Valuing nature, paying for ecosystem services and realizing social justice

In the latest volume of the journal Ecological Economics, I contribute to ongoing debates about the role of economic valuation in market-based conservation. I respond to an earlier piece by Brett Sylvester Matulis, nuance some of his arguments and set what I believe should be the new agenda for critical scholarship of market-based conservation. I argue for more precision in the claims we make about the role of economic valuation and the impacts of payments…

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Social equity matters in payments for ecosystem services

Although conservation efforts have sometimes succeeded in meeting environmental goals at the expense of equity considerations, the changing context of conservation and a growing body of evidence increasingly suggest that equity considerations should be integrated into conservation planning and implementation. In an article recently published in the journal Bioscience, and led by my colleague Unai Pascual from the Basque Centre for Climate Change Research, we review why such a desirable approach is often at at…

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Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Global Environmental Change

I’m pleased to inform you that a special issue entitled ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Global Environmental Change: Research findings and policy directions‘ has been published in the open access journal Ecology & Society. Together with my colleagues Erik Gómez-Baggethun and Victoria Reyes-García, we put together a very good collection of articles reflecting on the dynamics of traditional ecological knowledge and processes in a changing environment. Articles include case studies from around the world and theoretical…

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Deaf and blind? Why I am troubled about the future of PES research

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) have emerged as a potential tool to achieve conservation in diverse socio-economic and cultural contexts. Empirical research with examples from the global North and South is booming. Many studies focus on how payments translate in additional service provision (i.e. effectiveness) and/or if they contribute to benefit targeted land users whilst not undermining theirs and others’ livelihoods (i.e. equity, benefit sharing). Some have also started to analyze if PES are crowding-out…

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REDD+… what for and for whose interest?

I just came back from fieldwork in Argentina. Jointly with Phd candidate Almudena García-Sastre, we visited the soy expansion frontier in the north-western province of Salta. Soy plantations are encroaching into the great Chaco forest, the second largest and diverse ecosystem in America after the Amazon. Over the past decade, deforestation has been rampant in the north-western and -eastern parts of the country, since the steady rise of international soy prices has allowed producers to offset…

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