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A Hostile Takeover of Nature? Placing Value in Conservation Finance
Author(s) -
Kay Kelly
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
antipode
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.177
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 1467-8330
pISSN - 0066-4812
DOI - 10.1111/anti.12335
Subject(s) - shareholder , finance , economics , equity (law) , valuation (finance) , corporate finance , monetization , financialization , private equity , business , corporate governance , political science , law , macroeconomics
Abstract Conservation finance is a nascent field that claims to “deliver maximum conservation impacts, while, at the same time, generating returns for investors” (Credit Suisse/WWF). While geographers have questioned the ability of conservation finance to play a significant role in international biodiversity conservation, an emerging cohort of boutique private equity firms are actively generating returns on North American conservation projects. This raises the question: how are these firms generating profits, and in turn, returns for their shareholders? Drawing from a Marxian understanding of finance as redistributive, I argue that these firms are generating profits through a process similar to a corporate hostile takeover. Using the examples of ranchland and timberland investment in the United States, I show that (1) the materialities and historical geographies of these landscapes play a crucial role their monetization, and (2) shareholder returns are generated through a combination of traditional real estate sales and revaluations, public monies, and commodity production.