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Conserving Natures? Co‐producing Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mongolian Rangelands
Author(s) -
Upton Caroline
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/dech.12549
Subject(s) - ecosystem services , indigenous , stewardship (theology) , payment , environmental ethics , sociology , pragmatism , payment for ecosystem services , apprehension , commons , power (physics) , environmental resource management , ecosystem , economics , political science , ecology , epistemology , politics , law , philosophy , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , biology
Despite well‐founded concerns over the proliferation of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, critical geographers have begun to challenge the ‘milieu of apprehension’ associated with PES (Jackson and Palmer, 2014: 122). There is a growing call for more nuanced analyses of ways in which the ecosystem services paradigm and PES may, in particular circumstances, encompass and make legible diverse ways of being in/knowing nature and provide opportunities for local/indigenous actors to advance their own needs and values. Adopting a ‘radical pragmatist’ approach, the author of this article worked with Mongolian herder groups to develop a locally‐grounded manifestation of PES, with specific attention to the incorporation of diverse socio‐ecological relations, beliefs and values. The article argues that such co‐produced iterations of PES, with due attention to tripartite dimensions of environmental justice, can facilitate local stewardship, whilst eschewing enclosure of commons and crowding out of non‐market values and motives for conservation, albeit shaped and constrained by diverse manifestations of power.