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Description
This paper proposes an environmental conservation perspective to address multi-dimensional socio-environmental problems across various spatial scales by incorporating “Biodiversity Impact Chain Analysis (BIC)” (Büscher et al., 2022) into planning. The “Biodiversity Impact Chain” (BIC) analysis offers a methodological framework that aims to unveil the biodiversity losses and socio-ecological inequalities that stem from isolated conservation practices, and to foster the connection between nature and urban areas. This analysis identifies activities that either enhance or degrade biodiversity across diverse regions and scales. Meanwhile, the studies of metabolic urbanisation and urban political ecology endeavour to examine "urban-nature" networks by assessing waste, infrastructure, construction inputs, mineral resources, and food supply, which are important inputs for BIC analysis considering city-region relations.
Recent nature conservation approaches are prone to ignore socio-environmental injustices and inequalities. For example, adaptation of “the ecosystem services” emphasising the valuation of the functions of critical ecosystems, including urban forests, wetlands, and upstream forests, for urban areas seem to extend the scope of environmental conservation in planning. However, they are inadequate in addressing environmental degradation resulted from intensive and expanded expropriation of nature beyond urban boundaries or defined areas of ecosystem services. On the other hand, critical debates in urban political ecology on nature conservation find no room or remain mostly outside of the planning discipline. Also, the debates centring around de/post-growth alternatives notably emphasise policies at the urban scale and focus on disparate sectors such as water resources, forestry, and agriculture in isolation. The critique of prevailing conservation approaches necessitates the interrogation of scale and boundaries of protection. Addressing alternatives in a spatially equitable manner necessitates a radical, relational and multi-scalar approach to nature conservation in planning.
The surrounding areas of the Mount Ida National Park characterised by forests and water resources have been exposed to massive and intensive expropriations (“so-called primitive accumulation”) through water and land grabbing practices and the emergence of socio-environmental inequalities at various scales. The paper draws on a BIC analysis conducted around Mount Ida National Park, considering conservation scales to uncover inequalities and socio-metabolic networks, to propose and politicise post-growth alternatives. To this end, firstly, ‘conservation scales’ were defined, and the BIC analysis was conducted to examine how conservation and growth-oriented planning policies can create privileged spaces and exacerbate inequalities in Mount Ida and surroundings. The analysis uncovers socio-environmental problems, growth-oriented strategies and their impacts on biodiversity, as well as who benefits and who suffers from these strategies.
References
Büscher, B. et al. (2022) 'The convivial conservation imperative: Exploring “Biodiversity Impact chains” to support structural transformation,' in Cambridge University Press eBooks, pp. 244–263. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108856348.013.
| Keywords | biodiversity impact chain; post-growth planning; environmental conservation |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
