BARCELONA — In December 2022, one of Brazil’s largest Indigenous territories and one of the smallest would each sign a 118-page, 10-year contract they would soon come to regret —as would faraway investors looking to capitalize on the billion-dollar carbon and biodiversity markets. In Brazil’s lush westernmost states of Amazonas and Acre, which border Peru, entities promising to turn rainforests into green gold have persuaded Indigenous communities to grant them exclusive rights to trade the ecosystem services provided by their lands, a Mongabay investigation has found. The contracts covered the trade in nature-based solutions, an umbrella term covering a wide range of ecosystem services, from carbon sequestration to produce and biodiversity. The projects, covering more than 8.5 million hectares (21 million acres), failed to materialize in Brazil, with communities pleading to end the contracts, and one carbon certification program issuing a cease-and-desist letter. But the initiator of the scheme continued marketing the deals online and signed at least two more contracts without adequate consent from communities in the lowlands of Bolivia. The three entities that approached Indigenous representatives in Brazil are Biota, a family-run cooperative from Argentina peddling herbal products and nature-based solutions; Biotapass, a related “climatech” startup registered in Spain and the subject of a criminal case; and their Brazilian fixer, Comtxae, which used to provide satellite internet and solar panels to Indigenous villages and nonprofits. As inquiries from Brazil’s Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Police are ongoing and Indigenous leaders worry about the validity of the contracts,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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