Amazon Bioeconomy: Extractive Cycle or Structural Transformation?

Abstract

Bioeconomy strategies have emerged as prominent tools for aligning economic development with environmental sustainability. In the Amazon, these strategies are often promoted as greener alternatives to deforestation-based growth. However, this paper argues that current Amazonian bioeconomy models risk reproducing historical patterns of extractivism under a sustainability discourse. We conceptualize this contradiction as green extractivism, meaning a mode of resource use where nominally sustainable practices preserve external control, reinforce value drain, and marginalize local innovation and governance. Drawing on structuralist development theory and political ecology, we position the Amazon bioeconomy within a landscape of competing paradigms: pro-growth technological innovation, market-based circularity, and critical ecological models. We introduce the concept of a developmental bioeconomy, grounded in structural transformation, strong sustainability, and territorial governance. Through an analysis of institutional patterns, value chains, and emerging financial mechanisms such as carbon markets, we identify three critical constraints in the current model: structural stagnation, green extractivism, and speculative financialization. These dynamics prevent the Amazon bioeconomy from generating inclusive prosperity or enabling regional autonomy. As an alternative, we propose a developmental strategy focused on local value capture, participatory institutions, and public-cooperative financing structures. This reorientation would transform biodiversity and ecological wealth into foundations for local-driven innovation and equity-driven development. Our findings highlight the need to rethink sustainability frameworks in peripheral regions and to realign conservation and climate finance with territorial justice.

Received: 11 February 2025 | Revised: 19 November 2025 | Accepted: 17 December 2025

Conflicts of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Author Contribution Statement

Daniel Silva: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing original draft, review & editing.