Valuing Nature- Perspectives and Issues

Abstract

This report aims to open the debate on Natural Capital by engaging with a growing body of critical scholarly work, as well as grassroots environmental movements, particularly those in the Global South. This work pulls the debate away from procedural concerns (how to ‘improve’ Natural Capital approaches) by drawing our attention towards the diverse, uneven and conflicting value practices that exist within specific contexts, and the dangers of seeking to account for this through a common metric. These perspectives not only provide valuable empirical accounts that challenge more idealised versions of the Natural Capital approach, they also offer theoretical insights into the problematic assumptions that underlie the seemingly neutral scientific and economic knowledge claims on which the Natural Capital approach relies.