‘TEEB Begins Now’: A Virtual Moment in the Production of Natural Capital

Abstract

This article uses theories of virtualism to analyse the role of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) project in the production of natural capital. Presented at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the project seeks to redress the ‘economic invisibility of nature’ by quantifying the value of ecosystems and biodiversity. This endeavour to put an economic value on ecosystems makes nature legible by abstracting it from social and ecological contexts and making it subject to, and productive of, new market devices. In reducing the complexity of ecological dynamics to idealized categories TEEB is driven by economic ideas and idealism, and, in claiming to be a quantitative force for morality, is engaged in the production of practices designed to conform the ‘real’ to the virtual. By rendering a ‘valued’ nature legible for key audiences, TEEB has mobilized a critical mass of support including modellers, policy makers and bankers. We argue that TEEB's rhetoric of crisis and value aligns capitalism with a new kind of ecological modernization in which ‘the market’ and market devices serve as key mechanisms to conform the real and the virtual. Using the case of TEEB, and drawing on data collected at COP10, we illustrate the importance of international meetings as key points where idealized models of biodiversity protection emerge, circulate and are negotiated, and as sites where actors are aligned and articulated with these idealized models in ways that begin further processes of conforming the real with the virtual and the realization of ‘natural capital’.

What can the current debate on ecosystem services learn from the past? Lessons from economic ornithology

“…Most of this critique focuses on the project's overarching economic focus, which detracts attention from its original objective to protect the ecosystems' capacity to provide us with services (MacDonald and Corson, 2012;Spash, 2011). Instead, critics argue, the organizers of the TEEB project (like those steering the Bureau of Biological Survey) sought attention where money and power are, i.e.…”

“…Much of the current critique of ecosystem services is linked to concealing the complexity of ecosystems (Norgaard, 2010;Peterson et al, 2010), the anthropocentric focus, and the risk of commodifying nature (Kosoy and Corbera, 2010;MacDonald and Corson, 2012;Spash, 2011). The very notion of ''the value of nature'' is also ambiguous (Robertson and Wainwright, 2013) and it is most often reduced to a ''commensurable quantity, which can be compared across groups and across outcomes'' (Tadaki and Sinner, 2014, p. 142), with money most often used as its denominator.…”

The Value Landscape in Ecosystem Services: Value, Value Wherefore Art Thou Value?

“…Critiques: There have been a number of criticisms levied against the TEEB initiative over the course of its duration, some of these have questioned the validity and legitimacy of the valuation approaches it has adopted to assess ecosystem services, and in particular, the emphasis placed on monetary valuation-what some refer to as the increasing "financialization of the environment" [63,64]. Along similar lines, others have argued that TEEB is a driver of neoliberalist capitalism that functions to translate the "natural" into market realities and the "virtual" [65]. Finally, some claim that the focus of TEEB has been too overly concerned with conceptualizing ecosystems and biodiversity in terms of natural capital, with the consequence being that it has ignored other forms of ecosystems and genetic diversity that are produced or co-produced by and with humans [66].…”

Making Nature Valuable, Not Profitable: Are Payments for Ecosystem Services Suitable for Degrowth?

“…It is alarming to realize that (local and global) institutional arrangements are structured to legitimize and create foundations to make real the notion of nature as capital, leading conservationist trends [93]. To this extent, humans are perceived to be an agglomerate of preferences to be satisfied and maximized from nature, which in turn is perceived as an agglomerate of resources for human satisfaction.…”

“…This approach is an attempt to compute nature in economic terms as well as the impacts that fall upon it. The abstraction of nature as a capital entity creates opportunities for new private rights with respect to nature, to create commodities and to establish new markets for exchange [12,51,93].…”