Although the Amazon inspires global fascination and fuels romantic narratives - sometimes seen as an untouched paradise, other times as an endless frontier of resources - these idealized images rarely capture the multiplicity of peoples, ecosystems, productive systems, and sociopolitical challenges that coexist in a territory of continental dimensions. Ignoring such nuances has proven costly: projects conceived based on imported models, without dialogue with local dynamics, tend to fail or generate adverse impacts. Therefore, successful investments into the region must be based on methodologies and strategies anchored in Amazonian realities, respecting cultural diversity, environmental complexity, and different community-based decision-making structures. This is the only way to foster a path of development that is inclusive, resilient, and capable of reconciling economic prosperity with the preservation of the standing forest and the well-being of its peoples.

The Amazon Investor Coalition, in partnership with the LACLIMA Institute, is pleased to make available to the public, private, and civil society sectors the Guide on Responsible Investments in the Amazon. Developed from interviews with a wide range of stakeholders active in the region, document analysis and literature review, the publication synthesizes decades of lessons learned on directing resources toward initiatives that combine socioeconomic returns, forest conservation, and climate justice.

This document aims to serve as a bridge between capital, science, and traditional knowledge, inviting all readers to turn principles into practice and to build, together, an inclusive, resilient, and prosperous Amazonian bioeconomy. More than being just a compendium of perspectives and experiences, this guide is a call to action and co-responsibility: investing in the Amazon requires attentive listening, respect for local timelines, and agreements that value local leadership.

We hope that the reflections gathered here will serve as a guide for investment decisions that reconcile economic returns, community empowerment, and the protection of one of the planet’s greatest socio-environmental treasures. Echoing Eduardo Galeano, who saw in the ‘open veins’ of a Latin America drained by its own abundance the source of its misery, we affirm that the Amazon will break this fate when we replace the narrative of exploitation with one that transforms its natural and cultural wealth into shared prosperity and regeneration for peoples, forests and futures.