The Amazon biome is one of the most biodiverse regions of the globe. The world’s largest rainforest covers an area of more than 5.5 million km2 and spans nine countries. Harboring approximately 10% of all known plant and animal species on Earth, it is a true biodiversity hotspot. Also called the “earth’s lungs”, the Amazon is estimated to produce at least 20% of the planet’s oxygen. The biome’s density in rainforests easily absorbs 2.2 billion metric tons of CO2 every year.
Yet, this vital biome has never faced higher risks of extinction, arising from land use change, deforestation through intensive monoculture and a hunger for resources in a world of overconsumption. With ongoing demand for land, the pressure on ecosystem service outputs increases. Thus, conservation and – where widescale damage has already been done – restoration are crucial.
The Amazon Biodiversity Fund
The precarious situation in the Amazon requires unlocking significant private investments. However, the risks and challenges of working in the rural areas of the Amazon have precluded many impact actors from investing thus far.
Impact Earth is an impact fund manager dedicated to co-building the impact economy in frontier markets and has become a partner of the Restoration Seed Capital Facility (RSCF) in 2023. They act as investment advisor to the Amazon Biodiversity Fund, providing venture and early growth funding to impactful enterprises and projects aiming at conserving or restoring local ecosystems, strengthening smallholder value chains, enabling sustainable agriculture value chains, and providing innovative solutions.
Supported by the RSCF, the Impact Earth’s team looks at developing and enabling projects that can have a transformational positive impact on climate and biodiversity as well as providing additional economic benefits and wellbeing to local communities. The Facility is indeed providing early-stage pipeline building support as well as project development support for the Amazon Biodiversity Fund which reached a final close size of approximately USD 50 million.
The fund is actively investing and has already finalised 8 transactions. Examples include Cacau Amazonia, a newly created company to support the development of a regenerative cacao value chain in Rondônia state, implementing a first program of 200 hectares of agroforestry systems alongside 600 hectares of ecological restoration with 200 smallholder farmers; and Inocas Amazonia, created with the support of ABF, in order to promote sustainable Macaúba production in the transition zones, with a zero-deforestation target and working with smallholders via an out-grower model.
