Biodiversity Offsetting and the Construction of ‘Equivalent Natures'
A Marxist Critique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i3.1523Keywords:
neoliberal conservation, production of nature, biodiversity offsetting, labour theory of value, theory of rent, biodiversity marketsAbstract
In this paper we explore the logic of biodiversity offsetting, focusing on its core promise: the production of ‘equivalent natures’. We show how the construction of equivalence unravels the environmental contradictions of capitalism by exploring how and why it is achieved, and its profound implications for nature-society dialectics. We focus on the construction of an ecological equivalence between ecosystems, the construction of ecological credits that are considered equivalent in monetary terms, and, finally, the construction of an equivalence between places. The existing critical literature, in some cases implicitly and unwittingly, assumes that biodiversity offsetting creates value. In contrast to this argument, we apply Marx’s labour theory of value to conclude that in the majority of instances offsetting does not create value, rather it is an instance of rent. We also draw on Marxist analyses on the production of nature and place to show that biodiversity offsetting radically rescripts nature as placeless, obscuring the fact that it facilitates the production of space, place, and nature according to the interests of capital while emphasizing that at the core of offsetting lie social struggles over rights and access to land and nature. Biodiversity offsetting’s dystopian vision for the future makes it an important focus for all critical scholars seeking to understand and challenge the contradictions of the capitalist production of nature.
References
Andreucci, D., García-Lamarca, M., Wedekind, J., Swyngedouw, E. 2017. ‘Value Grabbing’: a political ecology of rent. Capitalism Nature Socialism 28, 28 -47.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017a. Biodiversity Offsetting and Conservation: Reframing Nature to Save It. Oryx 51, 23-31.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017b. Cutting nature to fit: Urbanization, neoliberalism and biodiversity offsetting in England. Geoforum, doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.05.013.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017c. Biodiversity offsetting and the reframing of conservation: a reply to ten Kate & von Hase and Dempsey & Collard. Oryx 51, 40-42.
Apostolopoulou, E. and W.M. Adams. 2015. Neoliberal Capitalism and Conservation in the Post-crisis Era: The Dialectics of ‘Green’ and ‘Un-green’ Grabbing in Greece and the UK. Antipode 47, 15-35.
Apostolopoulou, E., Bormpoudakis, D., Paloniemi, R., Cent, J., Grodzińska-Jurczak, M., Pietrzyk-Kaszyńska, A., Pantis, J. D. 2014. Governance rescaling and the neoliberalization of nature: the case of biodiversity conservation in four EU countries. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 21, 481-494.
Bayon, R., Fox, J., Carroll, N. 2008. Conservation and Biodiversity Banking: A Guide to Setting Up and Running biodiversity credit trading systems. UK and USA: Earthscan.
BBOP (Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme). 2009. Biodiversity Offset Design Handbook: Appendices. Washington, D.C: BBOP.
BBOP (Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme). 2012. Standard on Biodiversity Offsets. Washington, D.C: BBOP.
Bishop, J. (ed.) 2012. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in Business and Enterprise. London and New York: Earthscan.
Bond, P. 2012. Emissions Trading, New Enclosures and Eco-Social Contestation. Antipode 44, 684-701.
Bonneuil, C. 2015. Tell me where you come from, I will tell you who you are: A genealogy of biodiversity offsetting mechanisms in historical context. Biological Conservation 192, 485-491.
Bormpoudakis, D., Apostolopoulou, E., Tzanopoulos, J. ‘Feathered obstacles to economic revival’ and biodiversity offsetting: A topography of Lodge Hill, South East England. Under review.
Bracking, S., Bond, P., Brockington, D., Büscher, B., Igoe, J. J., Sullivan, S., and Woodhouse, P. 2014. Human, non-human and environmental value systems: an impossible frontier? LSCV Working paper Series No.1. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Bridge, G. 2011. Resource geographies 1: Making carbon economies, old and new. Progress in Human Geography 35, 820-834.
Brockington, D. and Duffy, R. 2010. Capitalism and conservation: the production and reproduction of biodiversity conservation. Antipode 42, 469-484.
Bull, J.W., Suttle, K.B., Gordon, A., Singh, N.J., Milner-Gulland, E.J. 2013. Biodiversity offsets in theory and practice. Oryx 47, 369-380.
Bumpus, A. 2011. The matter of carbon: Understanding the materiality of tCO2e in carbon offsets. Antipode 43, 612-638.
Bumpus, A. and Liverman, D.M. 2008. Accumulation by decarbonization and the governance of carbon offsets. Economic Geography 84, 127-155.
