Paying for nature: what every conservationist should know about political economy

Abstract

Global conservation policy and global capitalism have become increasingly intertwined over the last decade. The move towards 'green capitalism' has manifested itself in diverse ways, most notably in the expansion of payments for environmental services and attempts to commodify nature. However, there are concerns that prioritizing the financial value of nature could undermine efforts to conserve biodiversity. One particularly strong set of critiques has emerged from political economy. While providing rich theoretical and empirical insights into the potential downsides of green capitalism, the literature is often dense and difficult for non-specialists to navigate. Here I review and translate its main concepts and critiques for a conservation audience. I begin by exploring the basic process of commodity exchange. I then consider nature as a reluctant and uncooperative commodity that often requires new institutions and technologies to be commodified. This means conservation organizations play a key role in green capitalism's political economy. These developments are likely to have considerable social and environmental impacts, with a highly uneven distribution of costs and benefits.

Have Ecosystem Services Been Oversold?

“…Natural capital: 'Earth's lands and waters and their biodiversity' [3]. Neoliberalism: a political and economic philosophy that seeks the de-regulation of markets and the privatization of all possible goods and services [45]. Non-use value: the value of an item attributed to its existence, not to its use.…”

The livelihood impacts of the Equitable Payments for Watershed Services (EPWS) Program in Morogoro, Tanzania

“…This could reduce the number of distinct non-participants used to construct the counterfactual outcome and increase the variance of the estimator (Rosenbaum and Rubin, 1983;Dehejia and Wahba, 2002). Matching with replacement allowed the reduction of bias, by producing matches of higher quality than that which could have be achieved with matching without replacement, given the lower number of control observations (Dehejia and Wahba, 2002;Scales, 2015).…”

“…The attractiveness of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes to restore, protect, secure or enhance the supply of ecosystem services and to alleviate poverty in the agricultural ecosystems of developing countries has recently increased (Wunder, 2005(Wunder, , 2007Pagiola and Platais, 2007;Engel et al, 2008;Sommerville et al, 2009;Scales, 2015). However, PES remains a contested conservation approach.…”

PES What a Mess? An Analysis of the Position of Environmental Professionals in the Conceptual Debate on Payments for Ecosystem Services

“…Current debates about anthropocentrism and monetization of ecosystem services in conservation (e.g. Sandbrook et al, 2013) influence and feature prominently in the current debates about PES, notably with respect to the perceived risk of the commodification of nature (Scales, 2015), that is: "the symbolic and institutional changes through which a good or service that was not previously meant for sale enters the sphere of money and market exchange" (Gómez-Baggethun, 2014, p. 67). Those concerned about commodification argue that relying on economic reasoning and transactions will encourage a longerterm changes in values or mind-sets relating to environmental protection, changing conservation logic "from moral obligation or community norms towards conservation for profit" (Rode et al, 2015, p. 273).…”