The Natural Capital Myth and Other Stories
Essays on Nature, Finance and Value(s) – by Sian Sullivan
By Mike Hannis and Sian Sullivan, for the Future Pasts research project. At the extreme southern tip of Africa in 1652, the world’s first trans-national corporation began establishing a new port. The powerful Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) initially just wanted a resupply point for ships rounding the Cape on … Continue reading Extraction old and new: mining the desert in southwestern Africa
Notes from an invited talk given as part of a Public Dialogue on the UK's National Ecosystem Assessment, held at the Royal Society London in 2014. There are a range of different ways of representing the relatively new term and concept of ‘ecosystem services’. Here's one: As you can see, in this image ‘cultural … Continue reading ‘Ecosystem services’ and the role of the market: a concerned view
From disavowal to plutonomy, via ‘natural capital’? In Edinburgh over the next two days the inaugural World Forum on Natural Capital claims that 'a revolution is taking place in how businesses and governments account for natural capital', and that 'there has never been a better time for senior decision makers to exercise leadership for the … Continue reading At the Edinburgh Forums on Natural Capital and Natural Commons, 2013
1. On elephants and economics In 1993, Australian ecologist Graeme Caughley published a paper on elephant conservation and market reasoning in Conservation Biology. Responding to proposals that clear ownership designations and the ability to sell harvested ivory on a free market would incentivise the conservation of African elephants, he showed that this approach might … Continue reading Biodiversity conservation, financialisation and equity: some currents and concerns
'Mike Hannis and Sian Sullivan explore the strange world of biodiversity offsets and habitat banking', for The Land Magazine. Land use planning is a key arena for the spectacles of localism and marketisation being staged by our self-proclaimed greenest government ever. The new “presumption in favour of sustainable development” aims to encourage housebuilding and other … Continue reading Offsetting nature
In the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, the villainous business tycoon Domenic Greene, makes a moving (and familiar) speech to potential company sponsors at a spectacularly glamorous, environmental fund-raising gala in Bolivia. He states: We are in a spiral of environmental decline. Since 1945 17% of the planet's vegetated surface has been irreversibly degraded. … Continue reading The environmentality of ‘Earth Incorporated’