More details about ONE Amazon’s proposal to preserve the Amazon biome with a digital asset security
Gulf News recently interviewed Peter Knez, ONE Amazon’s chairman
In December 2023, ONE Amazon launched an extraordinary plan to preserve the Amazon biome. All of it. That includes parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The launch came during COP28 in Dubai when the company announced its plans to create 750 million “Digital Asset Securities” - one for each hectare of the Amazon biome.
Few details were available about ONE Amazon’s proposals. REDD-Monitor summarised the publicly available information, as well as a previous extremely dubious contract that ONE Amazon signed in September 2022 with the Shuar Indigenous People in Ecuador:
On 3 January 2024, Gulf News published an interview with Peter Knez, ONE Amazon’s chairman. Knez is a former Chief Investment Officer at BlackRock and is now Chair of the Foundation Council at Venom Foundation, a blockchain company.
“Harnessing the power of the market”
In the interview with Gulf News, Knez describes “the current economic paradigm” as the challenge. “In this model, the Amazon is seen as more valuable for its timber or cleared land than for its ecological wealth,” he says. “We aim to prove that the Amazon is more valuable alive than dead.”
This sounds like many of the discussions that took place around the start of REDD well over a decade ago. Here, for example, is Achim Steiner, then-Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, at the launch of UN-REDD in 2008:
“UNEP, ecologists and the scientific community have long argued that forests are worth more alive than dead – that their ecosystem services and benefits are worth billions if not trillions of dollars if only we can capture these in the economic models.”
A great deal has happened in the intervening 15 years in the world of forests and carbon. However, deforestation has not stopped as a result of attempts to make the carbon stored in forests worth more than the timber in the trees, or worth more than the land on which the forest grows. And in the past 12 months a series of scandals have rattled carbon markets.
It isn’t clear whether ONE Amazon aims to trade the carbon stored in the Amazon biome, but Knez says that ONE Amazon is “harnessing the power of the market”.
ONE Amazon Digital Asset Security
Knez explains that ONE Amazon is developing a “digital asset security” and the money raised will go to the ONE Amazon Impact Fund:
“The proceeds from the purchase of the O.N.E. Amazon Digital Asset Security will go into the O.N.E. Amazon Impact Fund (O.A.I.F), which will create jobs for Amazonian communities and accelerate the energy transition of the countries through which the Amazon rainforest extends.”
In February 2023, REDD-Monitor asked ONE Amazon some questions about the digital asset security, O.A.I.F. and the contract signed with the Shuar Federation in Ecuador. The company did not respond.
Knez says that investors “will benefit from the potential capital appreciation of the digital security as the market values the positive environmental and social benefits of the rainforest’s biome”. Investors will also benefit from “the dividend income from the O.A.I.F.”
Knez says each digital asset security will be “initially issued at a value of $100” and that,
“We expect a diverse range of investors and partners, which includes not only corporates but also NGOs and responsible world citizens around the world. In fact, one of our key partners from the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] region is Emirates Nature - WWF.”
ONE Amazon’s proposed projects in Colombia
Knez gives a list of projects in Colombia that the ONE Amazon Impact Fund will initially focus on:
Onshore and offshore wind farms with 198 MW and 825 MW capacity in Guajira.
The Cienaga Energy Transition Industrial Park and Port, a 2,000-hectare development that will include an offshore wind park.
Biomass to bio-crude refineries across Colombia.
Protection and conservation projects at Serrania De Chiribiquete Natural National Park, the Guamuez Valley, Corota Island Flora and Fauna Sanctuary and Gorgona Natural National Park.
The first three are large-scale industrial projects. The Stockholm Environment Institute has carried out research into wind farms in La Guajira. Over the next three years, 31 wind farms are proposed in La Guajira, most of them proposed projects are on the territory of the Wayuu Indigenous People.
In order to comply with Colombia’s constitution, project developers have to ensure that a process of free, prior and informed consent takes place before the project starts. However, this has not always been the case.
Indigenous People are concerned about “justice, equity, cultural norms and distribution of benefits” SEI writes. Protests have taken place, including blockades of access roads to wind farm construction sites. The construction of some wind farms has been suspended indefinitely.
Knez states that ONE Amazon has “received strong interest from national governments across the Amazonian basin” and that the company has “a firm relationship with the Colombian government which is supportive of the project with the O.A.I.F. initially investing in projects in the country”.
There is no mention of Indigenous Peoples in the interview, but when Gulf News asks about whether the fund will have “to deal with legions of landowners” and whether this might slow things down, Knez replies as follows:
“The diversity of the Amazon with various groups and owning different parcels of land has indeed contributed to the complexity of the project.
“We have established strong partnerships with local governments and organisations on the ground to support this endeavour. Our approach has yielded impressive results with long-term land preservation agreements for 50 million hectares of rainforest, an area larger than Spain, already secured.”
Yes, the first three items are massive industrial projects, and the fourth impinges on Indigenous rights and territories. It is difficult to see how a financial project, or deemed financialization of natural areas can make any normal economic sense, in relation to a stream of dividend income or appreciation of so-called “assets” value. People wish to include costs of “externalized” costs, the value of “environmental services” to the economy, but those schemes do fall flat on their face since the value of trees as living entities, for example, is a public good, an inherent property of the commons (of all life) and is impossible to convert to a dollar value, especially without considering what is your currency peg. In fact, all life is the underlying peg of all currencies, yet it cannot be bought or sold or exchanged. It is far better that all “fingerprints” of money are barred from ecosystems such as the Amazon, including all extraction, taxation and so-called “investment.” Devastation follows money being poured out on the land.