Between June 2nd and 4th, I participated in FAPESP Week in London, a meeting that brought together Brazilian and British researchers from different fields of knowledge to discuss topics ranging from public health to artificial intelligence, from agriculture to energy, from climate change to biodiversity, and to promote relationships between Brazilian and British researchers and institutions. One of the most enriching experiences of the event was precisely listening to presentations on subjects that have little to do with my research area – and, in some cases, are not even among my usual interests.
In times of overloaded schedules, pressure for productivity, and increasing specialization, we tend to circulate more and more within familiar intellectual territories. We gain depth, but often lose breadth. Without realizing it, we begin to see the world through increasingly narrow lenses. Events like the one organized by Fapesp remind us that the great contemporary challenges rarely respect disciplinary boundaries and that, often, the most interesting questions arise precisely in the spaces of intersection between different areas of knowledge.
It was in this context that I participated in conversations about biodiversity, bioeconomy, and the circular economy. The discussions reinforced the perception that we are facing complex issues that require dialogue between different areas of knowledge and are difficult to explain in simple terms.
Extending the conversation beyond the Amazon
Those who follow this column know that we've been discussing our tendency to transform complex phenomena into simple narratives. We do this in politics, economics, education, agriculture, and, naturally, also in debates about biodiversity and bioeconomy.
In international debate, Brazilian biodiversity has become synonymous with the Amazon. Similarly, the bioeconomy is often associated almost exclusively with forest products, socio-biodiversity chains, and activities developed in traditional communities. The Amazon is undoubtedly an extraordinary environmental asset, and socio-biodiversity chains have enormous economic, social, cultural, and environmental relevance. But reducing Brazilian biodiversity to the Amazon is as inadequate as trying to understand the British economy by looking only at the City of London or the American economy by looking only at Silicon Valley. The City and the Valley are important, but they do not exhaust the economic and social diversity of the United Kingdom and the United States.
Brazil is home to six major biomes, each with its own ecological characteristics, distinct histories of settlement, different forms of natural resource use, specific conservation challenges, and particular development opportunities. The Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Caatinga, Pantanal, and Pampas also concentrate valuable biodiversity, traditional knowledge, genetic resources, and often underestimated economic potential.
The implications of this finding are profound. Different biomes demand their own conservation, recovery, and development strategies, expanding the diversity of possible paths for the Brazilian bioeconomy.
Brazil was already a bioeconomy before the bioeconomy existed.
The very idea of bioeconomy deserves closer scrutiny. In recent years, the term has gained enormous popularity and often conveys the impression that we are facing a newly discovered frontier of economic development. In the Brazilian case, however, the story is more complex.
Long before the term entered the vocabulary of public policy, the country was already building wealth, jobs, exports, and productive capacity from the use of biological resources. It was also in this process that some of the contradictions that remain to this day were formed: social inequalities, land conflicts, predatory forms of exploitation of natural resources, and recurring tensions between conservation and development.
From brazilwood to sugar, from coffee to rubber, from planted forests to ethanol, from soy to animal proteins, Brazilian economic history is deeply linked to the use of biological resources. At times, direct extraction prevailed; at others, activities that required investment, productive organization, technical knowledge, and innovation took place.
This is not about romanticizing this trajectory or taking it as a model for the future. It is about recognizing that the relationship between biodiversity and development accompanies the very historical formation of the country, combining opportunities, innovation, conflicts, and contradictions.
There are bioeconomies associated with standing forests, modern agriculture, industry, energy, and health. There are activities that are intensive in technology and others that are strongly supported by traditional knowledge. There is no single biodiversity, and therefore it makes more sense to speak of Brazilian bioeconomies than of a single bioeconomy.
Biodiversity as essential infrastructure for development.
One of the points I sought to highlight in the discussions held in London was the need to change the way we think about biodiversity. Frequently, it is presented as a natural heritage to be conserved or as a source of new products and economic opportunities. Both perspectives are important, but insufficient. We also need to understand it as a strategic asset for development.
