Brazil’s government has committed $617.5mn to the Eco Invest programme to foster ecological investment in the Amazon region, with eight banks pledging a further $2bn in the latest auction of the scheme, PBS News reported on May 25.
The funds are expected to support businesses involved in sustainable tourism, infrastructure development in the Amazon, and the expansion of the bioeconomy — economic activity based on natural resources that preserves rather than depletes the forest.
Eco Invest, which launched in 2024, uses a blended finance model in which the National Treasury lends to banks at an annual rate of 1%. Banks must in turn mobilise at least four times that amount in private investment, with foreign investors required to account for at least 60% of that total. The programme has so far committed BRL140bn ($28bn) in combined public and private resources.
Carina Pimenta, national secretary for the bioeconomy at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, said the credit could support cooperatives producing Amazon goods such as açaí and Brazil nuts, as well as tourism infrastructure in conservation areas.
Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said the programme supports Brazil’s path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 by creating financial incentives for Amazon economic activities that do not depend on deforestation. He added that Brazil has reduced forest loss without compromising agricultural productivity since 2023, citing a roughly 50% drop in Amazon deforestation over that period.
The announcement came amid a difficult week for Brazil’s environmental policy. The country’s lower house — closely aligned with agribusiness interests — approved fast-tracked legislation that critics say weakens enforcement against illegal deforestation, including measures that restrict the use of satellite monitoring as evidence. The bills still require Senate approval and a signature from President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Climate Observatory, a network of environmental non-governmental associations, warned the measures would reduce the Brazilian state’s capacity to prevent and respond to the economic, social and climate impacts of environmental damage.
Capobianco said Brazil remained committed to its climate pledges despite congressional pressure. “We will show that Brazil remains on a path of controlling and reducing deforestation,” he said, as quoted by the Associated Press.