ONE Amazon’s US$1 trillion plan for the Amazon basin
Crypto, blockchain, 750 million hectares, WWF, Goldman Sachs, what could possibly go wrong?
In February 2023, REDD-Monitor wrote about a US-based company called ONE Amazon. The company had signed an Agreement with the Interprovincial Federation of Shuar Centers (FICSH) in Ecuador. The Agreement was very much for the benefit of ONE Amazon, and against the interests of the Shuar Indigenous People and the Shuar Federation.
The Agreement was criticised by Acción Ecológica, who put out a detailed analysis under the headline “Threats of Digital Capitalism: The case of ONE Amazon”.
Silvia Ribeiro of the ETC Group, in an article for the website desInformémonos described the Agreement as “a new form of biopiracy, by using the life and territory of the Shuar to fragment it, interpret it, transform it into merchandise and sell it”.
In early February 2023, the Shuar Federation held an Assembly during which they decided to cancel the contract with ONE Amazon.
REDD-Monitor gave a brief overview of the problems with the Agreement, followed by a DeepL translation of the Agreement:
And I had some questions for ONE Amazon which, perhaps not surprisingly, the company did not answer:
ONE Amazon at COP28
ONE Amazon took part in a side event at COP28 in Dubai. On 2 December 2023, in the main auditorium of the Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum, ONE Amazon announced its plans for “improved preservation of 750m hectares, the total size of the Amazon biome, through the launch of its O.N.E Amazon Digital Asset Security, with each hectare backed by long-term land preservation agreements”.
A Berlin-based company called Impact One, which according to its website is incorporated in the tax haven of Luxembourg, also took part in the side event.
According to a brochure put out by Impact One about its activities at COP28, the side event was titled “One Future: Unlocking The Amazon’s Trillion Dollar Nature-Positive Economy”:
The people listed as speaking at the event are the following:
Rodrigo Veloso - ONE Amazon Founder and CEO
Veloso is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He previously ran a company called O.N.E. World Beverages that sold O.N.E. Coconut Water. PepsiCo eventually bought the company.
Peter Knez - ONE Amazon Chair
Knez was Chief Investment Officer at Blackrock. Before that he worked at Lincoln Capital Management and Goldman Sachs. He’s also running a crypto company called Venom Foundation based in Abu Dhabi.
Mikolaj Sekutowicz - Impact One CEO
He was Vice President of Therme Group, a “global technology company and integrator of wellness and entertainment concepts” and he’s co-founder of Therme Art’s Wellbeing Culture Forum.
Laila Mostafa Abdullatif - Director General, Emirates Nature-WWF
Abdullatif has worked with WWF since 2009, in the United Arab Emirates. In July 2022, she became chair of WWF Asia Pacific.
On her LinkedIn profile, the day after the event in Dubai, Abdullatif wrote,
I was honored to be given the stage yesterday at the COP28UAE Business & Philanthropy Climate Forum, to announce a key collaboration between Emirates Nature-WWF and ONE AMAZON that will explore innovate ways to mobilize finance for nature and coastal ecosystems. I am excited to share more on this soon, how we are exploring next generation technology to bring innovation and long-term positive impact to nature and communities.
ONE Amazon’s plans
While the company has plans for the whole of the Amazon, the press release about the event in Dubai states that it “will initially focus on the funding of projects in Colombia”:
O.N.E Amazon Impact Fund will initially deploy funds for projects in Colombia, with Goldman Sachs acting as structuring partner for O.N.E Amazon Impact Fund.
The company will issue a “regulated O.N.E. Amazon Digital Asset Security”. According to the press release, and a corporate video, the company already has agreements covering an area of 50 million hectares:
Each security will represent the perceived value of one hectare of biome in the Amazon rainforest, backed by a 30-year preservation agreement over that land, with an impressive long-term land preservation agreement for 50 million hectares of rainforest, an area larger than Spain, already secured.
The company claims that “ONE Amazon is crypto with purpose. Regulated by financial markets.” But it doesn’t say where it is regulated.
The money from sales of ONE Amazon Digital Asset Security “will go into the O.N.E Amazon Impact Fund (O.A.I.F.)”.
In February 2023, I asked ONE Amazon some questions about O.A.I.F. including where the company is incorporated and who owns the company. ONE Amazon did not reply.
The recent press release states that the ONE Amazon Impact Fund is headquartered in Abu Dhabi.
ONE Amazon’s partners
ONE Amazon claims to be working with MIT Media Lab “creating a framework to monitor every hectare that is tokenized against a Digital Asset Security, thus creating the world’s first Internet of Forest (IoF)”.
The press release also mentions AECOM, a multinational infrastructure consulting firm. The press release does not explain what AECOM’s role is.
I’ve asked Peter Knez, WWF UEA, MIT Media Lab, AECOM to confirm that they are in fact involved in ONE Amazon’s crypto and blockchain proposals for the Amazon rainforest. I look forward to posting their responses in due course.
When money pours out on the land it creates a mortgage obligation. Debt, once created cannot be destroyed - it must be repaid or refinanced or defaulted on. The promoters will of course amplify the benefits of the funds (smallest possible tranche) that would flow to any non-evicted peoples and obfuscate any mention of what the obligations involve. The 30-year period is meaninglessly short - our CO2 emissions will be plaguing the planet for a couple million years. Here is more eco-colonialism on a large scale, meaning, of course, large-scale commissions for the rentier class. And since in these cases we are trading imaginary wealth, the true value of all currencies involved is devalued accordingly.