Does Keeping Brazil Alive Also Produce Wealth? - Brazil 2026 Presidential Election

Forests, water, agriculture, Indigenous peoples, and BrainLatam’s Biome Income proposal

A felled tree quickly begins to produce numbers.

Timber.

Freight.

Invoices.

Taxes.

Jobs.

Exports.

GDP.

A tree that remains alive produces something else.

Humidity.

Shade.

Soil.

Habitat.

Water.

Stored carbon.

Possibilities for what has not yet even been born.

But where do those values appear?

Perhaps we can begin Blog 10 of the Brazil 2026 Presidential Election series with this strangeness:

Why does transforming a territory generate immediate income, while maintaining the conditions that allow its continuity rarely generates equivalent income for those who sustain it?

The Brazilian Constitution already recognizes an ecologically balanced environment as essential to quality of life and determines that ecological processes must be preserved for present and future generations. (tse.jus.br)

But legally recognizing that something is essential does not yet mean economically recognizing those who keep it alive.

This is where we arrive at Biome Income.

It is not Lula’s proposal.

It is not Flávio Bolsonaro’s proposal.

It is not Zema’s, Caiado’s, Cury’s, or any other candidate’s proposal.

It is a BrainLatam expansion.

Before talking about income, we need to perceive what a biome does

Perhaps a standing forest appears inactive because our economy learned to see more clearly what leaves a territory than what continues to happen within it.

Think about water.

Brazilian researchers Vinícius Chagas and Pedro Chaffe showed in 2022 that deforestation and water use are already amplifying extremes in Brazil’s hydrological cycle. In important parts of the country, droughts and floods become more intense precisely because of the interaction between climate and landscape transformation. (nature.com)

José Marengo, Ana Paula Cunha, Luiz Aragão, and collaborators found increasing climate pressure precisely in the Amazon-Cerrado transition zone, with higher temperatures, reduced humidity, delayed rainfall, and greater fire risk in a region central to Brazilian agricultural production. (nature.com)

So perhaps there is something our traditional economic indicators still describe poorly.

The forest also participates in agriculture taking place far away from it.

Water also produces soybeans.

Humidity also produces corn.

Biodiversity also produces medicines.

Conserved soil also produces future possibilities.

And a protected Indigenous territory can generate benefits that reach people who will never enter it.

A 2023 study estimated that protecting Indigenous Lands in the Brazilian Amazon reduces exposure to particulate matter associated with fires and, in doing so, prevents cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and their economic costs. (nature.com)

Who produced that wealth?

Perhaps “untouched nature” is also an incomplete idea

Here a Decolonial Neuroscience needs to broaden the question.

For a long time, part of the Western imagination described the Amazon as an almost empty forest, separating “nature” from “society.”

But Latin American archaeology has been dismantling that image.

Laura Furquim, Eduardo Góes Neves, Myrtle Shock, and Jennifer Watling brought together in 2023 evidence of thousands of years of Indigenous management, cultivation, fire use, and transformation of Amazonian biodiversity.

The forest we encounter today also carries histories of long-term human relationships. (repositorio.usp.br)

In other words:

Keeping a biome alive does not necessarily mean leaving it untouched.

It can mean knowing how to live with it without destroying the conditions of continuity.

This resonates deeply with Ailton Krenak in Ancestral Future, published in 2022.

Krenak invites us to abandon the idea of rivers, mountains, and forests as mere resources waiting to be used, and instead perceive relationships that precede our own presence. (companhiadasletras.com.br)

Perhaps the economic problem begins when we transform a relationship into stock.

Forest becomes timber.

River becomes megawatts.

Mountain becomes ore.

Soil becomes productive hectares.

And what was not removed appears as though it had not yet produced wealth.

But who keeps the forest alive?

In 2023, a group including Brazilian researchers and members of the Baniwa, Munduruku, Huni Kui, Jenipapo-Kanindé, and Tremembé peoples discussed pathways for protecting nature, territory, and well-being in Amazonia.

The article notes that Indigenous Lands occupy about one quarter of the Brazilian Amazon and play a central role in maintaining biodiversity, carbon, and ecological systems, while also arguing that environmental policies must be built with the intellectual and territorial sovereignty of the peoples who live there. (nature.com)

Another 2023 study confirmed that Indigenous Lands and protected areas remain important instruments for containing forest loss, even while facing increasing pressure from deforestation and illegal mining. (nature.com)

Perhaps we can then ask a different question.

If a Body-Territory spends years protecting a region against invasions, fires, illegal mining, and destruction...

is that work?

If its presence keeps forests, water, and biodiversity alive in ways that benefit millions of other Body-Territories...

does that produce wealth?

The candidates are already beginning to perceive part of this

When we look at the plans in the Brazil 2026 Presidential Election, something interesting appears.

There are profound political differences, but several candidacies already recognize that conservation should no longer be treated only as an obligation.