Burkett, P. 1997. Nature in Marx Reconsidered A Silver Anniversary Assessment of Alfred Schmidt's Concept of Nature in Marx. Organization & Environment 10, 164-183.
Burkett, P. 1999. Marx and Nature. A red and green perspective. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Burkett, P. 2003. The Value Problem in Ecological Economics Lessons from the Physiocrats and Marx. Organization & Environment 16, 137-167.
Burkett, P. 2006. Marxism and ecological economics: Toward a red and green political economy. Historical Materialism Book Series Vol. 11. Boston: Brill.
Büscher, B., Sullivan, S., Neves, K., Igoe, J., Brockington, D. 2012. Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal biodiversity conservation. Capitalism Nature Socialism 23, 4-29.
Callon, M. 2007. What does it mean to say that economics is performative? In, D. MacKenzie, F. Muneisa, L. Sui (eds), Do Economists Make Markets? On the Perfomativity of Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 311-357.
Callon, M. and Muniesa, F. 2003. Les marchés économiques comme dispositifs collectifs de calcul. Réseaux 21, 189-233.
Carver, L. and Sullivan, S. 2017. How economic contexts shape calculations of yield in biodiversity offsetting. Conservation Biology 31, 1053-1065.
Castells, M. 1977. The urban question. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Castree, N. and Henderson, G. 2014. The capitalism mode of conservation, neoliberalism and the ecology of value. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Enquiry 7, 16-37.
Commonwealth of Australia. 2012. Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 Environmental Offsets Policy. Department of the Environment, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Conway, M., Rayment, M., White, A., Berman, S. 2013. Exploring potential demand for and supply of habitat banking in the EU and appropriate design elements for a habitat banking scheme. Final Report submitted to DG Environment. UK: ICF GHK and BIO Intelligence Service.
Corbera, E. and Brown, K. 2010. Offsetting benefits? Analysing access to forest carbon. Environment and Planning A 42, 1739-1761.
Corson, C. and MacDonald, K. I. 2012. Enclosing the global commons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 263-283.
Corson, C., MacDonald, K.I., Neimark, B. 2013. Grabbing green: markets, environmental governance and the materialization of natural capital. Human Geography 6, 1-15.
Costanza, R., de Groot, R., Sutton, P. et al. 2014. Changes in the global value of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change 26, 152-158.
Curran, M., Hellweg, S., Beck, J. 2013. Is there any empirical support for biodiversity offset policy? Ecological Applications 24, 617-632.
Dauguet, B. 2015. Biodiversity offsetting as a commodification process: a French case study as a concrete example. Biological Conservation 192, 533-540.
DEC 2006. BioBanking: a biodiversity offsets and banking scheme: conserving and restoring biodiversity in NSW. Working Paper. Sydney: Department of Environment and Conservation NSW.
DEC 2007. BioBanking. Biodiversity banking and offsets scheme: scheme overview. Sydney: Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW.
Defra - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 2013. Biodiversity Offsetting in England Green Paper. Available at: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/biodiversity/biodiversity_offsetting/supporting_documents/20130903Biodiversity%20offsetting%20green%20paper.pdf).
Department of Defense and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). 2008. Compensatory Mitigation for Losses of Aquatic Resources; Final Rule. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DoD and Environmental Protection Agency.
Dickinson, S. and Berner, P.O. 2010. Ambatovy project: Mining in a challenging biodiversity setting in Madagascar. In, S.M. Goodman and V. Mass (eds), Biodiversity, exploration, and conservation of the natural habitats associated with the Ambatovy project. Malagasy Nature 3, 2-13.
Duke, G., Dickie, I., Juniper, T., ten Kate, K., Pieterse, M., et al. 2012. Opportunities for UK Business that Value and/or Protect Nature’s Services. London: Ecosystem Markets Task Force and Valuing Nature Network, GHK.
Eftec, IEEP et al. 2010. The use of market-based instruments for biodiversity protection - The case of habitat banking - Technical Report. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/enveco/index.htm
Engels, F. 1940. Dialectics of nature. New York: International Publishers.
Environment Bank. 2012. Biodiversity offsetting to compensate for nightingale habitat loss at Lodge Hill, Kent. UK: The Environment Bank Ltd.
Environment Bank. 2014. Biodiversity offsetting scheme. Whitehouse Farm, Killingworth. UK: The Environment Bank Ltd.
Felli, R. 2014. On Climate Rent. Historical Materialism 22, 251-280.
