Grabbing “Green”: Markets, Environmental Governance and the Materialization of Natural Capital

Abstract

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.

NotJustParticipation: The Rise of the Eco‐Precariat in the Green Economy

“…The most recognisable entity, the state, for the most part is either visibly absent or intent on tapping green investments for foreign revenue through overseas development assistance, carbon capture, development, conservation for debt‐relief, farming and fishing. In these contexts, the green economy can become an extension of state power in the face of several decades of deregulation that have given rise to green economy institutions (Corson et al ; Peluso and Lund ).…”

From sea-level rise to seabed grabbing: The political economy of climate change in Kiribati

“…Gaining particular traction over the past decade, the "green economy" transformation has been described as one such political project [24], following which highly destructive industries are being shifted to locations, where the adverse socio-environmental impacts of production and extraction do not have to be economically internalised [21,25,26]. The "blue economy", with its attention to the "sustainable development" of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of SIDS [27], has extended similar conceptions to the maritime domain [28].…”

Community-Led Green Land Acquisition: Social Innovative Initiatives for Forest Protection and Regional Development

“…The green grabbing literature primarily critiques those conservation organizations that prioritize the environment over local communities [2,7,69,70]. Even, when there is community involvement or community-based natural resource management, scholars of land grabbing often remain suspicious [3], especially because relying on local communities does not necessarily guarantee the conservation of forests and protected areas [69]; and because local actors may participate simply to gain personal benefit [71].…”

“…We argue that more research is needed to unravel the nuances of green grabbing. Some nuances have been mentioned in the literature, for example: Franco and Borras [12] recognize that the interconnections between environmental discourses, actors and aims-across global and local levels-are not unambiguous, requiring more analysis to understand governance processes; Corson et al [70] concede that more examination of the governance system and logics that trigger and promote green land acquisition is needed; and Fairhead et al [1] advocate that the aims and processes by which land is acquired, and the resultant outcomes, are intrinsically dependent on the context.…”