This paper began by problematizing a recurring critique within the accounting literature of the proliferation of mechanisms to create financial value for nature as a response to environmental problems. Drawing on theoretical developments in the social studies of finance (Callon, 1998a; MacKenzie, 2009a; Vollmer et al., 2009), this paper has argued that this recurring critique, whereby the placing of financial values on nature is seen to perpetuate an instrumental mindset that alienates people from nature (Barter, 2015; Hines, 1991; Lehman, 1996, 2017), does not explain the full extent of how the creation of financial value for nature gives rise to this alienation. That is, this paper has argued that alienation of people from nature is a consequence of the work of disentanglement and framing of the relation between people and nature that is necessary to create conditions of possibility for calculating such financial value.
In order to pursue and progress this argument, this paper has analysed a particular case – the UNFCCC’s REDD mechanism – wherein humanity’s response to the environmental problem of tropical deforestation is seen to be to ‘make forests more valuable standing than they would be cut down, by creating a financial value for the carbon stored in trees’ (UN, 2010a, p. 1). This paper has sought to explain the work that the UNFCCC has done to construct a socio-technical arrangement that frames a space of calculability in which the calculation of financial value for tropical forests has been made possible.
This analysis identified key aspects of this work of disentanglement and framing that has rendered calculable the relation between developing country governments and their forests. A metrological system was constructed comprising two important devices: (i) a national forest monitoring system for measuring ongoing changes in forest carbon stocks, and (ii) a national forest reference emission level establishing a baseline of forest carbon emissions against which reductions in emissions resulting from forest protection activities can be measured. The analysis showed that this metrological system acts to disentangle the actions of developing country governments from the socio-ecological complexities of tropical deforestation – i.e. disentangles people from nature – so as to render calculable the relation between governments and forests, such that the calculation of financial value for forests becomes possible.
However, this metrological system was also seen to create conditions for other material relations to overflow the framing of this government-forest relation. Two such overflowing relations, which have formed the basis of prominent challenges to the calculability achieved by the REDD mechanism, were identified concerning (i) tropical forest biodiversity and (ii) forest-dwelling indigenous peoples. In both instances, forest protection activities under the REDD mechanism were seen as a potential threat which is excluded from the REDD space of calculability and thus ignored in REDD calculations. In both instances the UNFCCC has sought to introduce further devices – safeguards for REDD activities – into the socio-technical arrangement comprising the REDD mechanism so as to try to capture and contain these overflowing relations. In both instances these safeguarding devices were seen to act to further disentangle, and thus alienate, people from forests. In both instances, this further disentanglement and alienation was seen to create conditions that potentially threaten to materially degrade non-financial (i.e. ecological and cultural/spiritual) forms of the value of tropical forests.
What this analysis has shown, therefore, is that, in the case of the REDD mechanism, the alienation of people from nature was not merely an effect of the financial valuation of nature. Rather, the alienation of people from nature was a consequence of the work of materially disentangling people from nature so as to create conditions of possibility for the calculation of that financial value. As such, the alienation of people from nature is seen to be a necessary prerequisite for creating financial value for nature.
There are important implications of this analysis for policy and research. Crucially, this analysis points to a possible new direction for efforts to counter the ongoing alienation of people from nature. Extant literature, which sees this alienation as an effect of the instrumental mindset encouraged by financial valuation, tends to argue that the mechanisms that create financial value for nature must, therefore, be opposed (McNicholas & Windsor, 2011; Sullivan & Hannis, 2017). Only by doing so, it is argued, can we hold on to our sense of nature’s intrinsic value (Christian, 2014; Hines, 1991). But this would seem to be a futile effort in a world that has become, and is increasingly becoming, dominated by a neoclassical economic paradigm in which financial valuation is paramount (Atkins, Atkins, Thomson, & Maroun, 2015; Gray, 2010; Jones, 2010; Milne & Gray, 2013). If, however, we recognise this alienation of people from nature as being something that is materially engineered through the construction of socio-technical arrangements, then efforts to counter this alienation can focus on ways to affect change in the configuration of these arrangements (see also Cuckston, 2017). What new devices can be designed and deployed so as to change the people-nature relations that are brought into account within spaces of calculability? How can overflowing people-nature relations be effectively identified and then, crucially, captured and contained in ways that do not lead to further alienation? Can, for example, REDD safeguards be designed and deployed in ways that somehow bring considerations of ecological and spiritual/cultural value into REDD’s space of calculability, rather than excluding these forms of value? These are questions for policy-makers, for non-governmental organisations, and for accounting researchers interested in bringing people and nature back together (cf. Russell, Milne, & Dey, 2017). These kinds of questions are especially relevant for researchers concerned with the effects of social and environmental accounting in emerging and less developed economies (see special issue in Accounting Forum, especially Belal, Cooper, and Roberts, (2013) and Momin (2013)).
Of particular relevance to these questions is the role of indigenous peoples in nature conservation. Extant literature has documented that some indigenous peoples are able to understand and manage their territories in ways that protect nature (Whiteman & Cooper, 2000, 2011). The ways that some indigenous cultures conceptualise their relationship with nature, and the consequent value of nature, stands in stark contrast to the financial valuation approach that currently dominates Western environmental policy (Craig, Taonui, & Wild, 2012; Greer & Patel, 2000). Indeed, Gallhofer, Gibson, Haslam, McNicholas, and Takiari (2000) argue that environmental accounting needs to learn from the knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples:
The earth should not be dominated or exploited as if it were our enemy. Rather, we should aim to live in harmony and in a balanced relationship with it. We are part of the earth, and the earth is an interconnected whole…Such concerns, taken seriously, help preserve and enhance the environment … accounting can help remind us of what matters and focus attention upon what is of value to us in a way that is more consistent with a more holistic and environmentally conscious perspective (Gallhofer et al., 2000, pp. 391–392).
Extant literature also documents that accounting has been used in numerous contexts to suppress indigenous peoples’ cultures and deny them basic rights (Davie & McLean, 2017; Davie, 2000; Lombardi, 2016; Neu, 2000). Indeed, this is akin to the concerns raised by non-governmental organisations about how the REDD mechanism could be used by governments to assert increased control over indigenous peoples’ territories. What the present paper has shown, however, is that subsequent efforts to address these concerns, by explicitly recognising indigenous peoples’ rights (as set out in the UNDRIP), has led to further concerns about how this could potentially create conditions that undermine indigenous peoples’ capabilities to protect nature. The participation of indigenous peoples in REDD is undoubtedly essential if the mechanism is to be successful in protecting the world’s remaining tropical forests. However, the present analysis has shown a need to carefully consider how this can be achieved in a way that does not risk alienating indigenous peoples from the very nature they are protecting.
If humanity is to continue this inexorable proliferation of mechanisms to create financial value for nature in ongoing efforts to address environmental problems by reconfiguring the “rules of the game” of capitalism, then it will be essential to find ways to reentangle people and nature. Otherwise we will create for ourselves a world that is configured only to value nature in a way that risks degrading it beyond measure.
