Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-28 |
| Number of pages | 28 |
| Journal | Journal of Peasant Studies |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 24 Feb 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2019 |
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Keywords
- biopower
- conservation
- environmental markets
- Natural capital
- neoliberalism
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Natural capital must be defended: green growth as neoliberal biopolitics. / Fletcher, Robert; Dressler, Wolfram H.; Anderson, Zachary R.; Büscher, Bram.
In: Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 46, No. 5, 05.2019, p. 1-28.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural capital must be defended: green growth as neoliberal biopolitics
AU - Fletcher, Robert
AU - Dressler, Wolfram H.
AU - Anderson, Zachary R.
AU - Büscher, Bram
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - This contribution addresses the growing global trend to promote ‘natural capital accounting’ (NCA) in support of environmental conservation. NCA seeks to harness the economic value of conserved nature to incentivize local resource users to forgo the opportunity costs of extractive activities. We suggest that this represents a form of neoliberal biopower/biopolitics seeking to defend life by demonstrating its ‘profitability’ and hence right to exist. While little finance actually reaches communities through this strategy, substantial funding still flows into the idea of ‘natural capital’ as the basis of improving rural livelihoods. Drawing on two cases in Southeast Asia, we show that NCA initiatives may compel some local people to value ecosystem services in financial terms, yet in most cases this perspective remains partial and fragmented in communities where such initiatives produce a range of unintended outcomes. When the envisioned environmental markets fail to develop and benefits remain largely intangible, NCA fails to meet the growing material aspirations of farmers while also offering little if any bulwark against their using forests more intensively and/or enrolling in lucrative extractive enterprise. We thus conclude that NCA in practice may become the antithesis of conservation by actually encouraging the resource extraction it intends to combat.
AB - This contribution addresses the growing global trend to promote ‘natural capital accounting’ (NCA) in support of environmental conservation. NCA seeks to harness the economic value of conserved nature to incentivize local resource users to forgo the opportunity costs of extractive activities. We suggest that this represents a form of neoliberal biopower/biopolitics seeking to defend life by demonstrating its ‘profitability’ and hence right to exist. While little finance actually reaches communities through this strategy, substantial funding still flows into the idea of ‘natural capital’ as the basis of improving rural livelihoods. Drawing on two cases in Southeast Asia, we show that NCA initiatives may compel some local people to value ecosystem services in financial terms, yet in most cases this perspective remains partial and fragmented in communities where such initiatives produce a range of unintended outcomes. When the envisioned environmental markets fail to develop and benefits remain largely intangible, NCA fails to meet the growing material aspirations of farmers while also offering little if any bulwark against their using forests more intensively and/or enrolling in lucrative extractive enterprise. We thus conclude that NCA in practice may become the antithesis of conservation by actually encouraging the resource extraction it intends to combat.
KW - biopower
KW - conservation
KW - environmental markets
KW - Natural capital
KW - neoliberalism
U2 - 10.1080/03066150.2018.1428953
DO - 10.1080/03066150.2018.1428953
M3 - Article
VL - 46
SP - 1
EP - 28
JO - The Journal of Peasant Studies
JF - The Journal of Peasant Studies
SN - 0306-6150
IS - 5
ER -