Nature in the Market-World: Ecosystem services and inequality

Programmes to address global warming and promote green development, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and [forest] Degradation financed by carbon-offset trading, are framed by a world-as-market paradigm that subsumes social goals within a project of globalized eco-economic management. Because market-based strategies reinforce existing property claims and power relations, Kathleen McAfee argues that they are likely to worsen inequality without yielding net, global environmental benefits. A better approach would build upon positive synergies between climate mitigation, agriculture, and rural livelihoods.