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This article draws heavily upon a discussion among 11 leading scholars in nature–society geography to explore the current and historical relationships between value, nature, and capitalism. Prompted by a provocation from Robertson and Wainwright (2013) that political ecologists can no longer afford to avoid engaging with the tricky topic of Marxian value theory, we address the importance of the concept of value for contemporary work within geography on the political economy of the environment, broadly defined. We argue that scholars in nature–society geography should not only tackle the tricky questions of value head-on but that value could and should come to serve as a unifying analytical framework for the subfield.

Conservation finance is a nascent field that claims to “deliver maximum conservation impacts, while, at the same time, generating returns for investors” (Credit Suisse/WWF). While geographers have questioned the ability of conservation finance to play a significant role in international biodiversity conservation, an emerging cohort of boutique private equity firms are actively generating returns on North American conservation projects. This raises the question: how are these firms generating profits, and in turn, returns for their shareholders? Drawing from a Marxian understanding of finance as redistributive, I argue that these firms are generating profits through a process similar to a corporate hostile takeover. Using the examples of ranchland and timberland investment in the United States, I show that (1) the materialities and historical geographies of these landscapes play a crucial role their monetization, and (2) shareholder returns are generated through a combination of traditional real estate sales and revaluations, public monies, and commodity production.

Within geography writ large, and economic geography in particular, there has been increasing interest in ‘engaged pluralism’ – defined by its proponents as lively and respectful engagement across theoretical, methodological, and topical lines – to increase diversity and build mutual respect among scholars. Drawing on feminist and postcolonial scholarship, we offer a sympathetic critique of engaged pluralism, grounded in a review of publishing trends in economic geography. Our findings reveal theoretical inertia around particular topics and paradigms, as well as low rates of publishing participation from women. We close with a discussion of engagement, reciprocity, and meaningful contact.

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