Disentangling the multiple and contradictory logics of Nature™ Inc.

摘要

Our undergraduate students are worried about this era's environmental injustices. Sometimes, they are outraged, their anger directed at particular actors, institutions, and structures. More than anything, they are perplexed, looking for orientation in a political world that seems ever-impossible to reconfigure. We have introduced students to the promise of 'selling nature to save it' (McAfee, 1999), the spectre of economic valuations to make nature visible in 21st century political-economic life. For the most part, our students react to these initiatives with distaste: "it cheapens nature", they say. Or, "it's using the Master's tools." For a final essay project, one of us asked students to evaluate a Canadian government initiative to account for natural capital (a fake initiative, lest you think the current Harper government is capable of such a policy shift). Almost every student handed in an essay pointing to problems with the initiative (from technical to political to ethical), while concluding that it is our only shot at a liveable planet given our constrained times. A shot that is still enormously difficult to materialize. We read Nature™ Inc. with this student response in mind, at a time when what is seen as the only way, the so-called pragmatic option, is challenging to implement, at least in countries such as Canada. Meanwhile, the situation is more terrifying every day: we are monoculturing the planet. Indeed, a recent WWF (2014) Living Planet study found that 50% of the world's vertebrates disappeared over the last 40 years. This trend is correlated with astonishing declines in linguistic diversity. Two indicators of a planet becoming more the same, less diverse, less vibrant, and less wild (Harmon and Lo, 2014). Thus, we also read Nature™ Inc. asking what this collection offers to orient us through this political-ecological terrain. What does the book seek to achieve? And, to what end? We consider these questions with an eye towards future research on neoliberal conservation.