Fine, B. 2005. From actor-network theory to political economy. Capitalism Nature Socialism 16, 91-108.
Fine, B. and Lapavitsas, C. 2000. Markets and money in social theory: what role for economics? Economy and Society 29, 357-382.
Fine, B. and Milonakis, D. 2009. From economics imperialism to freakonomics: the shifting boundaries between economics and other social sciences. London: Routledge.
Fish and Wildlife Service. 2003. Federal guidance for the Establishment, Use, and Operation of Conservation Banks. Washington, D.C: United States Department of the Interior.
Foster, J.B. 2000. Marx’s Ecology. Materialism and nature. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Gardner, T.A., von Hase, A., Brownlie, S., Ekstrom, J. M.M., Pilgrim, J.D., Savy, C.E., Stephens, R.T.T., Treweek, J., Ussher, G.T., Ward, G., ten Kate, K. 2013. Biodiversity offsets and the challenge of achieving no net loss. Conservation Biology 27, 1254-1264.
Gibbons, P., Lindenmayer, D.B. 2007. Offsets for land clearing: No net loss or the tail wagging the dog? Ecological Management & Restoration 8, 26-31.
Greco, E. 2015. Value or rent? A discussion of the research protocol from a political economic perspective. LSCV Working paper Series No.8. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Harvey, D. 2001. Cosmopolitanism and the Banality of Geographical Evils. In, J. Comaroff and J/ L. Comaroff (eds), Millenial capitalism and the culture of neoliberalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 271-309.
Harvey, D. 2006. The limits to capital. London and New York: Verso.
Harvey, D. 2014. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. UK: Profile Books.
Helgesson, C. and Muniesa, F. 2013. For What It’s Worth: An Introduction to Valuation Studies. Valuation Studies 1, 1-10.
Herrera, L.M.G., Smith, N., Vera, M.Á.M. 2007. Gentrification, displacement, and tourism in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Urban Geography 28, 276-298.
Heynen, N., McCarthy, J., Prudham, S., Robbins, P. (eds) 2007. Neoliberal Environments. False promises and unnatural consequences. London and New York: Routledge.
Hillman, M. and Instone, L. 2010. Legislating nature for biodiversity offsets in New South Wales, Australia. Social & Cultural Geography 11, 411-431.
HS2. 2013. London-West Midlands Environmental Statement. Volume 5. Technical Appendices. Scope and methodology report addendum (Ct-001-000/2). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/260153/Vol5_Scope_and_methodology_report_addendum_CT-001-000.2.pdf.
Huber, M. 2017. Value, Nature and Labor: a defense of Marx. Capitalism Nature Socialism 28, 39 -52.
IEEP. 2014. Study on specific design elements of biodiversity offsets: Biodiversity metrics and mechanisms for securing long term conservation benefits. DG Environment, ENV.B.2/ETU/2013/0060r, ICF Consulting Services and IEEP and associated experts.
Igoe, J., Neves, K., Brockington, D. 2010. A spectacular eco-tour around the historic bloc: Theorising the convergence of biodiversity conservation and capitalist expansion. Antipode 42, 486–512.
Ives, C.D., Bekessy, S.A. 2015. The ethics of offsetting nature. Front Ecol Environ 13, 568-573.
Jones, P. 2009. Saving the planet or selling off the atmosphere? Emissions trading, capital accumulation and the carbon rent. Marxist Interventions 1, 9-22.
Katz, C. 1998. Whose nature, whose culture?: private productions of space and the ‘preservation’ of nature. In, B. Braun and N. Castree (eds.), Remaking reality. Nature at the millennium. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 45-62.
Katz, C. and Kirby, A. 1991. In the nature of things: the environment and everyday life. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16, 259-271.
Lansing, D.M. 2012. Performing carbon’s materiality: the production of carbon offsets and the framing of exchange. Environment and Planning A 44, 204-220.
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lefebvre, H. 1970. Survival of capitalism. La revolution urbaine. Paris: Gallimard.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Levins, R. and Lewontin, R. 1985. The dialectical biologist. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Lohmann, L. 2010. Uncertainty markets and carbon markets: Variations on Polanyian themes. New Political Economy 15, 225-254.
Lohmann, L. 2012. Financialization, commodification and carbon: the contradictions of neoliberal climate policy. Socialist register 48, 85-107.
Lourival, R., de Queiroz Caleman, S.M., Villar, G.I.M., Ribeiro, A.R., Elkin, C. 2008. Getting fourteen for the price of one! Understanding the factors that influence land value and how they affect biodiversity conservation in central Brazil. Ecological Economics 67: 20-31.
