Skip to main content
Journal cover image

Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state

Publication ,  Journal Article
McAfee, K; Shapiro, EN
Published in: Annals of the Association of American Geographers
July 1, 2010

Prominent advocates of payments for ecosystem services (PES) contend that markets in biodiversity, carbon storage, and hydrological services can produce both conservation and sustainable development. In Mexico's national PES programs, however, conceived as models of market-based management, efficiency criteria have clashed with antipoverty goals and an enduring developmental-state legacy. Like other projects for commodification of nature, Mexico's PES is a hybrid of market-like mechanisms, state regulations, and subsidies. It has been further reshaped by social movements mobilized in opposition to neoliberal restructuring. These activists see ecosystem services as coproduced by nature and campesino communities. Rejecting the position of World Bank economists, they insist that the values of ecosystems derive less from the market prices of their services than from their contributions to peasant livelihoods, biodiversity, and social benefits that cannot be quantified or sold. These divergent conceptualizations reflect contrasting understandings of the roles of agriculture and of the state in sustainable development. The Mexican case exposes contradictions within neoliberal environmental discourse based on binary categories of nature and society. It suggests that conservation policies in the global South, if imposed from the North and framed by neoliberal logic, are likely to clash with state agendas and local development goals. © 2010 by Association of American Geographers.

Duke Scholars

Altmetric Attention Stats
Dimensions Citation Stats

Published In

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

DOI

EISSN

1467-8306

ISSN

0004-5608

Publication Date

July 1, 2010

Volume

100

Issue

3

Start / End Page

579 / 599

Related Subject Headings

  • Geography
  • 4406 Human geography
  • 3709 Physical geography and environmental geoscience
  • 1604 Human Geography
  • 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
McAfee, K., & Shapiro, E. N. (2010). Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100(3), 579–599. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045601003794833
McAfee, K., and E. N. Shapiro. “Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 100, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 579–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045601003794833.
McAfee K, Shapiro EN. Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 2010 Jul 1;100(3):579–99.
McAfee, K., and E. N. Shapiro. “Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, vol. 100, no. 3, July 2010, pp. 579–99. Scopus, doi:10.1080/00045601003794833.
McAfee K, Shapiro EN. Payments for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements, and the state. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 2010 Jul 1;100(3):579–599.
Journal cover image

Published In

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

DOI

EISSN

1467-8306

ISSN

0004-5608

Publication Date

July 1, 2010

Volume

100

Issue

3

Start / End Page

579 / 599

Related Subject Headings

  • Geography
  • 4406 Human geography
  • 3709 Physical geography and environmental geoscience
  • 1604 Human Geography
  • 0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience