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Fundación Proyecto AVE, Luxembourg (2026)

05/10/2026

THE FUTURE IS ALSO BUILT FROM THE TERRITORIES · 1/6
When observing biodiversity also means generating knowledge

In the prologue to this series, I raised a question about the future of children and young people growing up in territories that are extraordinarily rich in biodiversity, yet far from major technological centres and, very often, from a labour market capable of allowing them to build their future there.

For some time now, we have been discussing how biodiversity can activate local economies through nature-based tourism.

But there is another dimension that is becoming increasingly important.

Territories can also generate knowledge.

A hide for wildlife observation and photography is, by definition, a point from which the same natural space is observed repeatedly.

Photographers, birdwatchers, owners, operators and guides may all pass through it.

They all record species.

They all produce images.

And behind every photograph there is potentially much more than a good image: a species, a date, a location, a behaviour, a recurring presence or even an absence.

In other words, biodiversity data.

That is why, as part of the development of WildHide Ecosystem, we are already working on the design of an application that will allow us to collect and organise records generated across the different locations where the hide network continues to grow.

The first producers of this information will be precisely those who are already part of the activity: the clients themselves, the owners of the hides and the guides who complement the experience with routes through nearby forests, wetlands, rivers or mountains.

The intention is not to automatically turn every photograph into scientific information.

The real challenge will be to establish recording, organisation and validation mechanisms that allow some of these observations to become genuinely useful.

Because when hundreds or thousands of records begin to accumulate over time, a territory starts to build something it did not have before:

a memory of its biodiversity.

Which species appear. Where. When. How often. How certain presences change over time.

And at that point, a hide becomes more than tourism infrastructure.
It can also become a small, permanent observation node.

Perhaps one of the opportunities offered by technology is not only to bring new tools into biodiverse territories.

Perhaps it is also to allow those territories to begin telling, through their own data, what is happening within them.

That is what I want to explore in the next article:

When does a photograph stop being just a photograph and begin to become a biodiversity data point?

Fabian Passariello

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02/10/2026

A FUTURE THAT DOES NOT LOOK THE SAME FOR EVERYONE

(Prologue)

What are the implications of artificial intelligence for a child born and raised in London, and what does it mean for another child growing up on the banks of the Caura River in southern Venezuela?

Let us imagine that they are both ten years old.

The first lives in London, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris or Luxembourg: a city fully integrated into the global and digital economy.

He has electricity, internet access and probably a screen just a few metres away. At school, an inevitable debate is beginning to emerge:

How should we prepare him for a world shaped by artificial intelligence, robotics and automation?

While he learns, machines are learning too.

By the time he is twenty or twenty-five, many of the tasks currently carried out by lawyers, journalists, designers, programmers, translators, doctors or analysts will probably be performed in very different ways.

And from this comes an increasingly urgent question:

How should we prepare our children to work and live in a world populated by increasingly intelligent machines?

Now let us imagine the second child.

The one growing up thousands of kilometres away from this conversation, in a remote community in the Caura basin or around Lake Zowla in Togo.

Around him lies an extraordinary diversity of birds, mammals, fish and trees, together with knowledge accumulated over generations.

He may learn to recognise a bird by its song or a mammal by its tracks before learning how to use a computer. He may know how to distinguish plants, read the river and listen to stories that are not stored on any server.

For him, artificial intelligence does not yet appear as a threat to employment.

His challenge may come even earlier: by the time he reaches adulthood, there may not even be a local economy capable of offering him enough opportunities to stay.

The child in London may one day ask:

Will a machine be able to do my job?

The child from the Caura may instead have to ask:

Will there be any work here that allows me to stay?

They are different questions, yet they lead to the same uncertainty:

What place will I have in the world that is coming?

Paradoxically, we are living through two futures at the same time.

In one, millions of people will have to learn to coexist with extraordinarily efficient machines.

In the other, millions will first have to find a viable way to earn a living before they can even take part in that technological conversation.

This is the prologue to a series of articles I will share over the coming days about how we can think globally while acting locally.

Without forgetting those who live far from the world’s major technological centres — a discussion I have already been exploring, indirectly, through the concept of the “Economy of the Living.”

Fabian Passariello

20/09/2026

WHEN A FREE BIRD BEGINS TO BE WORTH MORE THAN A BIRD CAPTURED FOR SALE

Yesterday, a friend sent me a newspaper clipping with a story that immediately caught my attention.

