The Commodification of Biodiversity Conservation - Essay Example

Commodification of Biodiversity Conservation- Neoliberal Conservation Commodification of Biodiversity Conservation- Neoliberal Conservation The past few decades witnessed the introduction of market-based contrivances in biodiversity policies. The most essential market-based instrument for protecting the biodiversity thereby emerged to be the actual market for ecosystem services (Anderson & Leal, 2001). Developers who yearned to turn the most valuable resources- land into economic purposes were thereby obliged to purchase certain policy credits, which are controlled and issued by organizations that serve to compensate for every possible damage caused to any valuable habitat (Malcolm,2007). These organizations compensate for this by enhancing or restoring habitat of comparable ecological value as the one damaged by human activities, but in other geographical region (William & Scott, 2009). This paper thereby analyses such optimistic environmental expectations that are to be accomplished through commodification and nature selling. It visits the economic valuation controversies on ecosystem services in two prospects. First, the institutional setups upon which the environmental governance and policies are embedded, and second, the wider economic and sociopolitical influences that governs the pricing expectations into the previous non-marketed regions of the environment (Robertson, 2004). Finally, it maps the probable economic, social, and ecological problems or challenges of biodiversity commodification, as well as the necessary preconditions for biodiversity enhancements. Commodification of nature or biodiversity is a research area within the grave environmental studies, concerning the ways or methods in which natural processes and entities are made redeemable via the market, and their implications thereafter. Neoliberal conservation on the other hand refers to approaches through which the capitalist expansions and environmental protection are not only crucially complaisant activities, but also mutually companionable ones (Harvey, 2007). Amidst the contemporary environmental, economic, and financial crises, biodiversity has grown enormous vitality due to the role it plays for the ‘green economy,’ which is in turn consolidated by various agreements reached by the environmental organizational policies. The notion behind the biodiversity markets implies that if both negative and positive impacts on biodiversity are measurable as debits and credits, then they can be much easier to integrate as costs or benefits in economic decision-making. Through internalizing the traditionally externalized costs, the biodiversity markets opt to serve as powerful tools for slowing down or stopping the continuing biodiversity loss (Anderson & Leal, 2001). Nature commodification is an area of work that is critical and normative, which draws its basis from the theory of Marxist geography, as well as political ecology (William & Scott, 2009). In order to contest the “market environmentalism” perspectives, geographers and environmental theorists use a commodification framing, which perceives marketization as a remedy to the ongoing environmental deterioration or degradation. For over decades, the environment has been the central site for conflicts between exponents of the extension of market relations, modes and norms of governance, and individuals who tend to oppose such extensions (McCarthy& Rodham, 2004). A number of researchers who employ the concepts of nature commodification invoke the conceptualization of commodities as objects or products produced for sale within the market, embodying both usage and value of exchange. In broader terms, commodification in this perspective is a process whereby goods and services produced “not for sale” get converted into a form that is exchangeable (Kathleen & McAfee, 1999). The process thereby encompasses multiple elements, such as alienation, privatization, abstraction, displacement, individualization and valuation. Owing to the expansion of capitalism both in depth and breadth, several things that were previously external to the environmental systems are becoming internalized, including the processes and entities that are commonly regarded to be “natural.” Nonetheless, “nature” as a concept is quite challenging to define due to its multiple layers, including human activities, as well as the external environments. The political ecology (Robertson, 2004) alongside other vital conceptions, draw uponthe Marxists geography strands, which perceive nature as socially produced, without distinct boundaries distinguishing the “natural” from “social.” Since the last 3-4 decades, the ideology or concept of ‘market environmentalism’ has been gaining reputation and relevance within the environmental policies (William& Scott, 2009). This perspective draws its foundation from the “neoclassical economic theory,” which perceives degradation as an “output” of the absence of pricing for the environmental goods. According to Anderson and Leal (2001), “market environmentalism” attained broad-based acceptance via the rise of neoliberalism, an integrated approach towards human affairs and activities in which the free market is prioritized and money-refereed relations perceived as the most appropriate way for service delivery (Anderson & Leal, 2001). The neoliberal approach towards the environmental conservation re-constructs nature as a universal “world currency,” which is widely valued internationally across diverse markets, and given rendered the opportunity to “harvest” its rights for own survival (Anderson& Leal, 2001). “Selling Nature to Survive itself” is an approach that necessitates economic valuation either directly or indirectly as revealed by KathleenandMcAfee (1999). Indirectly being through contingent valuation and cost-benefit analysis, or directly via direct commodification. Whereas the efforts of commodification are driven partially (but largely) by private organizations seeking innovative avenues for capital circulations and grounds of investments, there are also overt policy prescriptions regarding the market exchange and privatization of resources, byproducts, and production processes as the most appropriate means of rationally managing and conserving the environment (Robertson, 2006) Forming a significant portion of the neoliberal conservation process are the directed solutions towards climate changes, such as the TEEB (the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation)as Harvey (2007) reveals it. These conservation processes alongside other processes, form an interlinked network of proposals, which essentially seek to gain control over land, water, forests and biodiversity as a measure of compensating for the deterioration and loss of biodiversity and natural resources as the raw materials for modern technologies. Practically, these processes serve to promote the employment of neoliberal measures in order to aid the biodiversity management, protect forests, and address the climate problems. They commend the hypothesis that the possible environmental solutions lie within the market, with regards to property rights, proper assignment of commodity prices, as well as within the commodification of nature, cultures, and the traditional knowledge connected to it. All these measures are in compliant with the benefits of justice, respect for the rights of nature, humans and sovereignty. Just the same way the Green Climate Funds may be aiming at the promotion of market mechanisms for effective confrontation of the climate crisis, funds for