| Summary: | In a scenario where climate change affects the Amazonian environment, it is necessary to develop an economy that helps keep the forest standing. Much of the work in this direction has sought to prove the feasibility of plant extractivism systems or the market potential of their products, based on the principles of sustainable development or, more recently, of bioeconomy. In addition to traditional productions, new products, such as açaí or tambaqui, have gained considerable and sometimes global markets in recent decades. But are these various dynamics sufficient to change the game and reverse the predatory and destructive use of the Amazon?To answer this question, this article explores statistics to dimension the economy linked to products connected with Amazonian biodiversity and compares it with the general context. It also analyzes recurring bottlenecks and difficulties that prevent from counterbalancing other activities less aligned with the preservation of the forest. We show that the economy based on Amazonian products has progressed considerably since 2010 and today represents a strong component in some municipalities of the Brazilian Amazon, but that the situation varies a lot at the sub-regional level. Compared to other economic activities, it remains small and does not yet have the potential to leverage the income of the entire local population.Among the difficulties for the development of an economy based on the potential of the forest, we point out that the Amazon offers dispersed and diverse resources whose extraction can never compete with homogeneous and concentrated productions that achieve a very low production cost. We conclude that a change of paradigm of the world economic system is necessary so that the competition is more equal and the products of the Amazon are more valued.
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