MacKenzie, D. 2009. Making Things the Same: Gases, Emission Rights and the Politics of Carbon Markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34, 440-455.
Madsen, B., Carroll, N., Kandy, D., Bennett, G. 2011. State of Biodiversity Markets Report: Offset and Compensation Programs Worldwide. Washington, DC: Forest Trends.
Madsen, B., Carroll, N., Moore Brands, K. 2010. State of biodiversity markets report: offset and compensation programs worldwide. Washington, DC: Forest Trends.
Maron, M., Hobb, R. J., Moilanen, A., Matthews, J. W., Christie, K., Gardner, T.A., et al. 2012. Faustian bargains? Restoration realities in the context of biodiversity offset policies. Biological Conservation 155, 141-148.
Marx, K. 1887. Capital. A critique of political economy. Volume I. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Marx, K. 1894. Capital. A critique of political economy. Volume III. New York: International Publishers. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/
Marx, K. 1899. Value, price and profit. London: Swan, SonnenSchein & Co.
Marx, K. 1964. The economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1970. The German ideology. Vol. 1. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 2002. The communist manifesto. Penguin.
Newmont Golden Ridge Limited. 2009. BBOP Pilot Project Case Study. Akyem Gold Mining Project, Eastern Region, Ghana. Accra, Ghana. Available at: www.forest-trends.org/biodiversityoffsetprogram/guidelines/newmont-case- study.pdf.
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. 2002. Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34, 380-404.
Prudham, S. 2009. Pimping climate change: Richard Branson, global warming, and the performance of capitalism. Environment and planning A 41, 1594-1613.
Quétier, F. and Lavorel, S. 2011. Assessing ecological equivalence in biodiversity offset schemes: key issues and solutions. Biological Conservation 144, 2991-2999.
Robertson, M. 2000. No net loss: wetland restoration and the incomplete capitalization of nature. Antipode 32, 463-493.
Robertson, M. 2012. Measurement and alienation: making a world of ecosystem services. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37, 386-401.
Robertson, M. and Wainwright, J.D. 2013. The value of nature to the state. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103, 890-905.
Ruhl, J.B. and Salzman, J.E. 2006. The Effects of Wetland Mitigation Banking on People. FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 179. Available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=878331.
Sandbrook, C., Nelson, F., Adams, W.M. and Agrawal, A. 2010. Carbon, Forests and the REDD Paradox. Oryx 44, 330-334.
Sayer, D. 1987. The Violence of Abstraction. Basil: Blackwell.
Seagle, C. 2012. Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 447-477.
Smith, N. 1998. Nature at the millenium: production and re-enchantment. In, B. Braun B and N. Castree (eds), Remaking reality. Nature at the millennium. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 269-282.
Smith, N. 2006. Nature as accumulation strategy. In, Panitch L and Leys C (eds), Socialist Register 2007: Coming to Terms with Nature. London: Merlin, pp. 16-36.
Smith, N. 2010. Uneven Development (3rd edn). New York: Verso.
Starosta, G. 2010. Global commodity chains and the Marxian law of value. Antipode 42, 433 -465.
Sullivan, S. 2013. After the green rush? Biodiversity offsets, uranium power, and the ‘calculus of casualties’ in greening growth. Human Geography 6, 80-101.
Sullivan, S. 2014. The natural capital myth; or will accounting save the world? LSCV Working paper Series No.3. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Sullivan, S. and Hannis, M. 2015. Nets and frames, losses and gains: value struggles in engagements with biodiversity offsetting policy in England. Ecosystem Services 15, 162-173.
Swyngedouw, E. 2012. Rent and landed property. In, B. Fine and A. Saad-Filho (eds), The Elgar companion to Marxist economics. Northhampton: Edward Elgar, pp. 310-315.
Takacs, D. 1996. The Idea of Biodiversity: philosophies of paradise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
TEEB. 2010. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A Synthesis of the Approach, Conclusions and Recommendations of TEEB. Geneva: TEEB.
ten Kate, K., Bishop, J., Bayon, R. 2004. Biodiversity offsets: views, experience, and the business case. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, Cambridge, and Insight Investment, London.
The Biodiversity Consultancy. 2013. Government policies on biodiversity offsets. Cambridge: The Biodiversity Consultancy Ltd.
Tsing, A. 2000. Inside the economy of appearances. Public Culture 12, 115-144.
