By: Amisha Singh & Rohan Bhatia
Amisha and Rohan are final-year students pursuing LLB (Hons) at the Jindal Global Law School. They can be reached at 22jgls-asingh6@jgu.edu.in 22jlgs-rbhatia1@jgu.edu.in
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Introduction
Economic stagnation in powerful capitalist economies in the 1970s gave rise to the new doctrine of neoliberalism which was articulated in the writings of Milton Friedman and Fredrich von Hayek. Some fundamental characteristics of this doctrine are privatization, marketization, deregulation, reregulation, market proxies in the residual public sector, and the construction of flanking mechanisms in civil society.[i] This essay focuses on the marketization aspect of neoliberalism and its implications for nature and biodiversity. Marketization is the process of assigning prices to everything which has previously remained unpriced or shielded from market exchange. Jessica Dempsey (2016a) has termed the act of placing value on the services that natural resources and ecosystems provide as enterprising nature. The rationale behind enterprising nature is to protect biodiversity by calculating and paying for the unvalued work of nature, to create what Foucault called a ‘Permanent Economic Tribunal for life.’[ii] Proponents of marketization view natural resources and ecosystems as ‘economic goods’ that can be consumed upon payment (Bakker, 2011).
The Conservation Problem
In recent decades, many environmentalists, ecologists and economists have come together to try and situate the ‘conservation problem’ in a market-based model as a last resort to address the global environmental decline. The idea of ecosystem service assessment, which involves assigning weights, equivalences and rankings to functions so that certain functions can be prioritized for human needs, has gained prominence over the years.[iii] Its proponents argue that old-style protection of nature has proven futile in preventing environmental degradation and depletion and thus monetizing nature could prove to be an effective way to spread awareness about what was being lost in the process of development. Enterprising nature allows for ‘venture ecology’, which is a means of assessing biodiversity as a material risk for investment actors and using ecological data to minimise biological degradation and create a “smoother space for development.”[iv] A proponent of the ‘Natural Capital Agenda’ posits “If we were to price the natural world because it delivers ecosystem services to us in the form of green infrastructure and asset classes within an ecosystem market, then perhaps we will be able to persuade people who are otherwise unpersuadable that this is worth preserving” (Monbiot, 2014).
Opposing Nature Capital
The idea of enterprising nature has faced widespread criticism globally for a variety of reasons, which I now proceed to cover. George Monbiot, an environmental and political activist, strongly opposed the idea of natural capital, his opposition being threefold. Firstly, it is impossible to put a price on nature; secondly, monetising nature pushes it into a “discredited financial system”, one that already bears the blame for environmental destruction; and thirdly, “interests of power”[v] wherein he argues that national capital overlooks the unresolved problems of power, which lie at the heart of the problem of environmental degeneration. Assigning monetary value to nature merely gives the problem a new name, the problem here being the failure to realise that environmental conservation requires state intervention and it cannot be something that we keep denying in light of neo-liberalization. Moreover, monetisation of the natural world might open a Pandora’s box of property claims. In a neoliberal world that supports privatization, are we willing to sell off the property rights of these global commons to anyone who can pay the monetary value assigned to natural endowments?
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity Project led by Pavan Sukhdev ascribed monetary valuations to mangrove forests, estimating their worth at $12,000 per hectare per year in comparison to clearing out those mangroves and creating shrimp farms, the monetary value of which would have been $1200 per hectare per year to the business person who had acquired property rights.[vi] Proponents of neo-liberalizing nature believe that such figures would enable people to conclude that preserving mangrove forests is the right decision. However, despite having prior knowledge of the benefits of such forests, businesses, corporations and individuals have continued to convert mangrove forests into shrimp farms, beach resorts, etc. Monbiot highlights the prevalent power dynamic that continues to remain in place despite the monetary values that may be assigned to the natural world. In the aforementioned example, the worth of $12000 is for the Indigenous and local communities residing in and around the forests, whereas if a business person is gaining $1200 through conversion of the forests into something more productive, that holds higher precedence given the unbalanced power relationship in place.
Robert Constanza, Chair, of Crawford School of Public Policy, argues that the fundamental issue with ecosystem assessments or enterprising nature is that of property rights.[vii] Nature and ecosystems are “common goods” and should not be privatised; a looming fear that remains given the increasing predominance of the neoliberal doctrine. While Monbiot makes an extremely convincing argument against monetising nature, it is also quite evident that our conventional efforts at conserving the environment have not borne the desired results. Valuation of natural endowments presents a possible opportunity: it is not synonymous with monetisation, commodification or privatisation, but is simply a means of communicating trade-offs.[viii] It may also offset the potential drawbacks of opening the natural world to market exchange and privatisation, thereby minimising the ills associated with the neo-liberalisation of nature.
Conclusion
To conclude, given the relative failure of our collective efforts to arrest environmental decline, the idea of monetizing the natural world as a possible solution towards conservation merits cautious consideration keeping in view the limitations and concerns raised by critics. Valuation of the natural world may help supplement conventional state-centric solutions to deal more efficiently and effectively with the widespread challenges of conservation.
References
[i] Baruah, M (2021). Class presentation October 26th. Ashoka University.
[ii] Dempsey, J. (2016b). Video: Enterprising Nature | Bioeconomies Media Project. Bioeconomics. http://www.bioeconomies.org/enterprising-nature/
[iii] Dempsey, J. (2016a). Enterprising Nature: Economics, Markets, and Finance in Global Biodiversity Politics (1st ed.). Wiley.
[iv] ibid
[v] Monbiot, G. (2014). Put a price on nature? We must stop this neoliberal road to ruin. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/jul/24/price-nature-neoliberal-capital-road-ruin
[vi] ibid
[vii] ibid
[viii] Paddison, L. (2014). Is natural capital a “neoliberal road to ruin”?- experts discuss. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/natural-capital-neoliberal-road-ruin-george-monbiot-experts-debate
The views expressed in this article are those of the author (s). They do not reflect the views or opinions of Diplomania or its members.
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