The productive potential of forest-related goods and services in the Amazon is enormous. The region hosts about 10 to 15% of the planet’s biodiversity and up to 25% of terrestrial biodiversity. However, this potential seems to be wasted when practically all products that are compatible with keeping the forest standing have a relatively very small participation in the global value chain. This fact is illustrated in the visualization below, which lists the main products compatible with the forest that the Legal Amazon exports. The ranking is ordered by the most relevant products in terms of participation in international trade in 2019. In first place is dried or crushed peppers, a product in which Brazil represents only 1.9% of global exports. The second product with the highest participation are seeds and oleaginous fruits, with only 0.5% of exports. Dried fish and live fish take third and fourth place, with 0.4% and 0.3%, respectively. The definition of products compatible with the forest was based on work “Oportunidades para Exportação de Produtos Compatíveis com a Floresta na Amazônia Brasileira” developed under Amazônia 2030. To learn more about opportunities, challenges and strategies to support the production of these products, read here.
The foreign trade data used are compiled from COMEX and BACI through the datazoom.amazonia package in R.
Do you want to explore more about the Legal Amazon microdata? Visit our page on GitHub here.