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About the Book Present high rates of biodiversity loss have directed attention towards market-based mechanisms that seek to create tradable financial assets out of species and ecosystems. This ‘financialisation’ is said to encourage biodiversity conservation by incorporating monetised ecological values into economic decision-making. This paper explores how financialisation of conservation is made possible through the monetisation of nature and the establishment of environmental markets. It surveys the latest developments in this field, which encompass esoteric financial instruments such as forest bonds, species credits and biodiversity offsets. The paper cautions that these innovations should not blind conservation advocates to the dangers of financialisation, which include perverse incentives for ecological harm. More fundamentally, the value of biodiversity, and the complexity of nature, cannot be conserved simply by conveying and incorporating these in monetary terms, although this indeed may facilitate their inequitable capture as ‘natural capital’. Instead, as the author suggests, both ecology and ethics call for recognition and restitution of ‘the diverse other ways of knowing and living with “biodiversity” embodied by peoples who value things differently’. About the Author SIAN SULLIVAN is a Senior Lecturer in Environment and Development at the Department of Geography, Environment and Development Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London. Contents Executive Summary 1. ON ELEPHANTS AND ECONOMICS 2. ‘WHAT IS NATURE WORTH?’: INCORPORATING ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND HARM 3. KEY STEPS TOWARDS THE FINANCIALISATION OF BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION 4. CURRENTS IN FINANCIALISED CONSERVATION 5. SOME CONCERNS 6. CONCLUSION Endnotes PRICE POSTAGE Malaysia RM7.00 RM1.00 Third World countries US$4.00 US$2.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) Other foreign countries US$6.00 US$2.00 (air); US$1.00 (sea) (For orders of more than 3 copies, please write in for reduced postal rate) How to Order the Book Visit our TWN Online Bookshop at: www.twnshop.com or contact Third World Network at 131 Jalan Macalister, 10400 Penang, Malaysia. Website: www.twnside.org.sg Tel: 604-2266159 Fax: 604-2264505 Email: twnet@po.jaring.my for further information.
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