biodiversity are gearedtowards diverse means of control and privatization of biodiversity. Somewhere in between, there are strategic endorsements of valuations, which serve as transitory and rational short-term tools that convey the value of biodiversity via procedures that reflect the domination by economic and political perspectives. These strategic endorsements of valuations have increasingly been dominant as the environmental movements endeavor to overlook and come up with unique conservation strategies wherever the traditional strategies fail to fail to halt habitat and biodiversity losses (Malcolm,2007). Critique About four decades after conception of the modern conservation movements, it is clearly “visible” and it apparent that the environmental life-support programs and systems are deteriorating worldwide. Biodiversity loss thereby remains unrelenting, and anthropogenic pressures are evidently reaching a higher scale, where the jeopardy of sudden environmental disruptions are no longer exclusive (Smith, 2008). Despite its copious achievements with regards to the protection of habitats and rare species, the commodification of biodiversity conservation strategies have controversially been powerless to stabilize or reserve the metabolic patterns of the worldwide economy, which is characterized by the endlessly increasing demands on stocks of the natural capital, biodiversity, and ecosystem services (McCarthy & Rodham, 2004). Critics thereby emphasize the controversies and undesirable ethical and physical consequences triggered by the commodification of biodiversity and natural resources (as the key inputs to production) and processes (as conditions and environmental services). One of the central neoliberalism endeavors is to expand and intensify the global capitalism. In turn, capitalism is at the center of intense ecological changes, alongside the crises unleashed by the environmental changes (McCarthy& Rodham, 2004). With the rising capitalism, the scale of, and means of diversity driven towards the transformation of the ecosystem have dramatically grown (Karl, 2001). In other words, the interaction between technological developments and the escalation of colonial extraction, the emerging capitalism became extra adept at offsetting the regional and local ecological transformations extra-regionally and extra-locally, thereby laying a foundation for ecological crises on a worldwide scale. Robertson (2004) elucidates that within space and across space, capitalism has adversely changed and disrupted the ecological process metabolisms and connections. Creating clear monetary exchange values of nature in order to estimate the prices that are to be paid for conservation services is not simply about attempting to preserve the ecosystem. It is about finding the movements’ new arena for their markets to operate within, thus expanding the remit, and eventually capital circulation (Robertson, 2006). Therefore, payments go to individuals, groups or organization that are able to pay for and capture the capital, rather than directly paying to nature. This explains why the conservation response to ecological crises, despite being popular and well-understood as contestation to the ecological effects of capitalism, are only providing avenues for capitalist expansions and not biodiversity conservation (Karl, 2001). Critics perceive environmental deterioration and degradation as curtailing from commodification processes. According to McCarthy and Rodham (2004), there are three main problem fields from which nature commodification is critiqued: (i) practical, (ii) moral, and (iii) consequential. Practical critique analyses whether nature can properly be converted into commodity or not, moral critique analyses the ethical implications of commodification, and consequential critique analyses the possible and observable impacts of commodification on nature (William & Scott, 2009). Lots of literature associates the commodification of nature to the issues of materiality, in other words, the essentiality of biophysical context and properties (Noel, 2010). The physical non-human world thereby affects the construction of economic and social practices and relations, including ecology in the dynamic forces of capital (McCarthy& Rodham2004). For instance, marine ecosystem (or simply, water) is not easy to “commodify” owing to its physical properties, hence the differentiation in its overriding institutions (Noel, 2010). It is thereby problematic to demarcate, rate and price some of the nature-based commodities. Their exclusion and divisibility are almost impossible since it is often impossible to draw clear property rights upon environmental resources or services. Here, Harvey (2007) declares that there exists something innately anti-ecological concerning the capitalist commodification since it tends to ignore and simplify the obscuring origins, and complex relations thereby narrowing down things to standard unit or single service. On the other hand, a single monetary value would probably deny or limit the multiplicity of values attributed to nature, such as the systems of social and cultural importance. Smith (2008) reveals that neoliberalism implicate a great alteration in patterns of access and utilization of natural resources. Generally, markets poorly deal with matters of equitable distribution and procedural fairness. Commodification thereby exhibits high levels of inequality in participation and power while preserving the prevailing vulnerabilities (Robertson, 2004). The benefits of ecosystem may be regarded as normative “public resources” since even if commoditized, there is a conception that individuals ought not to be barred from accessing a natural resource. Finally, commodification of nature empowers natural entities and services to become the leeway for profit realization- subject to market forces where efficiency dominates other basic concerns. Therefore, market exchange and commodification are “reason-blind.” However, without the rationale assessment of diverse strategies, in addition to the ecological significance of certain natural objects, commodification can never effectively deliver conservation services to its intimacy. References Anderson, T. & Leal, D. (2001). Free market environmentalism. New York, NY: Palgrave. Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Karl, P. (2001). The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Boston:Beacon Press. Kathleen, V. & McAfee, T. (1999). Selling nature to save it? Biodiversity and green developmentalism. Environment and Planning; Society and Space. 17(2), 133-154. Malcolm, A. (2007). Habitat management for conservation: A handbook of techniques. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCarthy, J. & Rodham. (2004). Neoliberal nature and the nature of neoliberalism. Journal of Geoforum, 35(3), 175-183. Noel, C. (2010). Neoliberalism and the biophysical environment: Theorizing theneoliberalization of nature. Geography Compass, 4(12), 36-49. Robertson, M. M. (2004). The neoliberalization of ecosystem services: Wetland mitigation banking and problems in environmental governance. Geographical Forum, 35, 61–73. Robertson, M. M. (2006). The nature that capital can see: Science, state and market in the commodification of ecosystems services. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 24, 67–87. Smith, N. (2008). Uneven development: Nature, capital, and the production of space. Athens: University of Georgia Press. William, P. &Scott, J. (2009). A companion to environmental geography: Commodification. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Read More