ABSTRACT
Hernandez-Trejo focuses on the academic debate around the economic valuation of nature and analyses the assumptions and developments of von Thünen’s model of efficient land use in environmental policy, specifically, in the spatial targeting of payments for ecosystem services. He highlights the idealism of von Thünen’s model and depicts how it entails a normative framework on how an economic and human should behave with regards to land use. The chapter also outlines the reproduction of this framework among economists to exemplify how the abstractions and concepts based on environmental economics are mobilized by experts to influence environmental policy making. It is argued that, despite the idealist character of theoretical constructs such as neoclassical land rent models, and its apparent neutral technical language, they play a role in redefining the political aspect of environmental issues. The chapter suggests that understanding the theoretical rationale of environmental policy, and the social relationships that sustain these conceptual constructs (for example, academic networks), may provide entry-points for political engagement and for promoting alternative ways to approach environmental issues.
