Sinal Do Vale - Supporting a Biohub with a mission.

Since October 2023, Beyonders Collective has supported SInal Do Vale, a Biohub near Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, with Co-creating the Strategy, Building Capacity and Unlocking Resources.

About Sinal Do Vale

Located in the Guanabara Bay bioregion within the endangered Atlantic Forest, just 50 km from the heart of Rio de Janeiro, Sinal do Vale has pioneered over the last 12 years a place-based model for building a sustainable future for people and nature. By purchasing and regenerating 200 hectares of land, SINAL has created a Bio-hub that prototypes and develops practical solutions aimed at regenerating both social and natural ecosystems. SINAL tests and teaches solutions around regenerative agriculture, forest restoration, local gastronomy, art, culture, bio construction, and resilient infrastructure. As an integral learning center, SINAL trains and builds the capacity for young leaders from around the world and across Brazil to be agents of change.

Through local examples, SINAL sparks global change by offering immersive experiences, hosting events, and organizing educational programs for individuals and organizations from around the world on their path to transformation. Sinal do Vale’s mission is to revive cultural landscapes, regenerate natural ecosystems, build resilient communities, and empower people to activate their agency and capacity to contribute to a more sustainable world. Sinal do Vale has been recognized as an Advanced Biosphere Post by UNESCO, a Global Ecosphere Retreat from the Long Run, part of the Mata Atlantica Flagship of the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration, and a council member of a nearby protected area, the state-governed Wildlife Refuge Serra da Estrela.

How it started

In September 2023, Beyonders Collective founder Dirk volunteered for one month in Sinal Do Vale. During this month he supported the Founder and MD of Sinal Do Vale, Thais Corral, with reflecting on the future vision for Sinal, he coached the leadership team and helped articulating a business proposal for an Italian pharmaceutical company Aboca to set up a supply chain with local farmers. At the end of this volunteering assignment, the full Beyonders team started to support SInal, which we are doing until this day.

Co-creating the Sinal 2025-2030 Stategy

We organized a 2 day strategy immersion in Berlin, as Thais Corral was there to attend a Global Solutions Summit. During these days we helped distill the mission, vision and priorities for Sinal Do Vale. This was followed up by a session in Brasil with the full leadership team of Sinal Do Vale where the team could help refine the strategy and co-create the priorities for 2025. In conclusion we supported the leaders in creating their modified job descriptions and accountabilities. This create direction, structure and clarity for the whole team.

Building Capacity

Sinal has three main projects that they are focusing on and where Beyonders have helped build capacity: The Caminho de Reconcavo da Guananbare (a 110km eco-tourism trail), Madre Frutos (a Jackfruit business) and Aboca (natural ingredients supply chain for pharma). Each of these projects have leads within SInal, hence our main focus has been on supporting and coaching these leaders in creating a sound business strategy, writing funding proposals articulating the needs for investments and creating the narrative to convince stakeholders to engage with the projects.

Unlocking Resources

Beyonders Collective has helped amongst other things to articulate the budgetary needs for Sinal Do Vale, helped design a strategy to acquire a property that is crucial for the future develpment of the Biohub, and articulated a business model for the hospitality at the venue. The focus is on making Sinal Do Vale self-sustaining. This was also the starting point for the Bioregional Financing Facility that became a separate project.

G20 Dialogues

We co-designed the series of G20 dialogues that Sinal Do Vale held during 2024. Since the G20 was happening in Rio at the end of the year, we designed 8 dialogues that helped distill the key enabling conditions to create a Bioeconomy. These were the 8 dialogues:

1. Inclusion of Periphery Community in partnership with the National Conference of Favelas and Heinrich Boll Stiftung Foundation

2. Women for Climate Leadership in partnership with REDEH and She Changes Climate

3. Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledge and Inspiration Ecosystem Regeneration in partnership with Cuidemos Paraísos Foundation Chile

4. Incentives and Challenges for Financing the Regenerative Bioeconomy in partnership with Boticario Foundation

5. Regenerative Tourism in partnership with The Long Run

6. Mid term Conference T20 in partnership with GIZ and Boticario Foundation

7. Financial Models for the Atlantic Forest Flagship in partnership with the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.

8. International pioneers in bioeconomy in partnership with GIZ, and UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration

Faciliation of Pathways for Regeneration International Meeting

Beyonders co-designed and facilitated a 4-day meeting that was attended by multiple Biohubs, practicioners, economists and ngo's. In this gathering we heard from different biohubs and together articulated the enabling conditions that are needed to activate the Theory of Change where Biohubs catalyse a Bioregion to create a Bioeconomy. The meeting culminated in TedXRio where the Theory of Change was shared with multiple examples. Here you can find the Ted Talk from Thais Corral.

Reconcavo Da Guanabara report.

Beyonders Collective was a key contributor in the synthesizing of all meetings and in the writing of the report that was launched during the G20 Social in Rio De Janeiro. You can download the report for free here:

Report Sinal G20 Dialogues 2024 (1).pdf

Download PDF • 9.33MB

Learnings

In order to drive real change in complex systems, we need to invest in truly getting to know the place, the players and dynamics between them. Now that we are more than one year collaborating with SInal Do Vale and other players in the Bioregion, we start to be able to move at the speed of trust with our contributions. We have learned that our role is to let the wisdom that is already there, come to the surface.

What's next?

We continue our journey with Sinal Do Vale for the coming year as we together want to prove the Biohub model as an example for ecosystem regeneration that builds resilient communities.