Please cite only the published version using the reference above.Your access and use of this document is based on your acceptance of the ResearchSPAce Metadata and Data Policies, as well as applicable law:-https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/policies.htmlUnless you accept the terms of these Policies in full, you do not have permission to download this document.This cover sheet may not be removed from the document.Please scroll down to view the document. Nets and frames, losses and gains: value struggles in engagements with biodiversity offsetting policy in England AbstractBiodiversity offsetting (BDO) is presented as capable of mitigating development-related harm to populations of species while simultaneously enhancing economic development. The technique involves constructing such harm as a result of market failures, which can be resolved through market solutions. BDO is contentious, attracting outspoken proponents and opponents in equal measure. We examine competing perspectives of interested non-governmental actors through a structured discourse analysis, using qualitative data coding, of 24 written evidence submissions to the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee's 2013 Inquiry into Biodiversity Offsetting in England. Nuanced positions and areas of agreement notwithstanding, we find that there is a discernible oppositional pattern producing core polarities between organisations favouring and resisting BDO. In interpreting these oppositional dynamics we observe that it is unlikely that this impasse can be resolved since although the debate is framed in terms of differences of view regarding the effectiveness or desirability of specific technical aspects of BDO policy, these differences arise from fundamentally divergent value framings. Struggles over offsetting involve irresolvable value struggles, and negotiations over the assumed (ir)rationality of biodiversity offsetting are thus located firmly within political and ideological arenas. KeywordsBiodiversity offsetting, No Net Loss, discourse analysis, value struggles, framing HighlightsDiscourse analysis of consultation responses on biodiversity offsetting policy in England. Analysis reveals strongly polarised views on market-based conservation technologies. Differences may be irreconcilable, due to divergent and competing value frames.© 2015. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Nature will not suffer herself to be taken by Nets spun out of the Brain. (James Keill, 1738) Introducing Biodiversity Offsetting 1Biodiversity offsetting (BDO 2 ) is proposed as a mitigation technique for managing developmentrelated harm to habitats and associated populations. It requires investment in conservation in one or more locations, distinct from the development site, in such a way as to measurably produce 'no let loss', or even a net gain, of biodiversity in a wider area, and over a specified period of time stretching into the future (BBOP 2009: 3; also see ten Kate 2003; ten K...
This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted following peer review for publication in Environmental Values, 24,[145][146][147][148][149][150][151][152][153][154][155][156][157][158][159][160][161][162][163][164] This sort of enquiry is sensitive to specifics, contexts and the unquantifiable. It can help understand not only some prerequisites for human well-being, but also some factors which undermine proposed environmental measures, and thereby affect many other species too. One such factor is an apparent conflict between promoting ecologically responsible behaviour and safeguarding the freedoms required for personal autonomy.How, then, might such enquiry proceed? One strategy is to plunge straight into generating lists of applicable virtues, based on consideration of relevant 'eco-friendly' behaviours. A related approach is to extrapolate contrasting virtues from those 'ecological vices' which have arguably led us into our present predicament. Plenty of valuable work has been done in both these ways, some of which I discuss below. I intend, though, to argue in favour of stepping back and beginning with some more overarching principle. I suggest that AlasdairMacIntyre's concept of 'virtues of acknowledged dependence', elaborated in his book Dependent Rational Animals (1999: 9), might provide such a starting point. The argument begins, however, with a discussion of autonomy.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider and compare different ways of using numbers to value aspects of nature-beyond-the-human through case analysis of ecological and natural capital accounting practices in the UK that create standardised numerical-economic values for beyond-human natures. In addition, to contrast underlying ontological and ethical assumptions of these arithmetical approaches in ecological accounting with those associated with Pythagorean nature-numbering practices and fractal geometry. In doing so, to draw out distinctions between arithmetical and geometrical ontologies of nature and their relevance for “valuing nature”. Design/methodology/approach Close reading and review of policy texts and associated calculations in: UK natural capital accounts for “opening stock” inventories in 2007 and 2014; and in the experimental implementation of biodiversity offsetting (BDO) in land-use planning in England. Tracking the iterative calculations of biodiversity offset requirements in a specific planning case. Conceptual review, drawing on and contrasting different numbering practices being applied so as to generate numerical-economic values for natures-beyond-the-human. Findings In the cases of ecological accounting practices analysed here, the natures thus numbered are valued and “accounted for” using arithmetical methodologies that create commensurability and facilitate appropriation of the values so created. Notions of non-monetary value, and associated practices, are marginalised. Instead of creating standardisation and clarity, however, the accounting practices considered here for natural capital accounts and BDO create nature-signalling numbers that are struggled over and contested. Originality/value This is the first critical engagement with the specific policy texts and case applications considered here, and, the authors believe, the first attempt to contrast arithmetical and geometrical numbering practices in their application to the understanding and valuing of natures-beyond-the-human.
The chapter considers the environmental ethics underlying certain practices and beliefs observed in the course of field research with primarily ||Khao-a Dama people in west Namibia. ||Khao-a Dama perspectives embody a type of “relational environmental ethics” that refracts anthropocentric/ecocentric dichotomies, and is characterized by respect for, and reciprocity with, agency and intentionality as located in entities beyond the human (ancestors, spirits, animals, healing plants and rain). The chapter connects this worldview with contemporary environmental virtue ethics, arguing that it is compatible with a theoretical framework of “ecological eudaimonism” as a fitting response to a complex contemporary world of “wicked” environmental problems.
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