Tucker, G., Allen, B., Conway, M., Dickie, I., Hart, K., Rayment, M., Schulp, C., van Teeffelen, A. 2013. Policy Options for an EU No Net Loss Initiative. Report to the European Commission. London: Institute for European Environmental Policy.
Wilson, E.O. and Peter, F.M. 1988. Biodiversity. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017a. Biodiversity Offsetting and Conservation: Reframing Nature to Save It. Oryx 51, 23-31.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017b. Cutting nature to fit: Urbanization, neoliberalism and biodiversity offsetting in England. Geoforum, doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2017.05.013.
Apostolopoulou, E. and Adams, W.M. 2017c. Biodiversity offsetting and the reframing of conservation: a reply to ten Kate & von Hase and Dempsey & Collard. Oryx 51, 40-42.
Apostolopoulou, E. and W.M. Adams. 2015. Neoliberal Capitalism and Conservation in the Post-crisis Era: The Dialectics of ‘Green’ and ‘Un-green’ Grabbing in Greece and the UK. Antipode 47, 15-35.
Apostolopoulou, E., Bormpoudakis, D., Paloniemi, R., Cent, J., Grodzińska-Jurczak, M., Pietrzyk-Kaszyńska, A., Pantis, J. D. 2014. Governance rescaling and the neoliberalization of nature: the case of biodiversity conservation in four EU countries. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 21, 481-494.
Bayon, R., Fox, J., Carroll, N. 2008. Conservation and Biodiversity Banking: A Guide to Setting Up and Running biodiversity credit trading systems. UK and USA: Earthscan.
BBOP (Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme). 2009. Biodiversity Offset Design Handbook: Appendices. Washington, D.C: BBOP.
BBOP (Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme). 2012. Standard on Biodiversity Offsets. Washington, D.C: BBOP.
Bishop, J. (ed.) 2012. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in Business and Enterprise. London and New York: Earthscan.
Bond, P. 2012. Emissions Trading, New Enclosures and Eco-Social Contestation. Antipode 44, 684-701.
Bonneuil, C. 2015. Tell me where you come from, I will tell you who you are: A genealogy of biodiversity offsetting mechanisms in historical context. Biological Conservation 192, 485-491.
Bormpoudakis, D., Apostolopoulou, E., Tzanopoulos, J. ‘Feathered obstacles to economic revival’ and biodiversity offsetting: A topography of Lodge Hill, South East England. Under review.
Bracking, S., Bond, P., Brockington, D., Büscher, B., Igoe, J. J., Sullivan, S., and Woodhouse, P. 2014. Human, non-human and environmental value systems: an impossible frontier? LSCV Working paper Series No.1. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Bridge, G. 2011. Resource geographies 1: Making carbon economies, old and new. Progress in Human Geography 35, 820-834.
Brockington, D. and Duffy, R. 2010. Capitalism and conservation: the production and reproduction of biodiversity conservation. Antipode 42, 469-484.
Bull, J.W., Suttle, K.B., Gordon, A., Singh, N.J., Milner-Gulland, E.J. 2013. Biodiversity offsets in theory and practice. Oryx 47, 369-380.
Bumpus, A. 2011. The matter of carbon: Understanding the materiality of tCO2e in carbon offsets. Antipode 43, 612-638.
Bumpus, A. and Liverman, D.M. 2008. Accumulation by decarbonization and the governance of carbon offsets. Economic Geography 84, 127-155.
Burkett, P. 1997. Nature in Marx Reconsidered A Silver Anniversary Assessment of Alfred Schmidt's Concept of Nature in Marx. Organization & Environment 10, 164-183.
Burkett, P. 1999. Marx and Nature. A red and green perspective. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Burkett, P. 2003. The Value Problem in Ecological Economics Lessons from the Physiocrats and Marx. Organization & Environment 16, 137-167.
Burkett, P. 2006. Marxism and ecological economics: Toward a red and green political economy. Historical Materialism Book Series Vol. 11. Boston: Brill.
Büscher, B., Sullivan, S., Neves, K., Igoe, J., Brockington, D. 2012. Towards a synthesized critique of neoliberal biodiversity conservation. Capitalism Nature Socialism 23, 4-29.
Callon, M. 2007. What does it mean to say that economics is performative? In, D. MacKenzie, F. Muneisa, L. Sui (eds), Do Economists Make Markets? On the Perfomativity of Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 311-357.
Callon, M. and Muniesa, F. 2003. Les marchés économiques comme dispositifs collectifs de calcul. Réseaux 21, 189-233.
