Neoliberal Environments: False Promises and Unnatural Consequences

This volume explores the nexus between nature, markets, deregulation and valuation, using theoretically sharp and empirically rich real-world case studies and analyses of actually existing policy from around the world and across a range of resources. In short, it answers the questions: does neoliberalizing nature work and what work does it do? More specifically, this volume provides answers to a series of urgent questions about the effects of neoliberal policies on environmental governance and quality. What are the implications of privatizing public water utilities in terms of equity in service provision, resource conservation and water quality? Do free trade agreements erode the sovereignty of nations and citizens to regulate environmental pollution, and is this power being transferred to corporations? What does the evidence show about the relationship between that marketization and privatization of nature and conservation objectives? Neoliberal Environments productively engages with all of these questions and more. At the same time, the diverse case studies collectively and decisively challenge the orthodoxies of neoliberal reforms, documenting that the results of such reforms have fallen far short of their ambitions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: False Promises Part 1: Enclosure and Privatization 1. The Last Enclosure: Resisting Privatization of Wildlife in the Western United States 2. Privatizing Conditions of Production: Trade Agreements as Neoliberal Environmental Governance 3. Dispossessing H20: The Contested Terrain of Water Privatization 4. Neoliberalism in the Oceans: 'Rationalization,' Property Rights, and the Commons Question 5. Acts of Enclosure: Claim Staking and Land Conversion in Guyana’s Gold Fields Part I: Commentary 6. Enclosure and Privatization of Neoliberal Environments 7. Neoliberal Primitive Accumulation Part 2: Commodification and Marketization 8. Neoliberalizing Nature?: Market Environmentalism in Water Supply in England and Wales 9. The Neoliberalization of Ecosystem Services: Wetland Mitigation Banking and the Problem of Measurement 10. Weak or Strong Multifunctionality?: Agri-Environmental Resistance to Neoliberal Trade Policies 11. Re-regulating the Urban Water Regime in Neoliberal Toronto Part II Commentary 12. Neoliberalism and the Regulation of Environment Part 3: Devolution and Neoliberal Governmentalities 13. Poisoning the Well: Neoliberalism and the Contamination of Municipal Water in Walkerton, Ontario 14. Un-Real Estate: Proprietary Space and Public Gardening 15. Scalar Dialectics in Green: Urban Private Property and the Contradictions of the Neoliberalization of Nature 16. Neoliberalism and Environmental Justice Policy Part III Commentary 17. Neoliberal Governmentalities 18. Neoliberal Environments, Technologies of Governance and Governance of Technologies Part 4: Resistance 19 A 'Continuous and Ample Supply': Sustained Yield Timber Production in Northern New Mexico 20. Neo-liberalism and the Struggle for Land in Brazil 21. Enclosure and Economic Identity in New England Fisheries Part IV Commentary 22. Researching Resistance in a Time of Neoliberal Entanglements 23. What Might Resistance to Neo-Liberalism Consist of? Part 5: Conclusion 24. Neoliberal Ecologies Conclusion: Unnatural Consequences