In Borneo, a citizen science experiment is paying rural communities to photograph and record wild animals.

Behind this apparently simple idea lies a decisive question:

what happens when protecting biodiversity also begins to generate income?

The initiative connects, in a cross-cutting way, with what we have been proposing and publicly sharing through WildHide Ecosystem, as well as with our thinking around the living economy.

But here is the story.

A man named Octavius was walking through the forest with a mobile phone fitted with a small telephoto lens.

He was not hunting. He was looking for animals to photograph.

(And he gets paid to do it).

The initiative is promoted by KehatiKu, a programme developed by Borneo Futures in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The mechanism is simple: local residents photograph, film or record wild animals and, once those observations are verified, they receive payment based on factors such as the rarity of the species.

According to AFP, payments can range from around 5,000 rupiah for certain common birds to 130,000 rupiah for recording an orangutan.

And this is where something particularly interesting emerges.

One of the major drivers of wildlife trafficking is the lack of economic alternatives available to many rural communities.

This model can not only reduce the incentive to capture animals for sale.

It also turns wildlife observation into an activity with economic and scientific value.

Because each photograph represents more than just income.

It is also a piece of data: where a species appears, when it is recorded, and in what landscape.

That is why KehatiKu is not merely an incentive programme.

It is also an exercise in citizen science.

For decades, we have asked many rural communities to protect ecosystems whose value benefits the entire planet.

Yet too often, the economic benefits generated by conservation occur far away from the people who live alongside those ecosystems every day.

KehatiKu is testing a different logic:

allowing part of that value to return directly to the people who live with biodiversity.

The model still faces challenges, particularly its dependence on external funding.

But the question it is putting to the test deserves attention:

can we build territorial economies in which a forest is worth more standing, a bird is worth more continuing to fly, and the community that chooses to protect them directly shares in that value?

In Borneo, hundreds of people are already testing an answer.

With a phone in their hands.

And an animal still free in front of the lens.

Text: Fabian Passariello

11/09/2026

FROM NATURAL CAPITAL TO THE ECONOMY OF LIFE · 5/7

FROM TERRITORY TO MARKET: VALUE ALSO NEEDS CONNECTIONS

A territory may contain unique species, exceptional landscapes and experiences that are difficult to find anywhere else.

But the economic potential of biodiversity is not activated simply because that biodiversity exists.

It must be connected with people willing to travel to experience it, observe it, photograph it, study it or contribute to its conservation.

This is where another fundamental element of what we have been defining as the Economy of Life appears:

access to the market.

At WildHide Ecosystem, we are not talking about turning nature into a commodity. We are talking about designing experiences capable of generating income precisely because the ecosystem remains functional.

Nature photographers, birdwatchers, naturalists, researchers, audiovisual producers and specialized travelers are part of a market willing to travel thousands of kilometers to experience an exceptional ecosystem.

That market exists.

But there is a distance between that market and a remote territory that must be reduced: transforming biological information into experiences, experiences into products, and products into proposals capable of reaching operators, agencies, institutions and specialized travelers.

This means designing routes, defining seasons, identifying target species, creating appropriate infrastructure, training local teams, organizing services, producing content, positioning the destination and ultimately bringing it to market.

Because for the value of biodiversity to translate into income, jobs and local opportunities, someone has to build the bridge between the territory and the market.

That is precisely one of the roles that Proyecto AVE and WildHide Ecosystem can contribute within the alliance with BlueGrace Energy Bolivia S.R.L. through the WildHide Living Territories Lab – Bolívar.

The aim is for conservation to stop being only a cost and to begin becoming an activity capable of financing part of its own continuity.

This does not mean turning all biodiversity into a product, nor opening every corner of the territory to visitors.

Quite the opposite.

The real intelligence lies in understanding what can be activated, where, for whom, when and within what limits.

The question is:

How can we connect part of this natural wealth with demand capable of generating value without compromising what makes that value possible?

Biodiversity does not need to become a commodity; it needs to be connected with markets willing to pay for experiences that depend on that biodiversity remaining alive.

This is the living core of the Economy of Life.

Text: Fabian Passariello

09/09/2026

FROM NATURAL CAPITAL TO THE ECONOMY OF LIFE · 3/7

BIODIVERSITY CAN ALSO BECOME ECONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

For a long time, we have associated the word infrastructure with roads, ports, buildings, power grids, or communication systems.

