- Ahead of hosting 2025’s COP30 climate summit, Belém is betting on the development of products such as honey-based spirits, digital glasses from local wood and jambu-infused medicine at a local tech park.
- The Guamá Science and Technology Park (PCT), operating since 2010 and the first of its kind in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, uses technology to transform forest-based resources into high-value products.
- It’s a step toward building a sustainable and thriving billion-dollar bioeconomy that provides local populations with alternatives to deforestation and increases the appeal of sustainably harvesting the region’s resources.
- Future plans include expanding the park for further innovation and to build more science and technology parks in the Amazon as well as fostering networks with other Pan Amazonian countries with similar hubs such as Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
BELÉM, Brazil — Two white-coated lab technicians, surrounded by whirring machines and sterile workstations, drip liquids into beakers and analyze data on computer screens. A collection of Amazonian fruits and seeds are spread out on a lab bench. In front are mini bottles of essential oils extracted from these resources. Behind them are sheets of bioplastic that could be future plastic alternatives.
These are the creations of the Amazon Oils Laboratory, LOA, which produces natural oils and butters from plants and seeds found in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest for use in foods, cosmetics and health products for several large national and multinational companies. They also develop bioplastics and biofuels from oil extraction waste, which can amount to up to five times the oil produced.
“We’ve been investigating ways to promote the production of biodiesel from alternative sources, such as inedible oils or those with limited use in human food,” Luís Adriano Nascimento, a chemist and vice coordinator at the LOA, told Mongabay. “It’s a circular economy, making the most of all this potential. It’s waste that can be turned into an income.”
It’s just one example of research and developments from the Guamá Science and Technology Park (PCT) in Belém in the state of Pará. The park’s 12 laboratories, or research and development centers, are a hub of applied research exploring all sorts of forest-based solutions for market demands and supporting sustainable entrepreneurship across a wide range of sectors, including pharmaceuticals, technology, cosmetics and energy.
“The idea is to have a place where we can have a strong connection between the triple helix — the government, academia and the private sector demands — and provide technological support,” Rodrigo Quites Reis, the president-director of the Guamá Foundation, told Mongabay. “[PCT] seeks to make the knowledge within local universities reach those who demand it more easily.”
The park was inaugurated in 2010 in a collaboration between the Federal University of Pará, the Federal Rural University of Amazonia and Pará’s state government. Today, more than 40 resident companies and about 80 temporary associates collaborate with university researchers to transform local knowledge into marketable products and services.
It’s a step toward building a thriving and sustainable bioeconomy as an alternative to clearing land to expand agribusiness in the rainforest. Pará, a Brazilian state two times the size of France, relies on extractivism, agriculture and livestock for its economy.
Developing new products and technological applications for Pará’s biodiversity adds value to the state’s abundant raw materials. This approach sparks hope for a preserved rainforest, an essential carbon sink and climate regulator for the globe, by providing alternatives to deforestation and increasing the attractiveness of sustainably exploiting the region’s resources.
A study by the World Resources Institute and the New Climate Economy found that low-carbon agriculture practices and a boosted bioeconomy could pump 40 billion reais ($7 billion) GDP per year into the Brazilian Amazon.
“We have an important role in supporting these extractive communities, which will often become startups,” Reis said. “They will be the main stakeholders in ensuring that the water and standing forest is preserved, because they depend on it for their livelihood.”
Pará’s economic growth has traditionally relied on unsustainable practices like agricultural expansion for crops and cattle ranching, mining and constructing two large hydroelectric plants. Since 1988, when deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon began to be monitored and recorded, this approach has kept Pará among the states with the highest deforestation rates.
“We need to think of another way for the development of our state because these projects don’t respect our land,” Reis said. “We don’t need to expand this agricultural frontier — we have to take advantage and optimize the use of what has already been devastated and preserve everything else.”
Building a bioeconomy
Ahead of hosting the 2025 COP30 climate summit, the Pará government is betting on the bioeconomy. In 2021, governor Helder Barbalho announced a 472 million reais ($84 million) investment in this sector. The PCT project received at least 80 million reais ($14.4 million) initially for its construction, with another 11 million reais ($1.9 million) planned for a new sustainability-focused building.
