Journal article
Rethinking biodiversity: from goods and services to “living with”
Conservation Letters, Vol.6(3), pp.154-161
2013
Abstract
Since the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, counting and mapping have come to dominate international debates around biodiversity protection. With the emergence of the Ecosystem Services concept, these counting and mapping efforts are increasingly imbued with an economic logic that argues that to save biodiversity, its goods and services must be given monetary value. This article offers a critical engagement with the Ecosystem Services discourse and the way it translates the diversity of nature into a single measure-a "currency"-to be included in systems of exchange. We argue that this conception of biodiversity is too narrow and potentially detrimental because it reduces biodiversity to a series of quantifiable fragmented parts that become liable to counting, mapping, and utilitarian use, and because it reduces social-natural relations to market transactions. Subsequently, we outline possibilities for conceiving and living with biodiversity that go beyond relations of counting, mapping, and commodification. It is important that biodiversity knowledge organizations, such as the recently sanctioned Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), take these into account. Conserving a diversity of life requires acknowledging a diversity of values, knowledge and framings of biodiversity, and fostering a diversity of social-natural relations.
Details
- Title
- Rethinking biodiversity: from goods and services to “living with”
- Authors/Creators
- E. Turnhout (Author/Creator) - Wageningen University & ResearchC. Waterton (Author/Creator) - Lancaster UniversityK. Neves (Author/Creator) - Concordia UniversityM. Buizer (Author/Creator) - Murdoch University
- Publication Details
- Conservation Letters, Vol.6(3), pp.154-161
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons Inc
- Identifiers
- 991005544372407891
- Copyright
- © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
- Murdoch Affiliation
- Centre of Excellence for Climate Change and Forest and Woodland Health; School of Veterinary and Life Sciences
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Citation topics
- 3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
- 3.40 Forestry
- 3.40.635 Ecosystem Services
- Web Of Science research areas
- Biodiversity Conservation
- ESI research areas
- Environment/Ecology