The Glossary: Ecological Economics from the Bottom-Up

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The Glossary: Ecological Economics from the Bottom-Up The Glossary: Ecological Economics from the Bottom-Up 1 List of CEECEC Partner Organisations CSO Partners Centre for Science and Environment, India Centre pour l'Environnement et le Développement, Cameroon Acción Ecológica, Ecuador Ecological Society Endemit, Serbia A Sud - Ecologia e Cooperazione, Italy Vlaams Overleg Duurzame Ontwikkeling, Belgium (Flanders) Sunce, Association for Nature, Environment and Sustainable Development, Croatia Instituto Rede Brasileira Agroflorestal, Brazil Research Partners ICTA, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain (CEECEC Coordinators) IFF, Universität Klagenfurt, Austria GEPAMA, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina Foundation of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology, New University of Lisbon, Portugal Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium SERI Nachhaltigkeitsforschungs und Kommunikations GmbH, Austria 2 How to Use this Glossary Download and save the document to your computer in order to navigate quickly and easily between text and hyperlinks. If you are using Adobe Reader 9 go to ―View‖ in the toolbar and select ―Go to‖ and then ―Previous view‖ to return to your place in the text after following a hyperlink, or use the keyboard shortcut Alt +Left Arrow Table of Contents Introduction 5 23. Eco-Efficiency 54 1 Access and Use Rights 6 24. Ecological Debt 55 2. Activist Knowledge 8 25. Ecological Economics 58 3. Affluence and Environmental Impact 10 26. Ecological Footprint 60 4. Avoided Deforestation (REDD+) 13 27. Ecological Rucksacks and Hidden Flows 64 5. Bulk Commodities and Preciosities 16 28. Ecologically Unequal Exchange 66 6. Carbon Trade 18 29. Economic Valuation 69 7. Carrying Capacity 20 29.1 Contingent Valuation 69 8. Coasian Bargaining 21 Use and Non Use Values 70 9. Co-Management and Nature Conservation 23 Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept 70 9.1 Joint Forest Management 24 29.2 Cost benefit analysis 72 10. Commodity Chains 25 11. Commodity Frontiers 28 29.3 Discount Rate 76 11.1 Land Grabbing 28 29.4 Net Present Value 79 12. Common Pool Resources 29 29.5 Travel Cost Method 82 13. Complexity 32 30. Ecosystem Services 84 14. Consumption 34 31. Energy use 87 14.1 Sustainable consumption 35 32. Entropy 88 15. Corporate Accountability 37 33. Environmental Impact Assessment 90 16. Corporate Social Responsibility 38 34. Environmental (In)justice 92 17. Customary Rights 41 35. The Environmentalism of the Poor 94 18. Dams (Krutilla‘s method) 42 36. EROI (Net Energy Analysis) 96 19. Decoupling and Dematerialization of the 37. Externalities 98 Economy 45 37.1 Cost-shifting 98 20. Degrowth 46 38. Extractive Periphery 100 21. Depopulation 50 38.1 World Systems Analysis 101 22. DPSIR 51 39. Fair Trade 103 3 40. Forest Economics 105 65. Post-Normal Science 176 41. Funds and Stocks 108 66. Precautionary Principle 179 42. GDP Accounting and Critiques 109 67. Property Rights 182 43. GDP of the Poor 111 68. Rebound Effect (Jevons‘ Paradox) 184 44. Governance 113 69. Resilience 185 45. Green Accounting 116 70. Resource Intensity and Resource Productivity 187 46. Greenwash 118 71. Scenarios and Visioning 190 47. HANPP and Colonization 120 72. Social Metabolism and Accounting 48. Hazards, Disasters, and Complex Approaches 194 Disasters 125 72.1 Material Flow Analysis (MFA) 195 49. Institutions 130 72.2 Input-Output Analyses (IO) 197 50. Languages of Valuation 132 72.3 Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) 198 50.1 Landscape Value 133 72.4 Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) 199 51. Lawrence Summers‘ Principle 135 52. Natural (Environmental) and Social Capital 72.5 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) 137 199 53. Natural Capital Depletion Tax 139 73. Social Multi-Criteria Assessment 201 54. Needs 142 73.1 Social Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) 202 55. NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) 145 74. Sustainable Extraction 204 56. Opportunity Cost 149 75. Tragedy of the Commons: Hardin‘s 57. Participative Democracy and Public Mistake 205 Participation 151 75.1 Enclosure of the Commons 206 58. Payment for Environmental / Ecosystem Services 157 76. Transaction Cost 208 59. Peak Oil 161 77. Uncertainty and Risk 210 60. Policy Instruments for Sustainability 165 78. Value Incommensurability 214 61. Policy Instruments for Sustainable 79. Virtual Water and Water Footprints 216 Tourism 167 80. Weak vs. Strong Sustainability 218 62. Political Ecology 170 81. Well Being 221 63. Polluter Pays Principle 172 64. Popular Epidemiology 174 4 Introduction This glossary is the product of collaborative efforts between environmental activists and ecological economists from around the world, all belonging to the CEECEC network (see List of Partner Organisations). CEECEC (www.ceecec.net) is a project funded by the European Commission‘s Science in Society programme, running from April 2008-September 2010, under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Its overarching objective is twofold: to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) to participate in and lead ecological economics research on sustainability issues for the benefit of their organisational goals, while at the same time to enrich ecological economics research with highly valuable activist knowledge. CEECEC has taken an approach illustrative of what Andrew Stirling of SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, has called cooperative research. This is a new form of research process which involves both researchers and non-researchers in close co-operative engagement, encompassing a full spectrum of approaches, frameworks and methods, from interdisciplinary collaboration through stakeholder negotiation to transdisciplinary deliberation and citizen participation. This is not new in practice. For instance, the first reports on the State of the Environment in India were put together in the 1980s by drawing on knowledge of both activist organizations and academics across the sub-continent. In CEECEC, CSO partners with total autonomy chose conflicts they wanted to focus on to develop into case studies. The CEECEC team at ICTA UAB, other academic partners, and other participating CSOs, further developed the case study drafts, deciding on the appropriate concepts from ecological economics to be applied or presented in those contexts. Environmental CSOs, particularly those concerned with environmental justice (we refer to these as Environmental Justice Organisations, or EJOs), frequently carry out research on environmental conflicts, writing reports as part of their advocacy work. CEECEC then provided to these EJOs a critical audience of interested activist and academic partners who asked questions, gave encouragement, made comparisons, and suggested key words and references, keeping in mind the final objective of developing a Handbook (as well as a series of lectures) useful for teaching ecological economics from the "bottom-up" instead of from first principles. The glossary and its entries are a by-product of the CEECEC online handbook, Ecological Economics from the Bottom-up. It was written by CEECEC partners to complement the case study chapters in the handbook by explaining in greater depth the concepts presented within them. Glossary entries were produced by drawing upon knowledge already in the public domain (on the internet and in other publications in ecological economics and political ecology), and in some cases, on the original research of the authors. There are over 90 entries in all, covering topics in alphabetical order from Access and Use Rights to Well Being. Many of the Glossary entries are key words of the case study chapters in the handbook, but not all. The glossary, (like the handbook) may be used as a stand-alone resource for anyone from the general public, civil society or academia in search of a reference tool for the concepts and methods of ecological economics and political ecology. 5 1 Access and Use Rights Definition and Purpose Among the institutional arrangements regulating human-nature relationships, rights and obligations to natural resources, access and use rights in particular play a crucial role (Bromley, 1991; Ostrom & Schlager, 1996; Le Roy, 1996; Van Griethuysen, 2006). Such rights or rules exist in all societies, whether they are tribal, feudal, capitalist or socialist. They basically respond to the universal question of social reproduction and are obviously culture-specific and exhibit considerable diversity and variation. On the one hand, they determine the types of interactions that members of society may or may not have with the natural environment. On the other hand, they are essential factors of power and social status because of the control they confer over natural resources, and as such constitute strategic elements in the dynamics of wealth creation and reinforcement of power. Bromley (1991) uses the term institutional regime to refer to the set of institutional arrangements relating to a resource or a set of natural resources. A typology of rights concerning natural resources The typology most commonly referred to in the literature is the one proposed by Ostrom and Schlager (1996), which defines a cumulative gradation between rights: Access right: right to access a resource for any use not involving its consumption; Peluso and Ribot (2003) have defined access as the ability (not necessarily the right) to derive benefits from things; Withdrawal right: right to withdraw some elements from the resource; Management right: right to determine how, when and where a withdrawal may take place; Exclusion right: right to determine who has rights of access, withdrawal and management, and who
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