The Final Privatization of Nature

ONE Amazon’s Peter Knez: “We think of the Amazon as a nature based asset”

(ONE Amazon’s totalitarian plans for the Amazon rainforest), by Chris Lang, REDD-Monitor, Mar 11, 2025 - some quotes:

“ONE Amazon is a US-based company with a US$1 trillion plan to save the Amazon rainforest. The company has plans to transform ‘the Amazon biome into a digital asset security for sustainable environmental impact.’”

“The theme continues through his [Peter Knez’s] speech. We’ve already “datified” humans, he says (“they kind of know what we read, and what we like, and who we’re with, and where we are”) so now we should do the same to nature.”

Photo credit: Rainforest Alliance - Smart Cities: “The installation of the Internet of Forests is designed to help preserve the ecosystem of Chiribiquete, Colombia;s largest national park.

This is an important article to read, please read at REDD-Monitor.

Here are my comments:

“sustainability is directly tied to economic growth” (quote from Jay Chandan from Gorilla Technology Group) - this set is zero-sum, not win-win. Unending economic growth consumes sustainability, as economic growth is unsustainable and Nature is finite.

“… we think that in order to solve the climate change problem, in order to save an asset like the rainforest, we have to bring market forces.” (this quote and following ones, from Peter Knez at ONE Amazon) - This is a core tenet of neo-liberalism via the Mont Pelerin Society and its numerous associated think tanks. “Market forces” include the boom-bust risks of unfettered capitalism and the glorification of “economic freedom” over any other freedom such as land rights, privacy, political freedom, etc.

The entire concept of “ONE Amazon” and similar attempts at privatization of Nature rests on the pretense that the entire globe exists for the benefit of the uber-wealthy, that they, of course, merely on account of their accumulated wealth, are rightfully the “enlightened monarchs,” and can sit in their boardrooms and write policy for all other lands, since those lands by right of kings, actually belong to them, rather than to the peons dwelling in groveling poverty therein.

Yes, the Amazon is an asset, but it is a Nature asset; it is NOT a “nature based asset” owned by the “enlightened monarch.” And it is a property asset rather than a debt asset. These Goldman Sachs types throw property and debt assets into the same basket as tradable commodities. They claim that Nature “deserves” to be valued right alongside financial assets. “Financial assets” are instruments of debt, such as stocks and bonds, which are traded, leveraged and speculated with on the financial markets. A property asset, on the other hand, is traded in markets with a willing buyer and seller, financialization of which can occur by mortgage which in default, returns the property to the seller (or lender). When they attempt to “create an asset out of the Amazon rainforest,” they have presumed ownership of it that they have no right to, except through their manipulations of “enlightened governments” (meaning ones prioritizing economic freedom over all else) and conniving overtures to Indigenous populations who have no knowledge of the principles underlying this massive corporate theft.

Then he says: “[having digitized that hectare of rainforest] we can take that digital asset and we can put it on an exchange and start to trade it.” Trade it for what, exactly? Then “And so we bring market forces into the problem of creating sustainability and saving the rainforest, Right?” Market forces ARE the problem, and whenever have you seen that market forces (capitalism) have any concern for a living ecosystem? Only when they can generate fake offsets from it, either carbon offsets or “sustainability offsets” which allow them to carry on with their destructive characteristic of pushing the frontier of their Crystal Palace across the planet.

And we see how Goldman Sachs is deeply entrenched in this effort, both by interlocking directorships and their “Sustainability Banking Group.” Yet we have in the upcoming election in Canada, a failed choice between another “Man from Goldman Sachs” (Mark Carney) or the neo-liberal think-tank-controlled Pierre Poilievre of the Conservatives. One could be another devotee of the financialization of Nature, while the other would engage in Trumpian dismantling of society in live stream.

All these business-types, trying to reach their dirty hands deeper into Nature which sustains us, which is the Commons, our common heritage necessary to sustain ALL life, trying to actually privatize every last remaining bit of the Commons, they all need their hands chopped off at the wrists with a dull machete.