ABSTRACT

This chapter presents an in-depth case study in order to illustrate how the analytics of biopolitics allows the articulation of a theoretically nuanced and sophisticated critique of the ‘ecosystem approach’. It argues that the ‘ecosystem approach’ as it finds expression in the biodiversity regime also responds to biopolitical logic. The concept of biodiversity is arguably genealogical in at least two senses: in relation to its ‘politically instigated’ birth; and in relation to how ‘it is invoked to further a political agenda’. The role of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in relation to the development of the ‘ecosystem approach’ cannot be overstated. The CBD articulates the ‘ecosystem approach’ in holistic terms, hence resonating with ‘ecocentric’ inflections, aimed at displacing the human subject from the centre and re-defining the relation between man and nature. The chapter provides a critical analyis of the concept, and focuses on the relation with the concept of ecoystem servcies, and on the insitutional dimension.