Notícias

A bioeconomia já está prosperando em lugares onde nem imaginamos

14 de novembro de 2026

From community forestry in the Congo Basin to bio-based cooperatives in the Amazon, local economies have been generating livelihoods while protecting ecosystems for centuries. Yet they rarely show up in the statistics, investment decisions and markets that shape the bioeconomy. The Bioeconomy Challenge is examining how these community-led models can gain global recognition, investment and market access without losing what makes them sustainable and inclusive.

A pair of sneakers, a bag of Brazil nuts and a stretch of standing Amazon forest can share the same origin. In the Brazilian state of Acre, 540 forest families sell wild rubber to a French company that makes sneaker soles, and harvest Brazil nuts for buyers in 11 countries. Across Africa, around 16 million women earn income from shea trees, whose nuts are processed into butter for the global food and cosmetics industries.

Neither fits the picture many people have of the bioeconomy: biorefineries, biotechnology labs or plant-based plastics. At the same time, both are economies built on nature and traditional knowledge, earning income from forests and rivers while keeping them productive.

These activities already represent significant economic value. WRI Brasil research estimates that the bioeconomy generates around R$12 billion (approximately €2 billion) annually just in the Brazilian Amazon.

Even so, these economies remain largely absent from economic and policy planning, according to Joana Oliveira de Oliveira of WRI Brasil. “If governments, the financial sector and markets recognise that opportunity, they’ll see not only the potential, but the existing realities that are not being made visible by macroeconomics, political planning or strategic planning,” she says.

This is one of the focuses of the Bioeconomy Challenge’s Sociobioeconomy Working Group, led by the World Resources Institute (WRI), which is looking at how community-led economic activities can be recognised and supported within the growing global bioeconomy.

Same roots, many names

Across the world, communities have long built livelihoods around nature and traditional knowledge, but similar activities may be described using different terms. In Brazil, sociobioeconomy is a widely used term for economic activities led by local and traditional communities, rooted in their cultures and designed to sustain, and often restore the ecosystems they depend on. In Peru, it is called bio-businesses, economía de la Madre Tierra in Ecuador and community forestry in Nepal.

“The strength of the sociobioeconomy lies in building on experiences, projects and practices that have been rooted in different territories for generations, while also embracing innovations that are co-developed with communities and contribute to more sustainable and inclusive approaches,” Oliveira explains.

As Oliveira argues, communities should be treated as political and economic actors, not simply as beneficiaries of development initiatives: people who make decisions about their territories, run businesses and negotiate prices, rather than suppliers at the end of someone else’s value chain.

Finding common ground without imposing one model

The G20 High-Level Principles on Bioeconomy, agreed under Brazil’s presidency in 2024, provide the first international foundation for what a good bioeconomy should look like. But they do not specifically define the term ‘sociobioeconomy’.

Finding that common ground is challenging. For example, what does a ‘territory’ mean for a fishing community that relies on shared coastal waters, or for farmers on small plots at a city’s edge, rather than for forest communities with collective land rights? How can a global framework consider the different groups involved, from Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendant communities to family farmers, without forcing them into a single category? And on what terms should larger companies take part, given the imbalance in negotiating power they often bring?

Rather than beginning with a rigid or theoretical definition, the Sociobioeconomy Working Group is identifying common premises that can connect these different approaches. Emerging areas of agreement include ecological integrity, territorial rights, livelihoods and prosperity, benefit-sharing, and the creation and retention of economic value within communities and territories.

What distinguishes sociobioeconomy from broader approaches to bioeconomy is its strong emphasis on people, inclusion, and territorial rights. It also recognizes biodiversity and ecological regeneration not only as environmental goals, but as essential foundations for local economic activities. Their benefits, including water, soil and climate regulation, can also extend well beyond the territories where they originate.

The aim is not to make every community enterprise fit the same definition or model, but to find common ground that helps recognise these diverse economies and inform better policies, financing and market approaches. This includes whether ecosystems stay healthy and economic value stays in the territories where it is generated, and whether communities have a meaningful role in decisions and share fairly in the benefits.

What finance, markets and metrics are missing

National statistics and trade data rarely capture what sociobioeconomy produces. The Bioeconomy Challenge’s Metrics and Indicators Working Group found that the bioeconomy indicators used by the countries assessed, focused heavily on economic performance, while the Market Development and Trade Working Group found that many bio-based products lacked their own customs codes.

As a result, a forest cooperative can be thriving but still look marginal on paper, leaving governments with little basis for designing incentives, procurement rules or credit lines that would help it grow. The same invisibility makes finance harder to access. Community enterprises often lack the steady revenues that lenders ask for, and forest-based production can take years to pay back. Finance designed for large commercial enterprises also rarely suits the realities of community-led businesses, with their seasonal harvests, collective decision-making, and shared ownership of land and resources.

On the market side, the rubber from Acre that ends up in sneaker soles shows what a long-term relationship between buyers and forest producers can achieve. The Working Group’s discussions point to what makes these relationships work: stable sourcing agreements, fairer sharing of risk and value, and more processing close to where products originate. Together, these conditions help keep more of the value in the local territories where it is generated.

Putting people at the centre of the Bioeconomy Challenge

Launched at COP30 in Belém in November 2025, the Bioeconomy Challenge is advancing practical work across four interconnected areas of the bioeconomy.

For Oliveira, the next test is whether the group’s findings shape the initiative’s wider work. “How do we guarantee that the advancements, conclusions and recommendations of the Sociobioeconomy Working Group are actually taken into account and reflected in the outcomes of the other Working Groups?”

One immediate opportunity is in metrics, where the indicators assessed so far have focused mainly on economic performance. As the Metrics Working Group of the Bioeconomy Challenge, led by FAO, develops recommendations for a common set of bioeconomy indicators, Oliveira sees an opening to ensure that social and environmental outcomes are considered too.

Looking towards 2027, the Working Group aims to build on these shared premises to help community-led economies gain greater recognition and inform policies, financing, markets and indicators that better reflect their realities. A key priority is to bring these perspectives into the broader work of the Bioeconomy Challenge.

The opportunity now is to help existing local economies grow on their own terms, with better access to finance and markets, greater recognition in policy, and more of the value they create staying with the people and territories that sustain them. This means strengthening local institutions, governance and the ability of communities to shape their own economic pathways – not simply increasing production or the size of individual businesses. The bioeconomy is already thriving; we just need to know where to look.