What is - and what are the impacts of - the financialization of nature?

Nature is essential for our lives and is essential for how life can exist. Many communities – campesinas, traditional fishers and Indigenous Peoples for example – have depended on nature for their daily lives and thanks to this relationship, Nature has been preserved, has bettered and has adapted to new conditions. These communities in the same way are a part of this Nature and the link between them, cannot be separated.

We know that Nature is used as a base for development of many products that are used and bought today. We also know that Nature fulfills a number of functions that guarantee life. Diverse industries use Nature as primary material, depending on it. A part of this dependency and in order to ensure economic gains, industries like the pharmaceutical, agriculture and genetic engineering create strong advocacy and lobbying with governmental bodies and some of them endorse the demands by making new legislation that leads to or facilitates the privatization and corporate appropriation of Nature.

From the above, the emergence of international law can be explained, and from national, on intellectual property, seeds and others that create a frame around research, development and GMO research. In this way, and thanks to this legal framework, a series of instruments are developed that allow the private appropriation of genetic wealth and all life, such as seeds.

Other types of companies, that include the financial sector, have promoted measures and policies in the last few years aimed at appropriation and privatization of the functions of Nature to generate new business.

One example of the involvement of these new businesses is the following: we know that forests can capture carbon dioxide, they play an important role in regulating the global climate. This function is more important today because of the climate crisis we are facing. In very simple terms there are two ways to combat the climate crisis. The first is to go to the causes and eliminate them. We could promote a model of public transport and make it less attractive to use a car. We could also eliminate free trade policies that make it cheaper to transport food across the world that we plant in our own countries.

A second way to deal with climate change is to fight against it, but the reality is that nothing is getting done. So instead of limiting polluting activities, polluting industries are being provided with various conditions and even rewarded. These rewards are done in this way: they say that if the forests are not given a price, they will not be protected – when we know that this is a lie. These types of payments have various functions related to how the forest absorbs carbon dioxide. After making various calculations, they establish that a particular forest is able to absorb a certain amount of carbon dioxide. Once this calculation is made, it is offered through financial mechanisms – as carbon credits – to trade the ability of that particular forest to absorb and “save” that carbon. These credits are bought and sold in financial markets, and through supply and demand, a price is created.

According to those who defend this way of dealing with climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases balance because there will be a certain number of carbon credits by issues of supply and demand. From experience we can see that this solution is more of a problem since it perpetuates the causes of climate change – increased greenhouse gas emissions – and does not require any change in production patterns. In addition, these types of false solutions create impacts from the principle of the privatization of forests through violating the rights of local communities and Indigenous Peoples. This happens because when the carbon credits are sold, the forests are intended to be preserved – from a conservation vision – and therefore communities cannot continue using elements of the forest for example to cure a disease, make artisanal goods or collect food.

With the climate crisis there has been a boom in these types of mechanisms that proponents claim are protecting the environment without causing impacts. That is, mechanisms that masquerade as solutions, various actions that rather reinforce polluting behaviors and activities. These mechanisms function because they say: “One who sins and then prays is even.” So if I pollute and then buy carbon credits, I do well and I can keep doing the same. And if I do not make it, I buy more credits.

These mechanisms began to move from climate issues to others including biodiversity and water... covering diverse elements of Nature. All of these financial mechanisms, demonstrate that today, financing, the financial markets are messing with Nature with the aim to turn it into a financial asset. So forests stop being forests in order to be converted into a carbon credit. A bee stops being a bee in order to convert it into a credit that can be bought and sold in a market due to the function of pollination that the bee performs.

The arrival of financial markets into environmental issues is explained as: all the functions of Nature can be converted into financial assets that can be bought and sold in a market. Those who can buy them can use them and those who can use them can continue to pollute.

This new relationship between finance and Nature is known as Financilization of Nature. It can be seen as a new step that deepens the conversion of Nature into a thing that can be bought and sold. In addition to the idea “One who sins and then prays is even”, in Financilization of Nature we encounter another concept that Nature is made up of elements that can be exchanged, one for another and even though they are different, and occur in very different geological areas.

One mining company, for example, can continue their gold mining activities even after admitting they are exploiting and having a profound impact on a region in Indonesia. They maintain that the activities are safe as stated in the environmental impact assessment and that they are providing employment. With the Financialization of Nature, they can also say that they have lowered their pollution levels and decreased their environmental impact through buying a determined amount of carbon credits that is saving forests in Costa Rica. So the company can appear to be concerned with the environment but never has to stop its mining activities but can diffuse criticism and their conscience by buying these types of credits. That is, they pay for business-as-usual. So, the company says they offset their impacts. This hides an enormous deception because we know that Nature and its elements are not interchangeable.

Financialization of Nature has the following impacts:

• Privatization of the elements of Nature and its functions violates the rights of traditional local communities and Indigenous Peoples who have depended and are dependent to some extent to the Nature that is being privatized. Their right to enjoy Nature and use Nature in a sustainable way, the right to live in their territories, and their rights to traditional knowledge that they protect are some of the these violated rights.

• It creates an artificial division between Nature and community: it ignores the relationship that exists between them, it ceases to exists, because the relationship does not fit the logic of Financialization. Never mind that an urban forest that provides a space for enjoyment and peace in a neighborhood can be destroyed if it is substituted by another in a rural area or if carbon credits are bought or invested in a financial fund that will give funding for environmental protection somewhere else. As a result, the relationships that people create and build with Nature cease to exist.

• Nature is seen and felt in this system as a series of objects that can be exchanged for one another thus losing the unique characters they possess. This system gives no importance if a forest is destroyed in Asia and “preserved” in Africa or Latin America, what is important is the power to say that money can be used for conservation to continue destroying and polluting. Even when accepting the money for conservation purposes, there is no guarantee this is true.

• Because of this artificial division and perception, Nature loses all of its values including cultural and spiritual values.

* COECECEIBA – Friends of the Earth Costa Rica is an environmental organization founded in April 1999 and since that moment has build work together with campesinas, Indigenous Peoples and fishing communities. COECECEIBA has participated in diverse struggles on a national level and forms part of an alliance of spaces and builds social movement in Costa Rica. It is a member of Friends of the Earth International.

Isaac Rojas is a member of COECOCEIBA – Friends of the Earth Costa Rica and the coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Program of Friends of the Earth International. He has worked with campesinas, Indigenous Peoples, fishing communities and diverse organizations in popular movements.

Lúcia Ortis: member of NAT – FoE Brazil and co-coordinator of the Economic Justice Resisting Neoliberalism at Friends of the Earth International.