However, within the language we are developing at WildHide Ecosystem, we began to ask ourselves a different question:

Can biodiversity also function as a form of infrastructure for the development of new economies?

This is precisely one of the questions we are now beginning to explore together with the team at BlueGrace Energy Bolivia S.R.L., through an alliance that presents us with the challenge of working across a large-scale territory:

approximately 174,000 hectares linked to Fundo Tucuragua, in Bolívar State, southern Venezuela.

To put that figure into perspective: the 174,000 hectares of Fundo Tucuragua represent roughly two-thirds of Luxembourg’s entire surface area, the country from which this initiative is now being projected toward southern Venezuela.

And when the scale changes, the nature of the questions changes as well.
Because it is no longer simply about identifying species, landscapes, or natural attractions.

It is about understanding how a territory of this size can be structured so that its biodiversity, beyond being conserved, can become a real foundation for generating knowledge, experiences, employment, and new economic opportunities.

This is where the concept of biodiversity infrastructure emerges.

Not as infrastructure that replaces the ecosystem.

Quite the opposite.

Rather, as the combination of ecological conditions, knowledge, low-impact equipment, human capabilities, and management systems that allow a territory’s biodiversity to support economic activities compatible with its conservation.

Because having biodiversity does not, by itself, mean having an economy built around it.

For that possibility to exist, bridges must be built between the ecosystem, its natural wealth, and a world that, perhaps without yet realizing it, has the opportunity to explore one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.

To achieve this, we need to design a product capable of supporting a sustainable project and becoming a platform that can transform conserved biodiversity into what we have been defining as an Economy of Life.

Instead of seeing environmental protection only as a constraint on development, we can also begin to understand it as a productive condition.

Because if an economic activity depends on the presence of a particular species, the quality of a landscape, or the functionality of an ecosystem, conserving them ceases to be merely an environmental obligation.

It also becomes a condition for sustaining the economic activity that depends on them.

Fabian Passariello

08/09/2026

FROM NATURAL CAPITAL TO THE ECONOMY OF LIFE · 2/7
A FOREST DOES NOT CONTAIN ONLY ONE FORM OF WEALTH

How many different forms of value can a territory generate by remaining alive, diverse, and functional?

This is one of the ideas we are exploring through the alliance between BlueGrace Energy Bolivia S.R.L., Proyecto AVE a.s.b.l. and WildHide Ecosystem, within the framework of the WildHide Living Territories Lab – Bolívar project.

The initial territory where we have already begun working — approximately 174,000 hectares connected to Fundo Tucuragua, in Bolívar State, Venezuela — allows us to explore this question at a particularly interesting scale.

Because different layers of natural capital can coexist within the same territory.
The first is probably the best known, and BlueGrace’s area of expertise: carbon.

Forest ecosystems store carbon and participate in climate processes that today have growing environmental, financial, and strategic relevance.

But carbon is only one dimension of a forest.

There is also water.

Forests play a role in hydrological cycles, protect watersheds, regulate runoff, conserve soils, and help sustain river systems on which ecosystems and communities depend.

And there is biodiversity, Proyecto AVE’s area of expertise.

Thousands of species of plants, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, fungi, and microorganisms form ecological networks whose complexity, paradoxically, we are only beginning to understand.

And biodiversity also has the capacity to generate value.

Not necessarily by extracting it.

But by observing it, studying it, protecting it, interpreting it, and making it possible for others to discover it.

This is where another layer of the economy begins to emerge.

Nature photography. Bird and wildlife watching. Nature-based and scientific tourism. Research. Environmental education. Audiovisual production.

Interpretation of natural heritage. Monitoring programs. Training of local guides. Ecological restoration. Low-impact accommodation. Biodiversity data generation. Jobs linked to conserving and managing the territory.

An entire economic ecosystem whose raw material is the conservation of the forest.

And this is where our idea of an Economy of Life takes shape.

Our working hypothesis is simple:

the greater our ability to identify economic activities that depend on an ecosystem remaining healthy, the stronger the economic incentive to conserve it.

A forest does not contain only one form of wealth.

Perhaps the real challenge is to identify them and learn how to harness their potential.