Carver, L. and Sullivan, S. 2017. How economic contexts shape calculations of yield in biodiversity offsetting. Conservation Biology 31, 1053-1065.
Castells, M. 1977. The urban question. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Castree, N. and Henderson, G. 2014. The capitalism mode of conservation, neoliberalism and the ecology of value. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Enquiry 7, 16-37.
Commonwealth of Australia. 2012. Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 Environmental Offsets Policy. Department of the Environment, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Conway, M., Rayment, M., White, A., Berman, S. 2013. Exploring potential demand for and supply of habitat banking in the EU and appropriate design elements for a habitat banking scheme. Final Report submitted to DG Environment. UK: ICF GHK and BIO Intelligence Service.
Corbera, E. and Brown, K. 2010. Offsetting benefits? Analysing access to forest carbon. Environment and Planning A 42, 1739-1761.
Corson, C. and MacDonald, K. I. 2012. Enclosing the global commons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 263-283.
Corson, C., MacDonald, K.I., Neimark, B. 2013. Grabbing green: markets, environmental governance and the materialization of natural capital. Human Geography 6, 1-15.
Costanza, R., de Groot, R., Sutton, P. et al. 2014. Changes in the global value of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change 26, 152-158.
Curran, M., Hellweg, S., Beck, J. 2013. Is there any empirical support for biodiversity offset policy? Ecological Applications 24, 617-632.
Dauguet, B. 2015. Biodiversity offsetting as a commodification process: a French case study as a concrete example. Biological Conservation 192, 533-540.
DEC 2006. BioBanking: a biodiversity offsets and banking scheme: conserving and restoring biodiversity in NSW. Working Paper. Sydney: Department of Environment and Conservation NSW.
DEC 2007. BioBanking. Biodiversity banking and offsets scheme: scheme overview. Sydney: Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW.
Defra - Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. 2013. Biodiversity Offsetting in England Green Paper. Available at: https://consult.defra.gov.uk/biodiversity/biodiversity_offsetting/supporting_documents/20130903Biodiversity%20offsetting%20green%20paper.pdf).
Department of Defense and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). 2008. Compensatory Mitigation for Losses of Aquatic Resources; Final Rule. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DoD and Environmental Protection Agency.
Dickinson, S. and Berner, P.O. 2010. Ambatovy project: Mining in a challenging biodiversity setting in Madagascar. In, S.M. Goodman and V. Mass (eds), Biodiversity, exploration, and conservation of the natural habitats associated with the Ambatovy project. Malagasy Nature 3, 2-13.
Duke, G., Dickie, I., Juniper, T., ten Kate, K., Pieterse, M., et al. 2012. Opportunities for UK Business that Value and/or Protect Nature’s Services. London: Ecosystem Markets Task Force and Valuing Nature Network, GHK.
Eftec, IEEP et al. 2010. The use of market-based instruments for biodiversity protection - The case of habitat banking - Technical Report. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/enveco/index.htm
Engels, F. 1940. Dialectics of nature. New York: International Publishers.
Environment Bank. 2012. Biodiversity offsetting to compensate for nightingale habitat loss at Lodge Hill, Kent. UK: The Environment Bank Ltd.
Environment Bank. 2014. Biodiversity offsetting scheme. Whitehouse Farm, Killingworth. UK: The Environment Bank Ltd.
Felli, R. 2014. On Climate Rent. Historical Materialism 22, 251-280.
Fine, B. 2005. From actor-network theory to political economy. Capitalism Nature Socialism 16, 91-108.
Fine, B. and Lapavitsas, C. 2000. Markets and money in social theory: what role for economics? Economy and Society 29, 357-382.
Fine, B. and Milonakis, D. 2009. From economics imperialism to freakonomics: the shifting boundaries between economics and other social sciences. London: Routledge.
Fish and Wildlife Service. 2003. Federal guidance for the Establishment, Use, and Operation of Conservation Banks. Washington, D.C: United States Department of the Interior.
Foster, J.B. 2000. Marx’s Ecology. Materialism and nature. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Gardner, T.A., von Hase, A., Brownlie, S., Ekstrom, J. M.M., Pilgrim, J.D., Savy, C.E., Stephens, R.T.T., Treweek, J., Ussher, G.T., Ward, G., ten Kate, K. 2013. Biodiversity offsets and the challenge of achieving no net loss. Conservation Biology 27, 1254-1264.
