## 4 Conclusions  
The current global climate mitigation agendas are largely based on forest conservation and reforestation. For the forest conservation literature, the inclusion of local populations and the improvement of their livelihoods have been recognized as major mechanisms to prevent deforestation. Accordingly, the identification and implementation of technological means to improve the economic, environmental, and social conditions of communities currently living in or near the forests are of major importance. In the NEA, farmers' cooperatives are formal economic entities with years of experience bringing together, organizing, and empowering local communities. FAO considers the creation of value for the agricultural waste that is generated by these cooperatives to be an opportunity to establish a bioeconomy. In turn, the creation of value for agricultural waste can bring new productive activities and new job opportunities to improve the socioeconomic conditions of local communities in the NEA. We explored the potential of four farmers' cooperatives located in the NEA to implement pyrolysis processes to convert their agricultural waste into biochar. We found that the post-harvest processes are similar in the four cases analyzed. For these farmers' cooperatives, the agricultural waste (i.e., coffee husks) generated in their processing centers currently has little to no economic value and is not useful in agriculture. Ecuadorian policies do not restrict the creation of value for agricultural waste, but there are no specific regulations or standards regarding the implementation of thermochemical conversion processes such as pyrolysis. In Ecuador, the most relevant environmental policies are concerned with controlling the production of electricity in cogeneration plants of more than 3 MWth that simply use agricultural waste as fuel. Therefore, there are no specific standards or regulations that can be used as a reference for the implementation of pyrolysis processes to convert agricultural waste into biochar. The lack of policies and standards to regulate pyrolysis processes can be interpreted as a measure of the innovative nature of this idea. Although the literature on pyrolysis and biochar is vast, few studies have addressed its implementation in the field. In this study, biochar applications that could be very important to major sectors in the NEA are featured. Concerning the circular use of resources, the use of biochar for soil amendment and carbon sequestration is preferable, as it can return to the soil important minerals and mostly carbon. Furthermore, the heat generated during the carbonization of agricultural waste can be used to replace the fossil fuels currently used in the farmers' cooperatives for the mechanical drying processes. Nonetheless, the farmers do not have the economic resources to acquire pyrolysis facilities in which the produced biochar should be marketed at the international prices (600-900 USD/t). In this regard, the monetization of carbon sequestration services based on the application of biochar to soils could make this economically feasible for these farmers' cooperatives. For this, the development of carbon sink certifications and proper business models, both adapted to the context of farmers' cooperatives, would be required. Pyrolysis technologies that can guarantee a sustainable production of biochar have high capital and maintenance costs, namely, rotary kilns and auger reactors. As expected, these investments are out of the reach of these cooperatives. Open-source designs of pyrolysis devices can be an alternative for implementation of pyrolysis technology for local communities, but the adaptation of these designs to this case will require major financial, engineering, and research efforts that are not within the reach of these cooperatives.