than 15 billion dollars are generated worldwide, of which only 10% returns to the Amazon. Amazon 4.0 therefore intends to bring these technologies to production chains.
The project was proposed in 2018. From an academic point of view, it is anchored in the Institute of Advanced Studies at USP and from a practical point of view it is anchored in the NGO Imazon (Institute of Man and Environment of the Amazon), which has existed for more than 25 years in Belém. “The project has an implementation instrument called Creative Laboratories of the Amazon in which we want to bring supramodern laboratories, showing that it is possible to train the populations of that region, who have full capacity to learn. The idea is to take these modern technologies to the heart of the forest”, he highlights. Some of these laboratories are disruptive, such as genomics, which will enable people to genetically sequence plants and animals, with blockchain records, thus protecting intellectual property.
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In 2016, the climatologist led a group of people in a scientific article in which they reported the risks of the forest. They asked themselves what to do. And then came the idea of the Third Way. According to Nobre, the First Way is conservation – the Amazon has 47% protected areas. “This policy was very effective, but these areas have been very threatened by climate change and the advance of agriculture,” he said. The Second Way is the model adopted in the 70s during the military government of development based on the intensive exploitation of natural resources – agriculture, mining and energy. “Mining and infrastructure account for 10% of deforestation. Almost 90% is agriculture and the expansion of the agricultural frontier. This model of geopolitical occupation represented a huge fear that the Amazon would be an object of international greed, mainly from the United States. They did not see indigenous and Amazonian peoples as guarantors of Brazilian sovereignty. The forest was seen as the enemy. This is the model that still prevails today – the intensive use of mineral resources and replacement of the forest with cattle and soybeans”, he informs.
The two models are in permanent conflict. Environmental NGOs tried to discipline sustainable agribusiness, but Brazilian ruralism defends land ownership and the expansion of the agricultural frontier, seeing the replacement of forests as the only way to achieve development. “This is not economical. It is cultural and political, which does not see the value in the forest and its biodiversity, which is very strong”, highlights Nobre. The Third Way then emerges as “a bioeconomy of standing forests, with forest systems, on a reduced scale and with sustainable exploitation using tools from the 21st century, from the 4th Industrial Revolution”, as Nobre points out.
For the renowned scientist, the greatest future value of the Amazon is not the material, but the understanding of biological assets, that is, knowledge. “In the 21st century, understanding how hundreds of thousands of species evolved in the Amazon, what are the interactions between species, bringing this knowledge to human benefit: this is the greatest value. Keeping the forest standing, having science and technology and empowering populations to participate in this new economic cycle: this is our project in the Third Amazon Way”, he highlights. Nobre also remembers that the material transformation phase, as in the case of açaí, “can benefit the social well-being of the populations of the Amazon much more economically”, he concludes.
The expert will present the concept at the Vatican Synod on the Amazon, which will take place from October 6th.