Lula proposes continuing the transition toward a low-carbon economy, expanding Indigenous territorial protection, and improving Payments for Environmental Services, including programs connected to biodiversity and biocultural restoration. His program also speaks of transforming biodiversity and clean energy into economic and technological advantages. (tse.jus.br)

Flávio Bolsonaro formulates this perhaps even more directly. His plan states that “preserving must generate opportunity,” proposes expanding payments for environmental services, and remunerating producers, communities, and landowners who conserve vegetation and water. It also sets a target of eliminating illegal deforestation by 2029 and proposes AI, satellites, and data integration to combat environmental crimes. (tse.jus.br)

Augusto Cury proposes Payments for Environmental Services, bioeconomy, carbon markets, regenerative agriculture, and compensation for producers who preserve native vegetation. His program also presents the Forest Alive project, using AI, satellites, drones, and climate models for environmental protection. (tse.jus.br)

Ronaldo Caiado moves in a similar direction by proposing large-scale PSA programs for water, soil, biodiversity, and carbon, explicitly including Indigenous peoples, Quilombola communities, and traditional communities. His program also speaks of “generating income for those who conserve the forest” and retaining a larger share of bioeconomy value within the territory itself. (tse.jus.br)

Romeu Zema proposes transforming environmental assets into wealth, expanding carbon markets, developing the bioeconomy, and making Brazil a major provider of carbon removals, while also combating illegal mining and seeking economic use of existing mining waste. (tse.jus.br)

Renan Santos concentrates much of his material agenda on rare earths. His diagnosis is that wealth underground is not enough: without science, refining, and industry, the country exports ore and imports dependence. (tse.jus.br)

Samara Martins presents a very different position: she questions foreign exploitation of Brazilian wealth and proposes reversing agreements that her program associates with the surrender of rare earths and the Alcântara Base. (tse.jus.br)

Edmilson Costa proposes reducing the pace of oil extraction and directing its revenues toward research and the progressive replacement of fossil fuels with clean energy. (tse.jus.br)

Hertz Dias supports biome recovery, agroecology, territorial demarcation, and opposes oil exploration on the Equatorial Margin. (tse.jus.br)

Rui Costa Pimenta concentrates his proposal on sovereignty and ownership: oil and mineral reserves should be state-owned and their revenues directed toward domestic social needs. (tse.jus.br)

Wilson Grassi proposes traceability to combat deforestation, using Brazil’s renewable energy matrix as an industrial advantage, and opening debate on mining in Indigenous territories with consultation, direct economic participation by communities, and environmental responsibility. (tse.jus.br)

In Clariana Barão’s more concise plan, we find energy security, infrastructure, and higher-value-added exports, but not an environmental architecture with the same level of detail as in the programs above. (tse.jus.br)

For Pablo Marçal, the official TSE repository consulted for this article still does not present an equivalent registered plan, so we will not infer an environmental policy without an official document. (tse.jus.br)

So why do we need Biome Income?

Because Payments for Environmental Services and Biome Income are not exactly the same thing.

PSA usually begins with a transaction:

someone conserves a particular service;

meets specified conditions;

receives compensation.

That can work.

A review published in Ecological Economics in 2023 found better outcomes in the Amazon when payments are stable, transparent, combine monetary and non-monetary benefits, and genuinely involve local populations. (sciencedirect.com)

But there are also limits.

A forest does not produce only carbon.

A people should not have to prove every year that they deserve to continue existing in their territory.

And turning every ecological relationship into a contract can reproduce precisely the logic we are trying to overcome.

Research in Peru has shown, for example, that environmental payment programs can weaken pre-existing Indigenous forms of cooperation and conservation when they replace community relationships with externally designed structures. (sciencedirect.com)

This is where BrainLatam proposes another layer.

Biome Income

Biome Income would begin from a principle:

If ecological continuity produces permanent value for the country, part of that wealth must permanently return to the Body-Territories that make that continuity possible.

Not only when they plant a seedling.

Not only when they sell a carbon credit.

Not only when they sign an environmental contract.

But because keeping a territory alive is itself a form of national production.

How could it work?

We are not proposing simply printing money in proportion to hectares of forest.

Biome Income would need to be based on auditable physical and territorial indicators.

For example:

vegetation integrity;

preserved water;

soil recovery;

biodiversity;

ecological connectivity;

carbon stocks and flows;

reduction in fires;

water quality;

effectively protected territories;

and continuity of sociocultural systems that participate in conservation.

Part of the revenue could come from the Biome Barrel, introduced in Blog 9: fossil production above the national strategic sufficiency range would pay a growing ecological premium.

Another part could come from mining, carbon markets, economic use of biodiversity, environmental fines, royalties, and revenues generated by activities that transform territory intensively.

These resources could form a Sovereign Biome Fund.

And in the BrainLatam model, Biome Income could eventually be distributed through a public infrastructure such as Citizen Drex, interoperable with Pix, without depending on a specific private bank account.

