Salvage technoscience: Conserving and extracting the value of the Amazon Rainforest

Abstract

Very few forests take up as much space in contemporary Western imagination as the Amazon. It is the archetypical mythological forest that many people want to save and even more people want to exploit. Over the years, it has been the object of multiple campaigns to ‘save the rainforest’ from resource extraction both within South America and beyond, within scientific communities as well as broader publics. This article addresses a concern with how to extract the resources of the Amazon Forest in ways that are more sustainable than past and contemporary logging, mining and farming. This concern is promoted by Brazilian scientists who have allied themselves with well-intended tech industry initiatives and small-scale entrepreneurs. We refer to this combination of conservation with extraction as salvage technoscience, an approach currently dominating the struggle for the resources of the Amazon by attempting to reconcile the opposing views of the forest as an economic asset and as an object to be preserved. Our contribution thus demonstrates the interwoven nature of capitalist extraction and environmental conservation under the auspices of technoscientific progress.