Gibbons, P., Lindenmayer, D.B. 2007. Offsets for land clearing: No net loss or the tail wagging the dog? Ecological Management & Restoration 8, 26-31.
Greco, E. 2015. Value or rent? A discussion of the research protocol from a political economic perspective. LSCV Working paper Series No.8. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Harvey, D. 2001. Cosmopolitanism and the Banality of Geographical Evils. In, J. Comaroff and J/ L. Comaroff (eds), Millenial capitalism and the culture of neoliberalism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 271-309.
Harvey, D. 2006. The limits to capital. London and New York: Verso.
Harvey, D. 2014. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. UK: Profile Books.
Helgesson, C. and Muniesa, F. 2013. For What It’s Worth: An Introduction to Valuation Studies. Valuation Studies 1, 1-10.
Herrera, L.M.G., Smith, N., Vera, M.Á.M. 2007. Gentrification, displacement, and tourism in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Urban Geography 28, 276-298.
Heynen, N., McCarthy, J., Prudham, S., Robbins, P. (eds) 2007. Neoliberal Environments. False promises and unnatural consequences. London and New York: Routledge.
Hillman, M. and Instone, L. 2010. Legislating nature for biodiversity offsets in New South Wales, Australia. Social & Cultural Geography 11, 411-431.
HS2. 2013. London-West Midlands Environmental Statement. Volume 5. Technical Appendices. Scope and methodology report addendum (Ct-001-000/2). Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/260153/Vol5_Scope_and_methodology_report_addendum_CT-001-000.2.pdf.
Huber, M. 2017. Value, Nature and Labor: a defense of Marx. Capitalism Nature Socialism 28, 39 -52.
IEEP. 2014. Study on specific design elements of biodiversity offsets: Biodiversity metrics and mechanisms for securing long term conservation benefits. DG Environment, ENV.B.2/ETU/2013/0060r, ICF Consulting Services and IEEP and associated experts.
Igoe, J., Neves, K., Brockington, D. 2010. A spectacular eco-tour around the historic bloc: Theorising the convergence of biodiversity conservation and capitalist expansion. Antipode 42, 486–512.
Ives, C.D., Bekessy, S.A. 2015. The ethics of offsetting nature. Front Ecol Environ 13, 568-573.
Jones, P. 2009. Saving the planet or selling off the atmosphere? Emissions trading, capital accumulation and the carbon rent. Marxist Interventions 1, 9-22.
Katz, C. 1998. Whose nature, whose culture?: private productions of space and the ‘preservation’ of nature. In, B. Braun and N. Castree (eds.), Remaking reality. Nature at the millennium. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 45-62.
Katz, C. and Kirby, A. 1991. In the nature of things: the environment and everyday life. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 16, 259-271.
Lansing, D.M. 2012. Performing carbon’s materiality: the production of carbon offsets and the framing of exchange. Environment and Planning A 44, 204-220.
Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lefebvre, H. 1970. Survival of capitalism. La revolution urbaine. Paris: Gallimard.
Lefebvre, H. 1991. The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Levins, R. and Lewontin, R. 1985. The dialectical biologist. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Lohmann, L. 2010. Uncertainty markets and carbon markets: Variations on Polanyian themes. New Political Economy 15, 225-254.
Lohmann, L. 2012. Financialization, commodification and carbon: the contradictions of neoliberal climate policy. Socialist register 48, 85-107.
Lourival, R., de Queiroz Caleman, S.M., Villar, G.I.M., Ribeiro, A.R., Elkin, C. 2008. Getting fourteen for the price of one! Understanding the factors that influence land value and how they affect biodiversity conservation in central Brazil. Ecological Economics 67: 20-31.
MacKenzie, D. 2009. Making Things the Same: Gases, Emission Rights and the Politics of Carbon Markets. Accounting, Organizations and Society 34, 440-455.
Madsen, B., Carroll, N., Kandy, D., Bennett, G. 2011. State of Biodiversity Markets Report: Offset and Compensation Programs Worldwide. Washington, DC: Forest Trends.
Madsen, B., Carroll, N., Moore Brands, K. 2010. State of biodiversity markets report: offset and compensation programs worldwide. Washington, DC: Forest Trends.
Maron, M., Hobb, R. J., Moilanen, A., Matthews, J. W., Christie, K., Gardner, T.A., et al. 2012. Faustian bargains? Restoration realities in the context of biodiversity offset policies. Biological Conservation 155, 141-148.
