Ecosystem services - critique of the concept and its politics

Some early roots of the critique of ecosystem services as framework and practice

McAfee, Kathleen. 1999. “Selling Nature to Save It? Biodiversity and Green Developmentalism.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 17:133–54.

Escobar, Arturo. 1998. “Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements.” Journal of Political Ecology 5:53–82.

Castree, Noel. 2008. “Neoliberalising Nature: Processes, Effects, and Evaluations.” Environment and Planning A 40(1):131–52. doi: 10.1068/a39100.

Norgaard, Richard B. 2010. “Ecosystem Services: From Eye-Opening Metaphor to Complexity Blinder.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1219–27. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.009.

 

Foundational articles in the critique of ecosystem services as framework and practice

Büscher, Bram. 2012. “Payments for Ecosystem Services as Neoliberal Conservation: (Reinterpreting) Evidence from the Maloti-Drakensberg, South Africa.” Conservation and Society 10(1):29–41. doi: 10.4103/0972-4923.92190.

Dempsey, Jessica, and M. M. Robertson. 2012. “Ecosystem Services: Tensions, Impurities, and Points of Engagement within Neoliberalism.” Progress in Human Geography 36(6):758–79. doi: 10.1177/0309132512437076.

Ernstson, Henrik. 2013. “The Social Production of Ecosystem Services: Environmental Justice and Ecological Complexity in Urbanized Landscapes.” Landscape and Urban Planning 109(1):7–17. doi: 10.1016/j.landurbplan.2012.10.005. (Internal critique)

Ernstson, Henrik, and Sverker Sörlin. 2013. “Ecosystem Services as Technology of Globalization: On Articulating Values in Urban Nature.” Ecological Economics 86:274–84. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.09.012. (Extant critique)

Gómez-Baggethun, Erik, Rudolf de Groot, Pedro L. Lomas, and Carlos Montes. 2010. “The History of Ecosystem Services in Economic Theory and Practice: From Early Notions to Markets and Payment Schemes.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1209–18. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.007.

Kosoy, Nicolás, and Esteve Corbera. 2010. “Payments for Ecosystem Services as Commodity Fetishism.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1228–36. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.002.

Kull, Christian A., Xavier Arnauld de Sartre, and Monica Castro-Larrañaga. 2015. “The Political Ecology of Ecosystem Services.” Geoforum 61:122–34.

 

Further articles

Beymer-Farris, Betsy a., and Thomas J. Bassett. 2012. “The REDD Menace: Resurgent Protectionism in Tanzania’s Mangrove Forests.” Global Environmental Change 22(2):332–41. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.11.006.

Büscher, Bram. 2014. “Selling Success: Constructing Value in Conservation and Development.” World Development 57:79–90.

Depietri, Yaella, Giorgos Kallis, Francesc Baró, and Claudio Cattaneo. 2016. “The Urban Political Ecology of Ecosystem Services: The Case of Barcelona.” Ecological Economics 125:83–100. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.03.003.

Fisher, Brendan, Kassim Kulindwa, Iddi Mwanyoka, R. Kerry Turner, and Neil D. Burgess. 2010. “Common Pool Resource Management and PES: Lessons and Constraints for Water PES in Tanzania.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1253–61. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.008.

Hernández Trejo, Mario. 2020. “Environmental Conservation and Ground Rent: Payments for Ecosystem Services and Territorial Organisation in Mexico.”

Kinzig, AP P., C. Perrings, FS S. Chapin III, S. Polasky, VK K. Smith, D. Tilman, and BL L. Turner II. 2011. “Paying for Ecosystem Services — Promise and Peril.” Science 334(6056):603–4.

McAfee, Kathleen. 2012. “The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets.” Development and Change 43(1):105–31. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01745.x.

McAfee, Kathleen, and Elizabeth N. Shapiro. 2010. “Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mexico : Nature , Neoliberalism , Social Movements , and the State Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mexico : Nature , Neoliberalism , Social Movements , and the State.” (January 2014):37–41.

McCarthy, J. 2004. “Neoliberal Nature and the Nature of Neoliberalism.” Geoforum 35(3):275–83. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2003.07.003.

Monfreda, Chad. 2010. “Setting the Stage for New Global Knowledge: Science, Economics , and Indigenous Knowledge in ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ at the Fourth World Conservation Congress.” Conservation and Society 8(4):288–97. doi: 10.4103/0972-.

Muradian, Roldan, Esteve Corbera, Unai Pascual, Nicolás Kosoy, and Peter H. May. 2010. “Reconciling Theory and Practice: An Alternative Conceptual Framework for Understanding Payments for Environmental Services.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1202–8. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.006.

Nost, Eric. 2013. “Counting on the Environment: Measuring and Marketing Ecosystem Services in Oregon.”

Sharachchandra, Lele, Oliver Springate-Baginski, Roan Lakerveld, Debal Deb, and Prasad Dash. n.d. “Ecosystem Services: Origins, Contributions, Pitfalls, and Alternatives.” Conservation and Society 1–46.

Sommerville, Matthew, Julia P. G. Jones, Michael Rahajaharison, and E. J. Milner-Gulland. 2010. “The Role of Fairness and Benefit Distribution in Community-Based Payment for Environmental Services Interventions: A Case Study from Menabe, Madagascar.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1262–71. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.005.

Vatn, Arild. 2010. “An Institutional Analysis of Payments for Environmental Services.” Ecological Economics 69(6):1245–52. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.11.018.

Walker, Peter a. 2006. “Political Ecology: Where Is the Policy?” Progress in Human Geography 30(3):382–95. doi: 10.1191/0309132506ph613pr.