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    Conservation and concealment in SpeciesBanking.com, USA: an analysis of neoliberal performance in the species offsetting industry

    Pawliczek, J. and Sullivan, Sian (2011) Conservation and concealment in SpeciesBanking.com, USA: an analysis of neoliberal performance in the species offsetting industry. Environmental Conservation 38 (4), pp. 435-444. ISSN 0376-8929.

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    Abstract

    Market-based strategies are promoted as neoliberal governance solutions to environmental problems, from local to global scales. Tradable mitigation schemes are proliferating. These include species banking, which enables payments for the purchase of species credits awarded to conserved areas to offset development impacts on protected species elsewhere. An analysis of species banks in the USA through a survey of data from the website www.SpeciesBanking.com (established as a ‘clearing house’ for species banking information) was complemented by questionnaire material from USA bank managers. The number of USA species banks has increased rapidly, bank area ownership and management is consolidated in a small number of organizations, and public information on species credit price is limited. In interrogating the case material, the roles of specific economic policies associated with neoliberalism are considered, focusing on the extension of privatization, de- and re-regulation and marketization into the arena of environmental conservation, and commodification processes as manifested in species banking. Problematic ecological and distributive ‘concealments’ in species banking include the ‘development-led’ nature of conservation banking, tendencies towards net biodiversity loss, and an emphasis on supporting conservation-related wealth accumulation by larger landowners and investors.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: 12 month embargo for Publisher's draft
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): biodiversity, commodification, ecosystem services, markets, mitigation, neoliberal conservation, species banking, SpeciesBanking.com
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences
    Depositing User: Dr Sian Sullivan
    Date Deposited: 16 Jul 2012 07:58
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:57
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/4958

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