Marx, K. 1887. Capital. A critique of political economy. Volume I. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/
Marx, K. 1894. Capital. A critique of political economy. Volume III. New York: International Publishers. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/
Marx, K. 1899. Value, price and profit. London: Swan, SonnenSchein & Co.
Marx, K. 1964. The economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 1970. The German ideology. Vol. 1. New York: International Publishers.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. 2002. The communist manifesto. Penguin.
Newmont Golden Ridge Limited. 2009. BBOP Pilot Project Case Study. Akyem Gold Mining Project, Eastern Region, Ghana. Accra, Ghana. Available at: www.forest-trends.org/biodiversityoffsetprogram/guidelines/newmont-case- study.pdf.
Peck, J. and Tickell, A. 2002. Neoliberalizing space. Antipode 34, 380-404.
Prudham, S. 2009. Pimping climate change: Richard Branson, global warming, and the performance of capitalism. Environment and planning A 41, 1594-1613.
Quétier, F. and Lavorel, S. 2011. Assessing ecological equivalence in biodiversity offset schemes: key issues and solutions. Biological Conservation 144, 2991-2999.
Robertson, M. 2000. No net loss: wetland restoration and the incomplete capitalization of nature. Antipode 32, 463-493.
Robertson, M. 2012. Measurement and alienation: making a world of ecosystem services. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37, 386-401.
Robertson, M. and Wainwright, J.D. 2013. The value of nature to the state. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103, 890-905.
Ruhl, J.B. and Salzman, J.E. 2006. The Effects of Wetland Mitigation Banking on People. FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 179. Available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=878331.
Sandbrook, C., Nelson, F., Adams, W.M. and Agrawal, A. 2010. Carbon, Forests and the REDD Paradox. Oryx 44, 330-334.
Sayer, D. 1987. The Violence of Abstraction. Basil: Blackwell.
Seagle, C. 2012. Inverting the impacts: Mining, conservation and sustainability claims near the Rio Tinto/QMM ilmenite mine in Southeast Madagascar. Journal of Peasant Studies 39, 447-477.
Smith, N. 1998. Nature at the millenium: production and re-enchantment. In, B. Braun B and N. Castree (eds), Remaking reality. Nature at the millennium. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 269-282.
Smith, N. 2006. Nature as accumulation strategy. In, Panitch L and Leys C (eds), Socialist Register 2007: Coming to Terms with Nature. London: Merlin, pp. 16-36.
Smith, N. 2010. Uneven Development (3rd edn). New York: Verso.
Starosta, G. 2010. Global commodity chains and the Marxian law of value. Antipode 42, 433 -465.
Sullivan, S. 2013. After the green rush? Biodiversity offsets, uranium power, and the ‘calculus of casualties’ in greening growth. Human Geography 6, 80-101.
Sullivan, S. 2014. The natural capital myth; or will accounting save the world? LSCV Working paper Series No.3. Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, The University of Manchester.
Sullivan, S. and Hannis, M. 2015. Nets and frames, losses and gains: value struggles in engagements with biodiversity offsetting policy in England. Ecosystem Services 15, 162-173.
Swyngedouw, E. 2012. Rent and landed property. In, B. Fine and A. Saad-Filho (eds), The Elgar companion to Marxist economics. Northhampton: Edward Elgar, pp. 310-315.
Takacs, D. 1996. The Idea of Biodiversity: philosophies of paradise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
TEEB. 2010. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature: A Synthesis of the Approach, Conclusions and Recommendations of TEEB. Geneva: TEEB.
ten Kate, K., Bishop, J., Bayon, R. 2004. Biodiversity offsets: views, experience, and the business case. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland, Cambridge, and Insight Investment, London.
The Biodiversity Consultancy. 2013. Government policies on biodiversity offsets. Cambridge: The Biodiversity Consultancy Ltd.
Tsing, A. 2000. Inside the economy of appearances. Public Culture 12, 115-144.
Tucker, G., Allen, B., Conway, M., Dickie, I., Hart, K., Rayment, M., Schulp, C., van Teeffelen, A. 2013. Policy Options for an EU No Net Loss Initiative. Report to the European Commission. London: Institute for European Environmental Policy.
Wilson, E.O. and Peter, F.M. 1988. Biodiversity. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press.
Downloads
Published
2018-07-23
How to Cite
Apostolopoulou, E., Greco, E., & Adams, W. M. (2018). Biodiversity Offsetting and the Construction of ‘Equivalent Natures’: A Marxist Critique. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 17(3), 861–892. https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.v17i3.1523
Issue
Section
Research
License
Authors agree to publish their articles in ACME under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