BlueGrace Energy + Proyecto AVE + WildHide Ecosystem

Photo credit: Fundación Proyecto AVE

Text: Fabian Passariello

04/09/2026

FROM NATURAL CAPITAL TO THE ECONOMY OF LIVING SYSTEMS · 1/7

BLUEGRACE ENERGY BOLIVIA AND PROYECTO AVE OPEN A NEW SPACE TO EXPLORE THE ECONOMY OF LIVING SYSTEMS IN VENEZUELA

The most interesting alliances do not begin when all the answers are already on the table.

Sometimes, they begin when two organizations discover that looking at the same territory from different perspectives allows them to formulate a shared question:

What can we achieve together that would be difficult to accomplish separately?

With that in mind, on 23 August 2026, BlueGrace Energy Bolivia S.R.L. and Proyecto AVE a.s.b.l. signed a Framework Collaboration Agreement to progressively assess, design, structure and develop the WildHide Living Territories Lab – Bolívar project in Venezuela.

The starting point is particularly interesting.

BlueGrace has a previous agreement linked to a forest territory known as Fundo Tucuragua, covering approximately 174,000 hectares in Bolívar State, in a region connected to the Orinoco, Caura and Tucuragua rivers.

This led us to ask another question:

What forms of economic value can be built around such a biodiverse territory if preserving its natural capital is a non-negotiable condition for developing a true Economy of Living Systems?

This is where the complementarity between both organizations becomes clear.

BlueGrace Energy works in areas related to natural capital, forest conservation, restoration, financial structuring, investment and the valuation of environmental assets.

Proyecto AVE, together with its flagship initiative WildHide Ecosystem, brings another dimension into the equation: biodiversity, wildlife, specialized nature tourism, wildlife photography and observation, low-impact infrastructure, local training, monitoring, bioeconomy and access to international markets.

The agreement specifically establishes the possibility of integrating biodiversity conservation, specialized tourism, wildlife photography and observation, low-impact accommodation, green jobs and local capacity building within a single territorial model.

This brings us to a thesis we have been exploring for some time:

a forest does not contain only one form of wealth.

A forest can store carbon, water and biodiversity.

But it can also generate knowledge, create experiences, support research and provide employment.

And it can also become the starting point for new economic activities that depend precisely on that ecosystem remaining functional.

However, it is important to emphasize that this agreement establishes an initial Territorial Assessment Phase, designed to verify environmental, ecological, social, tourism, logistical and economic feasibility before committing to larger-scale investments.

That phase must ultimately lead to something as simple as it is important:

GO. CONDITIONAL GO. OR NO-GO.

In other words: determine whether to move forward, and under what conditions.

Because building a new economy around nature begins with something we too often forget:

first understand the territory before deciding what we want to do with it.

For us, these 174,000 hectares represent far more than an area on a map.

They may become a laboratory for a relationship that seeks to connect two dimensions of natural capital that are usually developed separately.

On one side:

territory + conservation + capital + investment.

On the other:

biodiversity + knowledge + experience + market + local economy.

The question we now want to begin answering together is easy to formulate, although probably much more complex to solve:

How can we generate economic, social and strategic value without destroying or compromising the ecological functionality of the territory that makes that value possible?

That will be the real starting point.

BlueGrace Energy + Proyecto AVE + WildHide Ecosystem

01/09/2026

THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD · 5/5

BETWEEN HAVING BIODIVERSITY AND MAKING A LIVING FROM CONSERVING IT, THERE IS STILL A BRIDGE WE NEED TO BUILD

Having biodiversity does not automatically create an economy.

A country may possess extraordinary forests, thousands of species, endemic wildlife and unique landscapes.

And yet obtain very little economic value from all of it.

Because between natural heritage and the market, something fundamental is missing:

a system capable of connecting them.

We need to identify species and territories with potential.

Design experiences.
Create specialised infrastructure.
Train people.
Establish standards.
Develop suitable accommodation.
Organise logistics.
Create marketable products.
Connect them with international markets.
Measure and monitor biodiversity.

And, of course, ensure that part of the value remains where that biodiversity exists.

This is precisely the space in which we are working with WildHide Ecosystem.

We do not simply want to build a network of photographic hides and glamping sites.

Nor do we simply want to sell wildlife photography trips.

The ambition is different:

to develop economic infrastructure around conserved biodiversity.

A model in which landowners, communities, operators, scientists and travellers can come together around the same asset:

an ecosystem that must remain functional for the business to continue existing.

