An international project led by a Penn State team is helping to identify how community-based bioeconomies - economic systems that use renewable biological resources like plants and microorganisms to produce food, energy and industrial goods - in the Brazilian Amazon can support forest conservation while increasing income opportunities for the traditional and Indigenous communities that protect and manage these landscapes. The project is helping launch an initiative to connect global research and development specialists with Amazonian innovators to co-develop technologies that add value to Amazonian biodiversity while creating income for communities that help protect the forest. Faculty, researchers and technical specialists are invited to apply by June 30.
Funded by the Bezos Earth Fund, the project brings together Penn State and Brazilian partners Rede Terra do Meio, Cooperacre, Instituto Socioambiental and Institute of Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon (IDESAM) to assess technology opportunities for forest-protecting bioeconomy solutions in the Terra do Meio region of Pará and related forest-based value chains - the sequences of activities required to bring forest products to consumers - in Acre. The collaboration focuses on evaluating the technological feasibility, adaptability and economic potential of innovations that can strengthen community-based forest production systems.
