The world's first "nature superpower" | Ilona Szabó de Carvalho
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
Over the last 40 years, Brazil has lost an area larger than California to deforestation — and 90 percent of the clear-cutting has been illegal, all part of a multi-billion-dollar global environmental crime economy. Civic entrepreneur Ilona Szabó de Carvalho sees this crisis as an opportunity. Revealing how Brazil is pioneering an economic model actually profiting from protecting nature, she shares the ambitious restoration goals and innovations in forest mapping that are turning the country into a "nature superpower." Get a glimpse of what an economy rooted in regeneration, not extraction, could look like.
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| 0:00.0 | Two Titans of Silicon Valley, one prize, dominance in the world of artificial intelligence. |
| 0:07.0 | Supremacy is the real story behind the struggle to own our digital future and potentially the very nature of human experience. |
| 0:16.0 | Supremacy by Parmy Olson, described as a riveting tale by the new scientist, winner of the Financial |
| 0:22.6 | Times Business Book of the Year, and now the Waterstone's nonfiction book of the month. |
| 0:27.5 | Listen to the audiobook of Supremacy Now. |
| 0:44.6 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:52.1 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Forest are nature's superpower and will always be better than cleared land, |
| 0:56.4 | according to civic entrepreneur Ilona Saboa de Carvayo. |
| 1:02.3 | In her talk, she shares why nature-aligned economies outperform destructive practices and says it's time for innovative financial programs to help drive an economic paradigm shift |
| 1:08.4 | that supports us and our planet. |
| 1:19.5 | A nature's superpower. |
| 1:23.8 | Sounds great, right? |
| 1:25.7 | But what does it mean? |
| 1:30.3 | In Brazil, achieving superpower status goes far beyond renewables and green tech. |
| 1:33.3 | It starts with fundamentally redesigning our relationship with nature. |
| 1:38.3 | Over half of global GDP depends on everything nature provides for free. |
| 1:43.3 | The air we breathe, the water we drink, |
| 1:46.0 | the stability of our climate. That's why I bring nature to the forefront of policy, |
| 1:52.0 | from international diplomacy to economic planning. It's easy to understand our reasons. |
| 1:59.0 | Brazil hosts the biggest tropical forest on Earth. |
| 2:03.3 | We have one of the widest and longest rivers on the planet. |
| 2:07.3 | We're more biologically diverse than any other nation, |
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