Abstract
The idea of selling nature in order to save it is at the core of market-based approaches to environmental conservation, which are increasingly common in the USA and internationally. What are the consequences of this shift? Has putting a price tag on nature succeeded in protecting it where previous command-and-control environmental regulation failed? In this chapter, we answer these questions through a case study of stream mitigation banking. Drawing on social science data from document analysis and interviews across the USA, and natural science data from geomorphic fieldwork in North Carolina, a national stream restoration hotspot, we argue that market-based environmental management is magnifying existing trends rather than improving conservation.
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Lave, R., Doyle, M., Robertson, M., Singh, J. (2018). Commodifying Streams: A Critical Physical Geography Approach to Stream Mitigation Banking in the USA. In: Lave, R., Biermann, C., Lane, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Physical Geography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71461-5_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71461-5_21
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