Enclosing the global commons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing

Abstract

‘Green grabs,’ or the expropriation of land or resources for environmental purposes, constitute an important component of the current global land grab explosion. We argue that international environmental institutions are increasingly cultivating the terrain for green grabbing. As sites that circulate and sanction forms of knowledge, establish regulatory devices and programmatic targets, and align and articulate actors with these mechanisms, they structure emergent green market opportunities and practices. Drawing on the idea of primitive accumulation as a continual process, we examine the 10^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity as one such institution.

Keywords:

• primitive accumulation
• land grabs
• Convention on Biological Diversity
• environmental governance
• neoliberal conservation

Notes

¹Among many other examples, The European Commission established a technical facility to support the EU Business and Biodiversity Initiative; The German Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) partnered with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) to establish a business and biodiversity initiative (“Biodiversity in Good Company”) as part of Germany's development programming; the World Conservation Union (IUCN), the CBD Secretariat, and the Government of Canada partnered with Samson Belair/Deloitte & Touche Business to explore the economic potential of biodiversity; and the CBD Secretariat joined the Natural Value Initiative, the Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazilian Business School), Fauna and Flora International and BOVESPA (the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange) to convene a program to develop a biodiversity benchmark for food and beverages.

²Article 8: In-Situ Conservation of the original Convention on Biological Diversity. Available from: http://www.cbd.int/convention/articles/?a=cbd-08 [Accessed 21 July 2011].

³Global Tiger Initiative Side Event, 28 October 2011.

⁴Financing Forest Biodiversity Side Event, 21 October 2011.

⁵Role of Protected Areas in Climate Mitigation Side Event, Ecosystem Pavilion, 19 October 2010.

⁶Role of Protected Areas in Climate Mitigation Side Event, Ecosystem Pavilion, 19 October 2010.

⁷REDD+ Hour on Biological and Social Safeguards, 21 October 2010.

⁸Self defined as ‘An alliance of governments, international agencies, civil society, and the private sector united to save wild tigers from extinction.’ Available from: http://www.globaltigerinitiative.org/ [Accessed 14 October 2011].

⁹Based on The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a study led Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service and Adviser to the Government on the economics of climate change and development.

¹⁰‘Updating And Revision Of The Strategic Plan For The Post-2010 Period’ UNEP/CBD/WG-RI/3/L.9. Available from: www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/wgri/wgri-03/in-session/wgri-03-l-09-en.pdf. [Accessed 28 May 2010].

¹¹Green Development Mechanism Side Event, 22 October 2010.

¹²Financing Forest Biodiversity Side Event, 21 October 2010; see also Parker, Charlie and Matthew Cranford. 2010. The little biodiversity finance book: A guide to proactive investment in natural capital. Oxford: Global Canopy Programme. It is based on the goal of covering 15 percent of terrestrial ecosystems and 30 percent of marine ecosystems within the next 30 years.

¹³An endowment is a fund in which the capital of the money is invested in perpetuity and the purpose is to preserve that that money forever. A sinking fund is spent down over a period of time. Revolving funds rotate in and out via loans or other kind of mechanisms (New Pathways for Conservation Finance Side Event, 21 October 2011).

¹⁴Background Documents Prepared for the 2011 IUCN WCPA Steering Committee Meeting. Arboretum National, Aubonne, Switzerland, 4–8 April 2011, p. 21. Available from: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_wcpa_sc_background_documents.pdf. [Accessed 21 October 2010].

¹⁵As GLOBE circulates these approaches among members of cabinets, UNEP-FI does the same among the finance industry. In December 2011, for example, UNEP-FI announced a finance sector declaration on Natural Capital Declaration, which is now open to signatures: ‘By endorsing the declaration, financial institutions re-affirm the importance of natural capital in maintaining a sustainable global economy, and call upon the private and public sectors to work together to create the conditions necessary to maintain and enhance natural capital as a critical economic, ecological and social asset’. Available from: http://www.naturalcapitaldeclaration.org/. [Accessed 20 January 2012].

¹⁶Stigson is the successor to Stephan Schmidheiny, a Chief Advisor to the Secretary General of UNCED.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Corson

This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (award nos. 1027194 and 1027201). Collaborative Event Ethnography (CEE) relies on collaboration, in coordinating field work, collecting and analyzing data, and thinking through meaning, and this paper reflects the efforts of the larger team working on site in Nagoya, Japan. The 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity CBD/COP10 CEE team included: project leaders J. Peter Brosius, Lisa M. Campbell, Noella J. Gray, and Kenneth I. MacDonald, and researchers Maggie Bourque, Catherine Corson, Juan Luis Dammert, Eial Dujovny, Shannon Hagerman, Sarah Hitchner, Shannon Greenberg, Rebecca Gruby, Edward M. Maclin, Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya, Deborah Scott, Daniel Suarez, and Rebecca Witter. We would also like to thank Bridget Brady, Iliana Paul, Bliss Parsons and Ahdi Mohammed for the help in data analysis, as well as Nancy Peluso and two anonymous reviewers, all of whom provided insightful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.