The New Economy: Making the Amazon Forest Worth More Standing

About this episode

This episode explores innovative economic models that make the Amazon rainforest more valuable standing than cut down.

What does it take to make the Amazon worth more standing than gone? Not in theory—but in practice, on the ground, with real communities, real businesses, and real money. This episode of Rewilding Amazonia follows three people who have built economic models that answer that question from completely different angles.Eduardo Nycander founded Rainforest Expeditions in Peru's Tambopata region in 1989—a community ecotourism joint venture with the Ese'eja people that has proven a healthy forest is worth more per hectare than any alternative land use. Drago Bozovich's company manages 183,000 hectares of FSC-certified forest in Madre de Dios, harvesting less than one tree per hectare every twenty years while running Brazil nut operations that provide year-round employment—and his company’s forests now have jaguar densities higher than Manu National Park. Isabel Felandro of Cool Earth is tackling a different problem: the communities with no product to sell and no income stable enough to resist the pressure to destroy what they have. Her answer is unconditional cash transfers—and the first conservation basic income pilot in the Peruvian Amazon is already showing results. The economic case…

People in this episode

Host: Brooke Mitchell

Guests: Eduardo Nycander, Drago Bozovich, Isabel Felandro

Topics covered

• Amazon conservation
• ecotourism
• sustainable economy
• community development
• cash transfers
• forest management

Keywords

• Amazon
• conservation
• ecotourism
• sustainable practices
• cash transfers
• community income
• forest management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Rainforest Expeditions, FSC, Cool Earth

Places: Peru, Tambopata, Madre de Dios, Peruvian Amazon

More episodes of Rewildology

• The Long Game: Forging the Amazon's Next Chapter · June 9, 2026 · 33 min
• Whose Forest? The Defenders of the Amazon · May 26, 2026 · 42 min
• Rivers in the Sky: The Amazon's Tipping Point, Sentinel Dolphins & the Geothermal Deep · May 19, 2026 · 34 min
• Seeing the Invisible: Tracking Destruction, Measuring Recovery · May 12, 2026 · 31 min
• The Severed Lifeline: Rebuilding a Fragmented Amazon · May 5, 2026 · 33 min
• The Ghost Forest: Bringing Wildlife Back from the Brink · April 28, 2026 · 34 min