required to improve societies and mankind: a worldwide political contract; democracy as a universal political system; a new worldwide contract on nature; a new social contract; and a new contract on ethics.
A new contract on nature has been discussed by presidents of national states in various international forums. The planet’s social and ecological stability is the ←3 | 4→central focus of this contract, which also has Amazonia as its primary reference (Freitas and Silva Freitas, 2013). This new contract on nature, with sustainability as its paradigm, has highlighted contradictions in the capitalist regimen.
The central question can be put as follows: How to accomplish economic development concurrently with social inclusion and the protection of nature? Economic systems are integrating research on novel industrial matrices and sustainability through networks and technological platforms. The models of development based on a polluting industrial matrix and on the use of fossil fuels contribute massively toward fast worldwide ecological degradation and exploitation. These models are in the process of extinction. They are being redimensioned and adapted to sustainability’s new requirements. However, these changes are implemented at a slower rate than the impacts of climate change. Amazonia is a key element in this process. The construction of a market that values the preservation of natural environments also constitutes a new dimension of world economic processes.
But, Amazonia is also not exempt from the deleterious effects of climate change. The atmospheric modeling legitimized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) predicts that the planet’s warming process also presents the feasible possibility of savanization of Amazonian biomes, directly impacting the eight countries that make up Pan-American Amazonia, and more than 250 endogenous cultures. This thermodynamic scenario impacts the region’s biogeochemical cycles, endangering the survival of the largest tropical rainforest on the planet. Global climate change models need to be improved. Again, Amazonia is a key element in this process.
The world’s environmental crisis, caused by predatory development, has resulted in a worldwide synergy for the preservation of natural resources, including soils, waters, and the earth’s atmosphere. It has also contributed to the creation of new educational matrices committed to mankind’s future and the struggle against social inequality. Even so, the financial market’s pragmatic interests continue to prevail through intensive privatization and generating unlimited profit, and political alienation.
Uncontrolled population growth, environmental issues, religious fundamentalism, political extremism, massive immigrations, and growing social and economic inequality are problems with a direct impact on new development models and the quality of life.
World population is growing rapidly: one billion in 1830, two billion in 1930, three billion in 1960, four billion in 1975, five billion in 1990, six billion in 2000, seven billion in 2010, eight billion by 2025, and more than 9.5 billion by 2050. This shows mankind’s demographic evolution in the last two centuries. Further, by 2050, 800 million people will be living under nutritionally deficient conditions ←4 | 5→(Collomb, 2000), unless public policies change radically. The construction of a world food security policy centered on sustainability is a political challenge.
The paradigm of sustainable development gives historical prominence to Amazonia. If present trends continue, there will be insufficient natural resources for the world population’s basic needs in 2070. A new contract on nature is therefore necessary. A set of commitments institutionalized by governments and incorporated into national and international public policies could ensure the technical instruments required to guarantee the planet’s socioecological stability. The central axis of this contract (Freitas and Silva Freitas, 2014) is the preservation of the human species, an issue articulated by science education, ecology, and Amazonia via the processes of climate change. There is national and international consensus regarding Amazonia’s importance to Brazil and to the world.
Amazonia is in South America. It is characterized by high temperatures, humidity, and heavy rainfall. It covers parts of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana and occupies approximately 6.5 million km2 of which 4.5–5 million km2 are forests. This region supports the contiguous area of the greatest social diversity and biodiversity in the world and is home to one-third of the rain forests of the world and one-fifth of the earth’s surface fresh water. Amazonia also plays an important role in the mechanics, thermodynamics, and chemistry stabilities of the world’s atmospheric processes. Brazilian Amazonia is formed by the states of Amazonas, Acre, Pará, Amapá, Roraima, Rondônia, Tocantins, Maranhão, and Mato Grosso. These nine Brazilian states are home to a population of approximately 30 million, which corresponds to 0.35% of the world’s population. There are 163 different indigenous peoples, for a total population of 342,000 or 47% of the Brazilian indigenous population. About 22,000 isolated communities live within its forests.
Brazilian Amazonia covers a total of 4,987,247 km2, 58% of the total area of Brazil and 40% of South America (5% of the earth’s surface) (Silva, 2013). Approximately, 3.5–4 million km2 is forest without significant anthropogenic disturbance. Brazilian Amazonia has approximately 75,000 km of navigable rivers, a fleet of 350,000 boats, and 11,280 km of borders with seven neighboring countries. In addition, there are 12 million hectares of wetlands and 150 million hectares of protected forests in federal and state conservation units (data from 2011). It plays an important role in the planet’s climate and thermodynamic stabilities. Brazil is ranked first in the world in terms of diversity of plants, fish, fresh water, and mammals; second for amphibians; and third for reptiles. It possesses 55,000 different vegetable species (22% of all plant species) and 524 different species of mammals, 517 of amphibians, 1,622 of birds, 486 of reptiles, 3,000 of fish, 10–15 million insects, and millions of microorganisms. The majority of Brazil’s patrimony is ←5 | 6→located in Amazonia, further emphasizing the importance of its insertion in world economic processes (Cruvinel, 2000). Scientific literature also confirms that scientists are aware of less than 10% of all existing biodiversity on earth. It has been stated that 40% of current medications in modern medicine were developed from natural sources; for example, 25% from plants, 12% from microorganisms, and 3% from animals. Furthermore, a third of the most prescribed medications worldwide comes from these sources. If anticancer drugs and antibiotics are considered separately, this percentile increases to approximately 70% (Calixto, 2000), which reaffirms the geopolitical and economic importance of Amazonia.
There have been a number of phytogenetic accomplishments in Ducke Forest Reserve, a preservation area (100 km2) located close to Amazonas State capital Manaus. Researchers from Brazil’s National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), in Manaus, verified the existence of 5,000 individual trees and 1,200 tree species in this Reserve (Ribeiro et al., 1999). This is equal to the total number of species in Europe, reaffirming the great biological diversity of that area, where new species are still being discovered.
Through a refined prospecting, Hans ter Steegel et al. (2016) made a study using 530,025 collections between 1707 and 2015, identifying 11,676 tree species in Amazonia, distributed in 1,225 genera and 140 families. These studies are strategic to the development of a bioeconomy that is in urgent need of new taxonomic and floristic studies in a region with an estimated 16,000 tree species. Certainly, this great living library has answers to many of mankind’s problems.
According to Kinver (2017),
