Conservation and concealment in SpeciesBanking.com, USA: an analysis of neoliberal performance in the species offsetting industry

Abstract

SUMMARYMarket-based strategies are promoted as neoliberal governance solutions to environmental problems, from local to global scales. Tradable mitigation schemes are proliferating. These include species banking, which enables payments for the purchase of species credits awarded to conserved areas to offset development impacts on protected species elsewhere. An analysis of species banks in the USA through a survey of data from the website www.SpeciesBanking.com (established as a 'clearing house' for species banking information) was complemented by questionnaire material from USA bank managers. The number of USA species banks has increased rapidly, bank area ownership and management is consolidated in a small number of organizations, and public information on species credit price is limited. In interrogating the case material, the roles of specific economic policies associated with neoliberalism are considered, focusing on the extension of privatization, de-and re-regulation and marketization into the arena of environmental conservation, and commodification processes as manifested in species banking. Problematic ecological and distributive 'concealments' in species banking include the 'development-led' nature of conservation banking, tendencies towards net biodiversity loss, and an emphasis on supporting conservation-related wealth accumulation by larger landowners and investors.

“Mathematics maybe, but not money”

“…We have suggested that the numbers used to account for nature in applications such as natural capital accounts and biodiversity offsetting conceptually simplify the natures thus represented, allowing their enrolment into capitalist enterprise in new ways that may also generate concern (also see McAfee, 1999;Castree, 2003;Robertson, 2006;Sullivan, 2009Sullivan, , 2013bFourcade, 2011;Pawliczek and Sullivan, 2011;Verran, 2013;Dempsey, 2015). New arithmetical ecological accounting practices format the world as measurable and potentially controllable (Boylan, 2016), as well as able to be 'valued' in the narrow economic sense of being given a monetary worth that under conditions of private ownership may potentially be(come) profitable.…”

“…If and when numbers signaling nature values become able to act as prices within a market and are negotiated and valued as such, the socioeconomic as well as ecological effects can be both profound and sometimes unpredictable (Carver and Sullivan, 2017). As such, the practice of numbering and monetising aspects of nature acts to normalise -even to 'naturalise' -particular conceptual, instrumental and ethical relationships with the natures thus (ac)counted (Robertson, 2006;Pawliczek and Sullivan, 2011). These numbering practices do not simply reflect an objective and impartially knowable state of affairs (Mackenzie, 2008).…”

“…Through mutually supportive discourses, institutional assemblages and calculative devices, this multiscalar movement towards natural capital accounting is creating conditions in which beyond-human natures -or, at least, numbers considered to represent these -are further enrolled into the formal economic sphere (Sullivan, 2014). This 'economisation' (Çalişkan andCallon, 2009, 2010) formally values the presence and generative powers of diverse beyond-human natures in economic terms, thereby bringing natures valued as such closer to the realm of commoditised exchange value (see empirical cases worked through in Robertson, 2006;Pawliczek and Sullivan, 2011;Sullivan, 2013b;Carver and Sullivan, 2017 (ONS, 2016: 4).…”

Political ecology and conservation policies: some theoretical genealogies

“…A commercial potential has pushed conservation, a field traditionally dominated by public institutions, science and collective heritage ideals, into a dialogue with private operators (Arsel and Büscher 2012;Pawliczek and Sullivan 2011). In this neoliberal approach nature is extracted from the public domain and becomes yet another commodity interacting in a multifactorial market in which conservation, extraction, or gentrification have similar standing (Igoe and Brockington 2007).…”

Ecosystem services and fictitious commodities

“…Some of the papers explore and evaluate in depth existing PES schemes, and, in doing so, demonstrate the range of environmental and conservation values which can be pursued using PES. Thus Scullion et al (2011) examine PES performance on upland forests in Mexico, Ulber et al (2011) present findings from an scheme in Germany targeting arable plant diversity, Naroch et al (2011) report on an experimental scheme to conserve land races of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) in the Andes, Farley et al (2011) discuss payments for services in Ecuador, Schleyer and Plieninger (2011) examine the reasons for farmers' reticence to participate in PES schemes in Germany, and Pawliczek and Sullivan (2011) the species offsetting industry in the USA. They do so using a healthy mix of quantitative and qualitative methods which enable them to consider not just what has changed, but whether the results are expected consequences of the schemes (and with some surprising results in Scullion et al's case).…”