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The conservation‐extraction nexus in ocean Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Tension or co‐constitution?

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Abstract

Recent years have seen a sharp uptick in efforts to expedite resource extraction in, and expand biodiversity conservation to, Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ), the ~70% of oceans outside state space. In this symposium piece, we explore the co‐constitution of the parallel acceleration of biodiversity conservation and economic exploitation that is unfolding in ways unique to the high seas, but consistent with global patterns wherein this coupling encloses space for capitalist value extraction. These coupled tendencies are part of expanded ocean regulation and, in ABNJ, they form part of state‐capital advancement into one of the remaining world frontiers. We explore this extraction‐conservation nexus in two contemporary ABNJ negotiations: 1) the Implementing Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction and 2) the International Seabed Authority's development of an exploitation regime for deep‐seabed mining in the Area. Our findings build on insights from agrarian political economy and political ecology that establish the co‐constitution – rather than incommensurability – of conservation and extractive activities in terrestrial spaces and draw out the arenas of this nexus in the ecologically complex, political‐economic grey zone that is the uninhabited (by humans), non‐state space of the planet. This work contributes to placing the high seas and the emergent blue economy within the critical scholarship that describes and explores the conservation‐extraction nexus and its consequences.

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The late 20th century saw the creation of new 'resource frontiers' in every corner of the world. Made possible by cold war militarisation of the third world and the growing power of corporate transnationalism, resource frontiers grew up where entrepreneurs and armies were able to disengage nature from its previous ecologies, making the natural resources that bureaucrats and generals could offer as corporate raw material. From a distance, these new resource frontiers appeared as the 'discovery' of global supplies in forests, tundras, coastal seas, or mountain fastnesses. Up close, they replaced existing systems of human access and livelihood and ecological dynamics of replenishment with the cultural apparatus of capitalist expansion. This essay explores the making of a resource frontier in the eastern part of South Kalimantan, Indonesia, in the 1990s.
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Over the past 10 years individual capitalists have become increasingly involved in philanthropy, setting up charitable foundations targeted at helping to reduce social problems such as poverty, disease and food security. This form of neoliberal capitalist philanthropy is both politically and ideologically committed to market-based social investment through partnerships, to make the market work or work better for capital. The new structures of philanthropy have received much praise in the media for imbuing capitalist business principles into the non-profit sector and for their potential for social transformation. While philanthropic activities may be considered worthy in themselves, this article examines the relationship between giving and business interest and the agency associated with neoliberal capitalist philanthropy. It questions partnerships between philanthropists and private corporations and their motivations for engaging in poverty-related philanthropy. The discussion focuses on capitalist philanthropic foundations' involvement in the process of agricultural commodification in sub-Saharan Africa through the New Green Revolution and genetically modified (gm) technologies.
Article
The prospects for deep seabed mining in this century appear remote. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea was closed for signature on December 10, 1982. As of that date, 155 nation‐states and four entities had signed, but not the United States and some others. Since that time, the United States has endeavored without much success to develop a “Reciprocating States Agreement”; that would legitimate seabed mining with or without the U.N. Convention. On the other hand, the Preparatory Commission has met six times and is making only modest progress without the participation of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany.
Article
In December 1987 the Preparatory Commission for the International Sea‐Bed Authority and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea registered India, France, Japan, and the Soviet Union as the first group of pioneer investors, thus granting their entities the exclusive right to explore and eventually exploit deep seabed mineral resources. The author systematically traces the largely unrecorded five‐year history of these difficult negotiations, both within and outside the Commission framework, highlighting the principal issues encountered, and analyzes the differing positions of participants and the solutions reached. He concludes by drawing certain lessons from this history, which the Commission should respect in working out a truly universal sea‐bed regime.
Article
Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Delaware, 1977. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 446-538). Photocopy.
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