This Valuing Nature Keynote Lecture will be given by Professor Sian Sullivan, from Bath Spa University. This 45 minute lecture will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Michael Winter with Guy Duke, and Professor Nicola Beaumont.
Lecture Title: Making nature investable? Considering some outcomes of coupling 'nature' with 'capital'
Date: 11 Jan 2018, 18:00 to 20:00
Venue: Streatham Court B, University of Exeter, Streatham Campus, Exeter EX4 4PU Travel and Directions Campus Map
Abstract
The contemporary moment of global ecological crisis is also a moment wherein ‘nature’ is being named and framed as ‘natural capital’. The term ‘natural capital’ is a potent metaphorical device asserting that one multiplicitous category, namely ‘nature’, can be known through invoking another multiplicitous category, namely ‘capital’. This paper considers some implications of coupling these two complex categories, focusing in particular on the financing and development of conserved natures as capital assets.
Biography - Professor Sian Sullivan
Sian is Professor of Environment and Culture at the University of Bath Spa. She has recently completed a Leverhulme funded study of Value Systems, exploring value-making in a variety of social and environmental contexts, from the valuation of human life and development in the public and private sectors to the values being created in new markets for carbon, biodiversity, land and water.
Sian is an environmental anthropologist working at the intersections between culture, nature and finance, with the objective of supporting just and equitable environmental policies. Since 1992, and through a longstanding collaboration with the Namibian NGO Save the Rhino Trust, she has conducted ethnographic and ecological research in north-west Namibia.
Currently Sian is Professor of Environment and Culture in the Research Centre for Environmental Humanities at Bath Spa University and Principal Investigator for two AHRC research projects (Future Pasts and Disrupted Histories, Recovered Pasts). Recently she has explored alternative modes of sharing research with diverse publics by curating the multi-media art exhibition Future Pasts: Landscape, Memory and Music in West Namibia at Gallery 44AD in Bath (July-Aug 2017).
Panel
The 45 minute lecture will be followed by responses from the following Panelists:
Michael Winter (Chair) - Professor of Land Economy and Society, Centre for Rural Policy Research (University of Exeter). Member of Valuing Nature Programme Coordination Team
Guy Duke, Guy Duke is a Senior Visiting Research Associate at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. He is also an independent consultant and Business Champion, Valuing Nature Programme Coordination Team (NERC/ESRC/AHRC/BBSRC/Defra funded).
Dr Nicola Beaumont, Environmental Economist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. Nicola is currently lead PI on the Valuing Nature Partnership funded study CoastWEB which aims to value the contribution which Coastal habitats make to human health and WEllBeing, in addition to acting as PI on MARP3 (MARine Plastic Pollution in the Arctic: origin, status, costs and incentives for prevention) and ADVENT (ADdressing Valuation of Energy and Nature Together).
Delegates will be encouraged to take part in a Q&A session to round off the evening.
Light refreshments will be available.