“natural capital”, are acquired by corporations to offset theiroveruse, degradation or pollution of the environment; and they canbe traded in financial markets on the basis of contracts signedbetween corporations and States, local authorities or thecommunities themselves. This allows the same actors that areresponsible for environmental conflicts and injustice to not onlybenefit from the concentration of their power over resources butalso to generate new profits for themselves through speculation infutures markets with these new property titles. Meanwhile, natureand the commons become increasingly scarce and expensive, oncethey have been commoditized and a price tag assigned as a resultof these corporate actions. Consequently, the rights to makedecisions about life in the affected territories and how to managetheir resources are increasingly transferred from the local sphere topowerful economic actors and new financial markets. In thiscurrent conjuncture, finance and its relationship with Nature havebecome very important. Recent financial deregulation has turnedcommodities into financial assets for the first time in history: untilthe beginning of the last decade, having one ton of corn didn’tallow you to generate an income flow or profits. Something like thisis possible today thanks to financial engineering. Contrary tocommon-sense civil society beliefs, financial markets arepenetrating ever more deeply into the real economy as a responseto the financial crisis – naming these inroads under the commonconcept of natural resources economy – and speculation capital ismixing itself with production capital.

Financialization represents a new form of domination we reject.It is nothing more than a new manifestation of the predatoryand exclusionary development model that we’ve been fightingagainst for many years.

Biodiversity is not for sale

FoEI has developed a wide range of work on biodiversity: we’vefought against biopiracy, we’ve defended biodiversity againstthe destruction caused by mining and policies that promotefalse solutions, we’ve promoted community management andcontrol of biodiversity and the collective rights of communitiesand indigenous peoples; some of our groups carry outdemonstrations and protests to defend biodiversity, othersadvocate for national and international public policies that arefair and responsive to the needs of the peoples. FoEI has shownthrough its local, national and international campaigns thatbiodiversity is an integral part of the territory we defendtogether with many communities around the world. Biodiversityand forests are essential for the survival of many peoples and theplanet, and consequently can't be given a price tag.

Financialization and Nature: we need to stop the financial sector's takeover of biodiversity

Today we are witnessing a new wave of privatization through theimplementation of financial mechanisms. The financialization ofnature involves segregating the natural elements from each other,including water, air, biodiversity, landscapes, and even their culturaland spiritual value. Once segregated, new property titles areassigned to each one of them, or their parts - no longer associatedwith land ownership, collective rights over the territory or the socialfunction of land. Thereby, new sources of capital reproduction andaccumulation are created, leading to a process of furtherappropriation and concentration of the means of production,which are also means for the reproduction of life. These newproperty titles, which are often referred to and accounted for as

friends of the earth international | www.foei.org

A ‘No REDD’ protest in Mexico.

© Luka Tomac/Critical Information Collective

forest &biodiversity

Financialization & biodiversityseptember 2014 | factsheet

friends of the earth international | www.foei.org

Financialization and biodiversity september 2014

Social movements and governments ought to attack the causesof the loss and degradation of biodiversity. The defense of theterritory, the culture and identity of communities as key to thestrengthening of local initiatives, are the basis of these struggles.There are thousands of initiatives currently underwaythroughout the world that we need to strengthen. One of themis food sovereignty, based on diverse systems under peasantsand Indigenous Peoples' control through their agriculturalpractices that produce food and other goods for local markets.We should be struggling for land to be in the hands of smallfarmers and Indigenous Peoples, because food sovereignty is notpossible without control over land. We need to continue tostrengthen communities and Indigenous Peoples' control offorests and biodiversity in the hands of communities andIndigenous Peoples through proposals such as community basedgovernance of both. As we've been able to show through variousspecific experiences, community based governance of forests is aproposal that protects, preserves and improves biodiversity; itstrengthens historical and collective rights; it favors communitycontrol and ensures that forests are not chopped down, makingit a real solution in the struggle against climate change.Strengthening local markets as a tool to reduce consumerismand strengthening local economies are also important. Stronglocal markets contribute to the improvement and generation ofdignified jobs, in sharp contrast to the action of transnationalcorporations. Many of these proposals only require thatgovernments reallocate resources instead of starting discussionsand proposals on new financial mechanisms.

We need to reject the logic of the prevailing economic system,based on the exploitation of Nature and the concentration ofwealth at the expense of huge environmental and social costs.Economy, a peoples-centered economy, should ensure dignifiedliving conditions for all people and should not be exclusionary.

The CBD, as an international arena where many of theseproposals are discussed, should step away from the path of falsesolutions. It needs to respect the principles that formed thebasis for its establishment. It needs to respect the rights of localcommunities and Indigenous Peoples, which it should be morestrongly promoting by itself. The CBD should not favor financialmechanisms that involve false solutions. The perverse logic ofpaying to continue polluting perpetuates and furtherentrenches the causes of degradation and destruction ofbiodiversity and it should be eliminated from every proposal.There are enough financial resources, and those who, throughtheir development models, have caused this destruction, arehistorically obliged to provide these resources.

Some ideas to be strengthened

Government authorities must play a strong and important rolein searching for and establishing funds and mechanisms thatgenerate funding for the conservation of biodiversity. Existingtools such as taxes, incentives, and the elimination of perverseincentives are not expensive for governments to apply. Thisgovernment role runs contrary to many arguments that tend toweaken the role of governments, believing they need to play asecondary role. The funds to be used or any mechanismestablished to obtain financial resources should always respectthe rights of Indigenous People and local communities, andshould be guided by principles of respect for diversity, justice,equity and sustainability, among others. Both these rights andprinciples should set limits on trade agreements, so thateconomy becomes a tool, rather than the only solution, asregarded by the prevailing development model.

In the search for funds for the conservation of biodiversity weneed to take into account solutions that already exist, many ofwhich are being implemented by Indigenous Peoples and localcommunities nowadays. It is neither necessary nor good toexperiment with the so-called new solutions or innovativemechanisms, since many of them are just experiments that canhave negative impacts. Such mechanisms open the door tofinancialization, and the great majority of them are in the firststages of discussion and experimentation. The logic behind thempromotes the commodification of biodiversity and thereforegenerates negative impacts, aside from the fact that they aremere copies of false solutions to climate change and the logicthat has supported them. Thus, they shouldn’t be applied tobiodiversity given their potential negative impacts on biodiversityitself and on communities and Indigenous Peoples rights.

It is important to allocate public funds for the conservation ofbiodiversity in order to ensure the continuity of localcommunities and Indigenous Peoples in their territories andpromote their traditional and sustainable use of land, ascurrently practiced in many countries. The use of these fundsshould not lead to the implementation of market mechanismsand the commodification of nature, and they shouldn’t eitheradopt offsetting mechanisms.

www.foei.org

Friends of the Earth International is the world’s largest grassroots environmental network with 74 member groups and over two million members andsupporters around the world. FoEI International Secretariat P.O. Box 19199, 1000 GD Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel: 31 20 622 1369. Fax: 31 20 639 2181.