The comparison may seem strange. When we talk about infrastructure, we usually think of roads, ports, energy, telecommunications, or sanitation. But biodiversity is an infrastructure that plays increasingly essential roles in development: the regulation of hydrological cycles, soil protection, pollination, maintenance of water quality, climate regulation, and the very resilience of production systems depend, to a greater or lesser degree, on the integrity of ecosystems. Its importance goes far beyond agriculture and affects, albeit unequally, all activities, spaces, and social groups.
The difference is that we immediately perceive the impact of a bridge collapsing or a power outage. The degradation of natural systems, however, is usually gradual and silent. When its effects become evident, the economic, social, and environmental costs are generally already high.
Brazil is already beginning to experience some of these consequences. Prolonged droughts, more frequent extreme weather events, changes in rainfall patterns, and increased vulnerability of productive activities show that the services provided by ecosystems cannot be taken for granted. Although it is simplistic to attribute these phenomena to a single cause, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the relationship between environmental degradation, climate change, and the loss of resilience of natural systems.
This shift in perspective helps overcome a false dichotomy that often dominates public debate: the idea that conservation and development are incompatible goals. If biodiversity is part of the infrastructure that sustains production, innovation, and well-being, the question ceases to be how much development we are willing to sacrifice to conserve it and becomes how much development we can sustain if we continue to degrade the natural systems on which we depend.
Perhaps this is one of the most important conversations of our time. Not to oppose conservation and development, but to understand them as complementary dimensions of the same long-term strategy.
Opportunities, challenges and contradictions
We often hear that biodiversity represents an extraordinary opportunity for Brazil's development. This statement is true. New foods, medicines, cosmetics, biomaterials, energy sources, and countless other applications can generate wealth, jobs, and innovation. But there is an important difference between potential and reality.
Decrees, speeches, and good intentions do not generate development. Between biological potential and economic and social benefits lies a long road involving research, innovation, investment, institutions, and governance. Producing knowledge is indispensable – and FAPESP has made an important contribution in this field – but it is not sufficient. It is necessary to create conditions to transform knowledge into products, processes, businesses, and concrete opportunities for the populations of different territories.
This dimension is particularly important because biodiversity is not just environmental heritage. For millions of people, it also forms the basis of their livelihoods. The challenge is not only to conserve biodiversity, but to ensure that it contributes to improving the living conditions of the populations that depend on it. It is precisely here that some of the most difficult tensions in contemporary debate arise, and the question becomes one of reconciling environmental protection and income generation, local interests and global concerns, traditional knowledge and modern science, economic use and preservation of natural resources.
Reality is often less comfortable than slogans. Development can generate environmental pressures. Conservation can create economic opportunities, but also impose restrictions. Innovation can reduce environmental impacts or amplify them. The results depend less on universal solutions and more on the ability to build institutions capable of managing legitimate, but often conflicting, interests.
Building the bioeconomies of the future.
The discussions held in London reinforced an important perception: although interest in Brazilian biodiversity is enormous, many questions remain unanswered. The good news is that a robust research agenda is already under construction, involving universities, research centers, funding agencies, and international organizations. But the complexity of the subject demands further progress, mobilizing more groups, institutions, states, and the federal government.
We still need to develop better ways to measure the economic, social, and environmental value of biodiversity; understand the factors that determine the success or failure of different bioeconomies; assess impacts; distribute benefits more equitably; and build governance mechanisms capable of reconciling conservation, innovation, and development.
Brazil is exceptionally well-positioned to contribute to this agenda. This is not only due to its rich biological heritage and accumulated scientific and institutional expertise, but also because of the opportunity to help answer one of the central questions of the 21st century: how to transform the country's extraordinary biological diversity into multiple development pathways without compromising the natural systems that make them possible?
I cannot conclude this conversation without thanking Fapesp for the initiative and the invitation, and Professors Camila Veneo C. Fonseca (Institute of Economics, Unicamp), Maria Beatriz Machado Bonacelli (Institute of Geosciences, Unicamp), and Maria Sylvia Macchione Saes (Faculty of Economics, Administration, Accounting and Actuarial Science, University of São Paulo), whose contributions enriched my participation in the event and this reflection.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
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