Not as a loan.

Not as debt.

But as economic recognition of wealth that was already being produced.

And who would receive it?

Here we need to avoid creating a new form of green colonialism.

Biome Income cannot mean someone in Brasília looking at a satellite image and deciding alone who “protected the forest better.”

A Decolonial Neuroscience asks for another architecture.

First the territory.

Then the data.

First those who live there.

Then the algorithm.

Indigenous peoples need sovereignty over their forms of organization and knowledge.

Traditional communities need to participate in defining the indicators.

Farmers who regenerate land need to be recognized.

Municipalities that protect water and vegetation should share in the benefits.

And perhaps part of Biome Income could reach all Body-Territories, because a forest protected in Amazonas also participates in water, climate, economy, and health thousands of kilometers away.

The distributive design still needs debate.

But the principle can come first.

Perhaps we have called wealth only what we manage to remove

Ailton Krenak offers us another possibility of future.

Amazonian archaeology shows us that Indigenous peoples were not simply “standing still” inside untouched nature.

They were producing relationships.

Knowledge.

Landscapes.

Food.

Biodiversity.

Continuity.

Perhaps it is our economic system that has not yet learned how to account for this.

In the 5D Body-Territory, the environment is not a backdrop.

The water reaching the body.

The food produced in the soil.

The temperature experienced.

The air breathed.

The possibilities for movement.

All of this participates in lived experience.

That is why keeping a biome alive is not protecting something distant from the citizen.

It is protecting conditions that continuously arrive at the citizen.

In the Brazil 2026 Presidential Election, we can ask every candidate how they intend to produce food, energy, minerals, jobs, and growth.

But perhaps we can now add another question:

Who will be compensated for maintaining the conditions that make all of those forms of production possible?

Because cutting down can generate income once.

Extracting can generate income while the stock lasts.

But perhaps there is another kind of wealth.

The wealth of continuity.

And perhaps Brazil will only discover the true value of its biomes when it can answer:

Shouldn’t those who keep Brazil alive also participate in the wealth they produce?

References

KRENAK, Ailton. Futuro Ancestral. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2022. Reflections from Indigenous thought on rivers, nature, ancestry, and future. (companhiadasletras.com.br)

FURQUIM, Laura P.; NEVES, Eduardo G.; SHOCK, Myrtle P.; WATLING, Jennifer. The Constructed Biodiversity, Forest Management and Use of Fire in Ancient Amazon: An Archaeological Testimony on the Last 14,000 Years of Indigenous History. 2023. DOI 10.1007/978-981-19-6557-9_15. (repositorio.usp.br)

NÓBREGA, Rodolfo L. B.; ALENCAR, Pedro H. L.; BANIWA, Braulina; CORREA, Darlison Munduruku Pinto; CORREA, Domingos Munduruku dos Santos; HUNI KUI, Shyrlene Oliveira da Silva; HUNI KUI, Ninawa Inu Pereira Nunes; JENIPAPO-KANINDÉ, Juliana Alves et al. Co-developing pathways to protect nature, land, territory, and well-being in Amazonia. Communications Earth & Environment, 2023. (nature.com)

SILVA-JUNIOR, Celso H. L. et al. Brazilian Amazon indigenous territories under deforestation pressure. Scientific Reports, 2023. DOI 10.1038/s41598-023-32746-7. (nature.com)

PRIST, Paula R. et al. Protecting Brazilian Amazon Indigenous territories reduces atmospheric particulates and avoids associated health impacts and costs. Communications Earth & Environment, 2023. (nature.com)

CHAGAS, Vinícius B. P.; CHAFFE, Pedro L. B.; BLÖSCHL, Günter. Climate and land management accelerate the Brazilian water cycle. Nature Communications, 2022. DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-32580-x. (nature.com)

MARENGO, José A.; JIMENEZ, Juan C.; ESPINOZA, Jhan-Carlo; CUNHA, Ana Paula; ARAGÃO, Luiz E. O. C. Increased climate pressure on the agricultural frontier in the Eastern Amazonia-Cerrado transition zone. Scientific Reports, 2022. (nature.com)

MONTERO-DE-OLIVEIRA, Fernando-Esteban; BLUNDO-CANTO, Genowefa; EZZINE-DE-BLAS, Driss. Under what conditions do payments for environmental services enable forest conservation in the Amazon? A realist synthesis. Ecological Economics, 2023. DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2022.107697. (sciencedirect.com)

TAIT, Márcia M.; PERON, Alcides E. R.; SUÁREZ, Marcela. Terrestrial politics and body-territory: two concepts to make sense of digital colonialism in Latin America. Tapuya: Latin American Science, Technology and Society, 2022.

SUPERIOR ELECTORAL COURT. Government Proposals — 2026 Elections. Official registered programs used for the comparison of presidential candidacies. (tse.jus.br)