Global justice and the opportunity costs of conservation
Global justice and the opportunity costs of conservation
Opportunity costs can represent a significant portion of the costs associated with conservation projects and frequently outstrip other kinds of cost. They are typically understood to refer to the benefits someone would have obtained if conservation projects had not required them to give up current activities, such as farming or hunting or if the land had been available for uses other than conservation. This familiar way of identifying opportunity costs is flawed, however, because it threatens to condone, or take advantage of, the injustices that many people face that affect their opportunities. I integrated ideas from the political theory of global justice to examine how the analysis of opportunity costs illustrates the importance of considering conservation and issues of global justice together, rather than thinking about them in isolation. I distinguish four baselines for defining opportunity costs. A status quo baseline defines opportunity costs by asking what people would have earned had a conservation project not happened. A willingness to accept baseline defines them by asking people what it would take to make them indifferent to whether a conservation project takes place or not. An antipoverty baseline suggests that opportunity costs have been met when people affected by a project are not left in poverty. An egalitarian baseline suggests opportunity costs have been met when people are not left in relative disadvantage, with worse than average opportunities. I argue that the egalitarian baseline is the most acceptable from the point of view of justice. Such a baseline would suggest that, in practice, many of the world's poor are being unjustly treated, or even exploited, as a result of conservation activities.
conservation, exploitation, global justice, inequality, opportunity costs, poverty, 机会成本, 保护, 全球正义, 贫困, 不平等, 剥削, pobreza, costos de oportunidad, desigualdad, explotación, conservación, justicia global
Armstrong, Chris
2fbfa0a3-9183-4562-9370-0f6441df90d2
27 November 2022
Armstrong, Chris
2fbfa0a3-9183-4562-9370-0f6441df90d2
Armstrong, Chris
(2022)
Global justice and the opportunity costs of conservation.
Conservation Biology, 37 (2), [e14018].
(doi:10.1111/cobi.14018).
Abstract
Opportunity costs can represent a significant portion of the costs associated with conservation projects and frequently outstrip other kinds of cost. They are typically understood to refer to the benefits someone would have obtained if conservation projects had not required them to give up current activities, such as farming or hunting or if the land had been available for uses other than conservation. This familiar way of identifying opportunity costs is flawed, however, because it threatens to condone, or take advantage of, the injustices that many people face that affect their opportunities. I integrated ideas from the political theory of global justice to examine how the analysis of opportunity costs illustrates the importance of considering conservation and issues of global justice together, rather than thinking about them in isolation. I distinguish four baselines for defining opportunity costs. A status quo baseline defines opportunity costs by asking what people would have earned had a conservation project not happened. A willingness to accept baseline defines them by asking people what it would take to make them indifferent to whether a conservation project takes place or not. An antipoverty baseline suggests that opportunity costs have been met when people affected by a project are not left in poverty. An egalitarian baseline suggests opportunity costs have been met when people are not left in relative disadvantage, with worse than average opportunities. I argue that the egalitarian baseline is the most acceptable from the point of view of justice. Such a baseline would suggest that, in practice, many of the world's poor are being unjustly treated, or even exploited, as a result of conservation activities.
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Conservation Biology - 2022 - Armstrong - Global Justice and the Opportunity Costs of Conservation
- Accepted Manuscript
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Conservation Biology - 2022 - Armstrong - Global justice and the opportunity costs of conservation
- Version of Record
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 16 September 2022
e-pub ahead of print date: 30 September 2022
Published date: 27 November 2022
Additional Information:
Funding Information: I thank C. McKinnon, A. McLaughlin, and A. Gosseries for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Keywords:
conservation, exploitation, global justice, inequality, opportunity costs, poverty, 机会成本, 保护, 全球正义, 贫困, 不平等, 剥削, pobreza, costos de oportunidad, desigualdad, explotación, conservación, justicia global
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 471392
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/471392
ISSN: 0888-8892
PURE UUID: 6834fd01-6a01-43b4-94d1-eef100ecd63a
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Date deposited: 04 Nov 2022 17:47
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 07:32
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