A major advantage of having researchers, labs and businesses all under one roof is the rapid translation of ideas into market-ready products. What once took up to a year now happens almost instantly, allowing products such as Amazonian honey-based spirits, digital glasses from local wood and jambu-infused medicinal items to reach the market quickly.
“PCT makes the universities’ lab relationship with companies much more agile and efficient,” Nascimento said. “Less bureaucracy, more visibility, more publicity.”
The obvious upside is the financial gains, but there are other advantages, such as saving local species. In one of the labs, two large cylinders brew a honey-based spirit, a sweet yet potent mead resulting from a six-year study of stingless bees across several communities in Pará. Unlike the sweet honey from stinging bees, honey from stingless bees has 40% more water and higher acidity, making it difficult to market. A researcher and production engineer at PTC, Ana Lídia Zoni, found a way to transform it into a viable product: Uruçun, a 100% Amazonian take on hydromel, or mead, the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage traditionally made from water, honey and yeast.
Now, two companies in the park produce 5,000 liters (1,320 gallons) of the drink per year, with plans to increase it to 25,000 this year. It supports 300 family farming communities across the state, involving nearly 3,000 people.
“Thirty years ago, these stingless bees were endangered, and since then, work has been done to maintain them,” Zoni said in an official statement. “Bees are responsible for 85% of the entire plant chain base in the world, so why not support a business like this, since we work with the bioeconomy, with the defense of nature.”
Elsewhere in the park, researchers study biocompounds in cacao, identifying compounds that can help prevent ailments such as diabetes and heart disease. The idea is to produce a “functional chocolate,” Giulia Lima, a researcher at the Center for the Valorization of Bioactive Compounds of the Amazon (CVACBA), said in an official statement. “It is possible to choose the cacao beans that have the largest amount of [health-benefiting] compounds to meet the needs of consumers who are interested in these properties.”
Research like this can increase the value of cacao, the raw material of chocolate. Pará is the largest cacao producer in Brazil, accounting for more than 50% of national production. The state also dominates açaí production, contributing 98% of the country’s supply. CVACBA evaluates açaí quality and offers certificates that add value to these products.
“Many producers seek this quality certification because those who are buying açaí look for this type of quality,” Jesus Nazareno de Souza, coordinator of CVACBA, told Mongabay.
The solutions extend beyond foods. Jambu, a traditional plant-based ingredient in Pará known for its numbing effect, is being explored for use in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, including anti-aging creams and for oral health. Digital innovations are also in focus. For instance, Inteceleri’s MiritiBoard VR glasses, made from Amazonian miriti palm (Mauritia flexuosa) fiber, are an educational tool that works with mobile phones to create virtual learning environments for both teachers and students. The park also hosts R&D centers for energy efficiency and biodiversity and is home to Brazil’s space agency, INPE, which uses satellite technology to monitor Amazon and Cerrado deforestation.
“Our main role is making the connection between those [private companies] who have a demand and those who have a technological solution to this problem,” Reis said.
Future growth
PCT prioritizes value over volume, meaning that demand for new forest-based products won’t lead to scaling up resources and mass production that is harmful to the rainforest, according to Reis. “The Amazon does not produce in quantity. If you want quantity, you are harming these extractive communities,” he said. “What we can do is produce quality.”
There are 57 science and technology parks in Brazil, yet the PCT is the first and only one located in the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. The others are mostly concentrated in the country’s south and up the coastline, where lie Brazil’s largest and richest cities. Plans are being made in the northwestern state of Amazonas near Brazil’s triple border with Peru and Colombia to create a similar park. There are also hopes to have a multinational alliance with other Pan Amazon countries, such as Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, which have their own technology parks.
Closer by in Belém, a new Bioeconomy Park should be established by the end of 2024, and there’s also a project to create a green hydrogen production plant using food scraps and fruit waste as fuel.
“We need this development model to spread throughout the Amazonian region,” Reis said. “We need to support the population that wants to develop the region in a sustainable way; to have more space for more companies to set up shop here.”
Banner image: Luís Adriano Nascimento, chemist and vice-coordinator of the Laboratório de Óleos da Amazônia (Amazon Oils Laboratory, LOA), stands at a lab bench with a wide collection of Amazonian fruits and seeds used to make oils, biofuels and bioplastics. Image by Sarah Brown.
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