From the Amazon Rainforest to the Cerrado savanna, enterprises led by Indigenous and traditional communities play a vital role in protecting forests and restoring degraded Brazilian landscapes. At the same time, they provide an important source of income for marginalized groups, strengthening Brazil’s bioeconomy environment. Sustainable forest-based businesses include the harvesting of açaí berries (Euterpe oleracea) and Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa), and the production of andiroba oil (Carapa guianensis). They also cover agroecological and agroforestry farming, community-based ecotourism, restoration and reforestation services, and the production of cultural goods such as artisanal crafts. Some of these projects even create community-level financial mechanisms, like cooperative banks. Yet many setbacks prevent them from scaling up. Problems range from initiatives not being formally recognized as businesses by conventional financial institutions, to barriers to accessing Brazilian administrative and regulatory infrastructure — such as registration systems, licensing and operational support, all needed to establish and run a business. “One of the main challenges faced by Indigenous peoples and traditional communities lies in how most financing mechanisms are structured,” Rose Apurinã, deputy director of Podáali, an Indigenous-run fund for the Brazilian Amazon, told Mongabay. “They are based on external, colonial and centralized logics that disregard these peoples’ own forms of social organization.” She added, “The majority of grant opportunities and funding sources impose technical, bureaucratic and institutional barriers that make it difficult — or even impossible — for people in the territories to access resources directly.” Açaí extraction provides income for local communities while helping to keep…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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