The merchandising of biodiversity

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 37-54

  Martínez Alier, Joan ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION; CONSERVATION PLANNING; ECONOMIC INSTRUMENT; ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS;

EID: 0030464452     PISSN: 10455752     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10455759609358661     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. It is difficult to construct indicators of genetic erosion. The.names of varieties used in traditional agriculture often have not been recorded and the extent of farmers' reutilization of seeds is unknown. It is not easy to know the numbers of varieties which occupy a given share of crop in a given territory. Moreover, the genetic distance between varieties is not indicated by their botanical or popular names.
2. FAO, La diversidad de la naturaleza: un patrimonio valioso, Rome, 1993
3. Renée Vellvé, Saving the Seed. Genetic Diversity and European Agriculture (London: Earthscan, 1992).
4. Personal communication from Daniel Querol.
5. Zvi Grilliches, "Research Cost and Social Returns: Hybrid Corn and Related Innovations," Journal of Political Economy, 66, October, 1958.
6. D. Cooper, R. Vellvé and H. Hobbelink, eds., Growing Diversity: Genetic Resources and Local Food Security (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1992); Daniel Querol, Recursos genéticos, nuestro tesoro olvidado (Lima: Industrial Gráfica, 1987); translation, Genetic Resources: Our Forgotten Treasure (Penang: Third World Network, 1992).
7. D. Cooper, R. Vellvé and H. Hobbelink, eds., Growing Diversity: Genetic Resources and Local Food Security (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1992); Daniel Querol, Recursos genéticos, nuestro tesoro olvidado (Lima: Industrial Gráfica, 1987); translation, Genetic Resources: Our Forgotten Treasure (Penang: Third World Network, 1992).
8. D. Cooper, R. Vellvé and H. Hobbelink, eds., Growing Diversity: Genetic Resources and Local Food Security (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1992); Daniel Querol, Recursos genéticos, nuestro tesoro olvidado (Lima: Industrial Gráfica, 1987); translation, Genetic Resources: Our Forgotten Treasure (Penang: Third World Network, 1992).
9. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
10. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
11. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
12. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
13. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
14. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
15. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
16. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolutions: Ecology and Food Production in West Africa (London: Hutchinson, 1984); R. Guha, and M. Gadgil, This Fissured Land. An Ecological History of India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Victor M. Toledo, "La sociedad rural, los campesinos y la cuestión ecológica," in Jorge Zepeda, ed., Las Sociedades Rurales Hoy, (Conacyt: El Colegio de Michoacán, 1988), also in Ecología Político, 1, 1991; Victor M. Toledo, "The Ecological Rationality of Peasant Production," in M. Altieri and S. Hecht eds., Agroecology and Small Farm Development (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1989); Daryl Posey, "Indigenous management of tropical forest ecosystems: the case of the Kayapo Indians of the Brazilian Amazon," Agroforestry Systems, 3, 2, 1985; P. Descola, La Selva Culta. Simbolismo y Praxis en la Ecología de los Achuar (Quito: Abya Yala, 1998); Dianne Rocheleau, "Gender, Ecology and the Science of Survival: Stories and Lessons from Kenya," Agriculture and Human Values, Winter-Spring 1991.
17. French acronym for the Union for the Protection of New Plant Varieties.
18. This is the case even in the European Union, where besides a program for animal species there are now also proposals for in-situ conservation of plant genetic resources.
19. A well known Peruvian example: in 1638, the countess of Chinchon, the Viceroy's wife, became ill with malaria. She recovered by taking a medicine made out of the quinine tree by her indigenous servant (whose name is not recorded). For further stories on quinine, see Lucile Brockway, "Plant Science and Colonial Expansion: The Botanical Chess Game," in Jack Kloppenburg, ed., Seeds and Sovereignty. The Use and Control of Plant Genetic Resources (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1988).
20. Cf. M.D. Nanjundaswamy, "Farmers and Dunkel Draft," letter to the editor in Economic and Political Weekly, June 26, 1993; Suman Sahai, "Dunkel Draft is Bad for Agriculture," in Economic and Political Weekly, June 19, 1993. For Latin America, see Camila Montecinos (of CLADES), "Las negociaciones internacionales sobre recursos geneticos," Ecología Política, 5, 1993; M. Tapia, "Gestion de la biodiversidad andina," in B. Marticorena ed., Recursos Naturales: Tecnologia y Desarrollo, (Cusco: Centro "Bartolome de Las Casas," Cusco, 1993); and to several contributions on Mexico in Enrique Leff and Josefina Carabias, eds., Cultura y manejo sustentable de los recursos naturales (Mexico: M. A. Porrua y UNAM, 1993). CGIAR is a consulting group of institutes of agronomic research, partly controlled by the World Bank.
21. Cf. M.D. Nanjundaswamy, "Farmers and Dunkel Draft," letter to the editor in Economic and Political Weekly, June 26, 1993; Suman Sahai, "Dunkel Draft is Bad for Agriculture," in Economic and Political Weekly, June 19, 1993. For Latin America, see Camila Montecinos (of CLADES), "Las negociaciones internacionales sobre recursos geneticos," Ecología Política, 5, 1993; M. Tapia, "Gestion de la biodiversidad andina," in B. Marticorena ed., Recursos Naturales: Tecnologia y Desarrollo, (Cusco: Centro "Bartolome de Las Casas," Cusco, 1993); and to several contributions on Mexico in Enrique Leff and Josefina Carabias, eds., Cultura y manejo sustentable de los recursos naturales (Mexico: M. A. Porrua y UNAM, 1993). CGIAR is a consulting group of institutes of agronomic research, partly controlled by the World Bank.
