In the last two years alone, the Brazilian Amazon lost 23,000 square kilometers of forest. The frontiers where small-scale farmlands and pastures meet native forests had the highest deforestation rates. Brazil has more than 3 million farmers who lack technical guidance or access to the financial tools needed to change or improve their management and cultivation techniques. At the same time, extensive monoculture practices and livestock farming have led to more than 700,000 square kilometers of degraded soil in Brazil.
Incentivizing sustainable smallholder farming and production can help keep remaining forests intact and reduce land-use emissions. Conexsus addresses the gaps that prevent the development of a forest-based economy by building bridges between community-based sustainable agriculture enterprises and diverse sources of support and capital. Working with a host of partners, Conexsus supports local enterprises with forest management and production training, business model and strategy support, access to appropriate financial tools, technical assistance for loan repayment, and improved connections to markets.
Conexsus works to reduce pressure to convert forests and thus avoid destruction of a projected 25,000 square kilometers of forest and native vegetation in the Amazon Rainforest and Atlantic Forest over 10 years. With native forests and agroforestry systems storing high levels of carbon, Conexsus could contribute to keeping between 900 million and 3.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions stored in the forest while improving the socioeconomic well-being of over 30,000 smallholders in Brazil.
In the last two years alone, the Brazilian Amazon lost 23,000 square kilometers of forest.
Conexsus addresses the gaps that prevent the development of a forest-based economy by building bridges between community-based sustainable agriculture enterprises and diverse sources of support and capital.
Carina Pimenta has deep experience in civil society and private sector, with expertise in developing and investing sustainable businesses and value chains in the Amazon and other threatened biomes, especially with communities.
Conexsus aim to reduce pressure to convert forests and avoid deforestation of a projected 2.5 million hectares of forest and native vegetation in the Amazon and Atlantic Forests over 10 years.
Robust ecosystem of support for bio-based enterprises that are at the core of sustainable value chains in the Amazon. Reduced impact on forests and natural resources through creation of sustainable livelihoods for Indigenous peoples and local communities critical to conservation.
Scale the Conexsus Impact Fund by attracting new concessional and impact investors for a total of $50 million to operate at capital markets level. Increase number of community enterprises Conexsus can support with technical assistance and credit.
Former Co-Founder and Executive Director, CONEXSUS
Carina Pimenta is co-founder of Instituto Conexões Sustentáveis (Conexsus) and the social enterprise CX Investimentos Socioambientais, and she was executive director of both organizations and a Skoll Awardee before transitioning to a role within the Brazilian Ministry of Environment. She graduated from the São Paulo School of Business Administration and earned a master’s degree in social development from the University of Sussex. Carina started her career in the private sector in business consulting and previously worked in scaling impact of social innovation (at Ashoka) and strategies to build a bio-based economy and reduce deforestation in the Amazon (at Fundo Vale). Passionate about the development of an inclusive climate economy, she centered most of her work on building a business ecosystem to foster community resiliency in rural and forested areas, including novel impact-finance mechanisms, communities’ enterprises development, and changes in bio-based market relations. Marco van der Ree, Conexsus’s board chair, has stepped in as interim executive director.