The logic is simple:

Having biodiversity is not enough.

We need to understand it.
Turn it into a professional experience.
Create the necessary infrastructure.
Include the people who live in the territory.
And connect all of it to a market.

When those pieces come together, biodiversity stops being only natural heritage and also begins to become part of the territorial economy.

But there is one essential condition:

natural capital cannot disappear.

Because if the species disappears, the experience disappears.

If the forest disappears, the product disappears.

If biodiversity disappears, the economy built around it disappears as well.

For centuries, we created wealth by turning nature into commodities.

Perhaps the time has come to learn how to create wealth by doing exactly the opposite:

by keeping it alive.

That is what we mean by:

THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD.

31/08/2026

THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD · 4/5

BIODIVERSITY DOES NOT CREATE A SINGLE PRODUCT. IT CAN CREATE AN ECONOMIC ECOSYSTEM.

There is an enormous difference between receiving a few visitors and building an economy around biodiversity.

The first can generate income.

The second can transform a territory.

Imagine several landowners conserving habitats.

Specialised guides.

Rural accommodation.

Photographic hides.

Restaurants.

Transport services.

Local producers.

Researchers.

Tour operators.

People responsible for monitoring species.

Companies capable of marketing these experiences internationally.

We are no longer talking about an excursion.

We are talking about a value chain.

And when different territories begin to connect, something even more interesting happens.

One species brings the visitor to one place.

Another can take them to the next.

One destination extends the stay.

Another complements the experience.

Biodiversity begins to create routes, circuits and economic networks.

For extraordinarily biodiverse countries in Latin America, Africa or Asia, this possibility deserves far greater attention.

Because their natural wealth is often found precisely in rural regions where new economic opportunities are needed.

The question then stops being simply:

how many tourists can we receive?

And becomes:

how much value can we circulate around a territory that remains ecologically functional?

That shift is enormous.

Because biodiversity stops being merely the attraction.

It begins to become the element around which an entire business and territorial ecosystem is organised.

That is where something far more interesting than ecotourism begins to emerge.

A bioeconomy.

THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD

26/08/2026

THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD · 2/5

WHAT IF CONSERVATION WERE ALSO A PRODUCTIVE USE OF THE LAND?

For many years, because of the nature of my work, I have travelled across farms and rural estates in different South American countries documenting their flora and fauna. During those visits, I have heard landowners proudly explain the same thing time and again:

Here we produce:
Livestock. Crops. Timber. And so on.

There seems to be a fairly established pattern for understanding what it means for land to be productive.

Expressions such as “the farm is finished” have always caught my attention, because “finished” usually means fully intervened, stripped of much of its original vegetation and profoundly transformed.

On many occasions, I have also heard landowners refer, with a certain sense of melancholy, to the part of the forest they had managed to preserve intact as the part of the property that had not yet been put to productive use.

And that, without question, has been part of the traditional economic logic.

A logic built, to a large extent, on a lack of information, education and policies capable of promoting new ways of creating wealth without necessarily coming into conflict with coexistence with other forms of life.

That is why I have always asked myself:

What if this interpretation is incomplete?

As a wildlife photographer, and as someone familiar with a growing international market interested in experiencing nature in conserved forests and observing birds and mammals within ecologically functional landscapes, I could not help but think that other alternatives exist.

And I am not talking about replacing agriculture or livestock farming.

I am talking about adding another possibility to the land:

a mixed system capable of generating economic activity while conserving biodiversity.

In other words:

adding biodiversity to the productive portfolio of the territory.

A property can preserve natural areas, restore habitats, develop specialised infrastructure, receive photographers and wildlife observers, incorporate accommodation and generate new sources of income.

Seen from this perspective, that hectare that once appeared unproductive can suddenly become part of the farm’s economic model.

And this is where something important happens.

The landowner gains an additional reason to preserve the forest.

Not only because it is environmentally responsible or required by regulation.

But also because that forest becomes part of the property’s productive capital.

This could profoundly change the conversation around conservation.

Because as long as destroying an ecosystem generates an economic return while conserving it represents only a cost, we will be working against the incentives.

The opportunity lies in beginning to align those two interests.

Making nature conservation an intelligent business decision as well.

That is another territory of THE ECONOMY OF THE LIVING WORLD.

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