22. Cf. M.D. Nanjundaswamy, "Farmers and Dunkel Draft," letter to the editor in Economic and Political Weekly, June 26, 1993; Suman Sahai, "Dunkel Draft is Bad for Agriculture," in Economic and Political Weekly, June 19, 1993. For Latin America, see Camila Montecinos (of CLADES), "Las negociaciones internacionales sobre recursos geneticos," Ecología Política, 5, 1993; M. Tapia, "Gestion de la biodiversidad andina," in B. Marticorena ed., Recursos Naturales: Tecnologia y Desarrollo, (Cusco: Centro "Bartolome de Las Casas," Cusco, 1993); and to several contributions on Mexico in Enrique Leff and Josefina Carabias, eds., Cultura y manejo sustentable de los recursos naturales (Mexico: M. A. Porrua y UNAM, 1993). CGIAR is a consulting group of institutes of agronomic research, partly controlled by the World Bank.
23. Cf. M.D. Nanjundaswamy, "Farmers and Dunkel Draft," letter to the editor in Economic and Political Weekly, June 26, 1993; Suman Sahai, "Dunkel Draft is Bad for Agriculture," in Economic and Political Weekly, June 19, 1993. For Latin America, see Camila Montecinos (of CLADES), "Las negociaciones internacionales sobre recursos geneticos," Ecología Política, 5, 1993; M. Tapia, "Gestion de la biodiversidad andina," in B. Marticorena ed., Recursos Naturales: Tecnologia y Desarrollo, (Cusco: Centro "Bartolome de Las Casas," Cusco, 1993); and to several contributions on Mexico in Enrique Leff and Josefina Carabias, eds., Cultura y manejo sustentable de los recursos naturales (Mexico: M. A. Porrua y UNAM, 1993). CGIAR is a consulting group of institutes of agronomic research, partly controlled by the World Bank.
24. Cf. M.D. Nanjundaswamy, "Farmers and Dunkel Draft," letter to the editor in Economic and Political Weekly, June 26, 1993; Suman Sahai, "Dunkel Draft is Bad for Agriculture," in Economic and Political Weekly, June 19, 1993. For Latin America, see Camila Montecinos (of CLADES), "Las negociaciones internacionales sobre recursos geneticos," Ecología Política, 5, 1993; M. Tapia, "Gestion de la biodiversidad andina," in B. Marticorena ed., Recursos Naturales: Tecnologia y Desarrollo, (Cusco: Centro "Bartolome de Las Casas," Cusco, 1993); and to several contributions on Mexico in Enrique Leff and Josefina Carabias, eds., Cultura y manejo sustentable de los recursos naturales (Mexico: M. A. Porrua y UNAM, 1993). CGIAR is a consulting group of institutes of agronomic research, partly controlled by the World Bank.
25. Not yet ratified by the U.S. Senate.
26. This agrees with James O'Connor's notion of the "second contradiction" of capitalism.
27. Some fervent neo-liberals propose that the way to save the whales is by privatizing them. Thus, if the members of Greenpeace and other groups pay more than Japanese or Norwegian fishermen, saving the whales will be achieved through the market. In the same way, entomological societies would have to pay to prevent the disappearance of insect species. However, in these marketplaces future generations are absent and, of course, the threatened species or varieties in question cannot bid.
28. Jeffrey A. McNeely, Kenton R. Miller, Walter V. Reid, Russell A. Mittermeir, and Timothy B. Werner, Conserving the World's Biological Diversity (Gland [Switzerland] and Washington D.C.: IUCN, WRI, CI, WWF-US, World Bank, 1990).
29. Herman Daly's classification includes natural capital, human-made capital, and, as a special case, cultivated natural capital. Daly has raised the question (already raised by Frederick Soddy) of whether these categories of capital substitute for each other or are complementary.
30. For instance, Dr. Patarroyo of Colombia seems to have obtained chemically a malaria vaccine. He will gain many honors and prizes for his successful work, the patent for which he gave away to the World Health Organization, without royalties.
31. One chapter of my book Ecological Economics (Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 1990) thus argues against the methodological individualism of conventional economic theory.
32. R. Gámez in Ernst A. Brugger and Eduardo Lizano, eds., Eco-eficiencia. La vision empresarial para el desarrollo sostenible en America Latino (Bogotá: Oveja Negra, Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1992); Walter V. Reid, et al., Biodiversity Prospecting: Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1993).
33. R. Gámez in Ernst A. Brugger and Eduardo Lizano, eds., Eco-eficiencia. La vision empresarial para el desarrollo sostenible en America Latino (Bogotá: Oveja Negra, Business Council for Sustainable Development, 1992); Walter V. Reid, et al., Biodiversity Prospecting: Using Genetic Resources for Sustainable Development (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 1993).
34. World Resources Institute, World Resources 1992-1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 10.
35. "Regresemos al Agro," Cuadernos Verdes, Colegio Verde de Villa de Ley va, 5, 1992.
36. This is the terminology used by Henk Hobbelink, the founder of GRAIN (Genetic Resources Action International), a NGO based in Barcelona, which supplies information about the threats to and importance of agricultural diversity (c/o Girona 25, Barcelona 08010).
37. A further example: the defense of ecosystems like mangrove swamps in Ecuador and other countries where they are commercially threatened by ponds for raising shrimps, which are also used by part of the local population as a source of firewood and seafood. Mangrove swamps also fulfill important ecological functions. There is no guarantee that chrematistic advantage is on the side of conservation.
38. Santiago Levy and Sweder van Wijnbergen, "El maíz y el acuerdo de libre comercio entre México y los Estados Unidos," El Trimestre Económico, 131, 1991.
39. For example, New York Times, August 15, 1992, p. 34.
40. Ricardo actually did not use money but labor value as a common measure. My argument against free trade is based on the existence of different standards of value, i.e., on economic incommensurability.