The Amazon in the Limelight: An Opportunity for Biotech in Brazil
March 13, 2023
By Golgher, D, Rodrigues, R, Kunisawa, V and Campello R.
The Amazon needs help. Climate change and loss of biodiversity has brought together different parties. Individuals, public and private organizations, and philanthropic and non-governmental bodies are working to safeguard one of the world’s most important biomes. Brazil has more biodiversity and more of the Amazon rainforest than any other country. It is a big responsibility. Care with the Amazon is one of the reasons the majority of the population voted to change the government in 2022.
The rainforest has 400 billion, or thirteen percent, of the world’s trees, which support a wide range of animal species. Just one of these trees can have more ant species than the entire United Kingdom, for example, and biome as a whole is home to fourteen percent of the birds, nine percent of the mammals, and eight percent of the amphibians in the tropics. Here, one gram of soil can contain more than 1,000 species of fungus, and together the soil and vegetation store more than 150 billion tons of carbon. The rivers are home to 13 percent of the planet’s freshwater fishes, 58 percent of which are not found anywhere else on the planet. The are also supports diverse human populations: there are 410 Indigenous groups that speak 300 different languages. The preservation of the rainforest, a major international responsibility, could also be an opportunity for a mindset development.1
This article highlights how the current circumstances favor the creation of innovative bio-businesses in Brazil. The text bears the lenses not of specialists of the forest (there are many references for this)2, but of a team that has worked on different aspects of biotech-related projects for decades.
The framework
The legal Amazon is composed of nine Brazilian states and corresponds to 61 percent of the country’s territory.3 A large area that is diverse in the range of long-standing (and new) problems, the region contains challenges that can be overwhelming. How to preserve a standing forest and promote socioeconomic development in territories that are riddled with their own peculiarities is not an easy task. Several organizations are working hard on this. Table I lists some of them.
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More:
https://www.genengnews.com/commentary/point-of-view/the-amazon-in-the-limelight-an-opportunity-for-biotech-in-brazil/
