We question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this 'half earth' plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a 'human half' of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality. Main TextThere is a new call to extend conservation frontiers as an ultimate attempt to save global biodiversity. Under the slogan 'nature needs half' (http://natureneedshalf.org/) and spearheaded by leading conservation scientists such as Edward O. Wilson (2016), Reed Noss (Noss et al, 2012), George Wuerthner and John Terborgh (Wuerthner et al, 2015), a vision has been formulated to turn half of the earth into a series of interconnected protected areas. This radical plan for conservation seeks to expand and strengthen the world's current network of protected areas to create a patchwork grid of reserves encompassing at least half the world's surface and hence "about 85 percent" of remaining biodiversity (Wilson, 2016). We wish to open up debate about this idea. While it might be interpreted as simply a rhetorical challenge to provoke greater conservation effort, it is proposed by senior scientific figures and is being widely discussed and supported. Critical reflection about this proposal is thus important.The plan proposed is staggering in scale: protected areas, according to the IUCN, currently incorporate around 15.4% of the earth's terrestrial areas and 3.4% of its oceans. They would thus need to more than triple in extent on land and by more than ten-fold in the oceans. Not only would this include the earth's currently still relatively intact ecosystems and natural habitats, it would also necessarily entail an active programme of restoration and 'rewilding' to 2 return larger areas to a more pristine 'pre-human' baseline (Wilson, 2016;Noss et al, 2012;Donlan et al, 2005). E. O. Wilson is arguably most explicit in his recent book Half-Earth, stating that "only by setting aside half the planet in reserve, or more, can we save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival" (Wilson, 2016: 3).Other conservationists agree that such a goal is the 'only defensible target' from a 'strictly scientific point of view' to allow for a sustainable future (Wuerthner et al, 2015: 18).These proposals seem to be driven by the credo 'desperate times call for desperate measures'. We agree with Wilson and other conservationists that because biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate as a result of human activity therefore urgent need for action to address this. Desperate times, however, demand careful decisions. We argue that the 'hal...

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This special issue introduces readers to collaborative event ethnography (CEE), a method developed to support the ethnographic study of large global environmental meetings. CEE was applied by a group of seventeen researchers at the Tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to study the politics of biodiversity conservation. In this introduction, we describe our interests in global environmental meetings as sites where the politics of biodiversity conservation can be observed and as windows into broader governance networks. We specify the types of politics we attend to when observing such meetings and then describe the CBD, its COP, challenges meetings pose for ethnographic researchers, how CEE responds to these challenges generally, and the specifics of our research practices at COP10. Following a summary of the contributed papers, we conclude by reflecting on the evolution of CEE over time.

By exploring the shifting and uneven power relations among state, market and civil society organizations in US environmental foreign aid policy‐making, this article forges new ground in conversations about conservation and neoliberalism. Since the 1970s, an evolving group of non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) has lobbied the US Congress to support environmental foreign assistance. However, the 1980s and 1990s rise of neoliberalism laid the conditions for the formation of a dynamic alliance among representatives of the US Congress, the US Agency for International Development, environmental NGOs and the private sector around biodiversity conservation. In this alliance, idealized visions of NGOs as civil society and a countering force to corporations have underpinned their influence, despite their contemporary corporate partnerships. Furthermore, by focusing on international biodiversity conservation, the group has attracted a broad spectrum of political and corporate support to shape public policy and in the process create new spaces for capital expansion.

Over the past two decades, the incorporation of market logics into environment and conservation policy has led to a reconceptualization of “nature.” Resulting constructs like ecosystem services and biodiversity derivatives, as well as finance mechanisms like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, species banking, and carbon trading, offer new avenues for accumulation and set the context for new enclosures. As these practices have become more apparent, geographers have been at the forefront of interdisciplinary research that has highlighted the effects of “green grabs”—in which “green credentials” are used to justify expropriation of land and resources—in specific locales. While case studies have begun to reveal the social and ecological marginalization associated with green grabs and the implementation of market mechanisms in particular sites, less attention has been paid to the systemic dimensions and “logics” mobilizing these projects. Yet, the emergence of these constructs reflects a larger transformation in international environmental governance—one in which the discourse of global ecology has accommodated an ontology of natural capital, culminating in the production of what is taking shape as “The Green Economy.” The Green Economy is not a natural or coincidental development, but is contingent upon, and coordinated by, actors drawn together around familiar and emergent institutions of environmental governance. Indeed, the terrain for green grabbing is increasingly cultivated through relationships among international environmental policy institutions, organizations, activists, academics, and transnational capitalist and managerial classes. This special issue of Human Geography brings together papers that draw on a range of theoretical perspectives to investigate the systemic dimensions and logics mobilizing green grabs and the creation of new market mechanisms. In inverting the title – “grabbing green” instead of the more conventional green grabs – we explore how “the environment” is being used instrumentally by various actors to extend the potential for capital accumulation under the auspices of “being green.” Using a diversity of empirical material that spans local to global scales, the papers reveal the formation of the social relations and metrics that markets require to function. They identify the “frictions” that inhibit the production of these social relations, and they link particular cases to the scalar configurations of power that mobilize and give them shape.