Environmental conservation and ground rent. Payments for ecosystem services and territorial organisation in Mexico

Abstract

This thesis will show that in Mexico, the state plays a role in facilitating the circulation of ground rent through PES to reproduce a territorial organisation based on the uneven development of two agricultural sectors. On the one hand, large cash crop producers holding irrigated land; and on the other, small-scale peasant farmers depending on seasonal agriculture and remittances from migration. The analysis in the dissertation shows that the relation between the two sectors is more complicated than an account of exploitative private actors versus vulnerable marginalised campesinos. Therefore, it analyses PES in two interrelated ways. Firstly, it looks at how the Mexican state has mobilised spatial and financial mechanisms (agrarian reform and subsidies) to try to cover the production costs of the rural population, which tends to ensure its subsistence, rather than maximising surpluses. These mechanisms have facilitated the circulation of absolute rent, i.e. the difference in the surplus value obtained by two productive sectors, relying on different compositions of capital, due to the equalisation of the rate of profit. To put it simply, large cash crop producers in irrigated lands need subsistence farmers in marginal (forested) lands to guarantee high prices. The thesis explores how, during the neoliberalisation of the agricultural sector in Mexico, the state reproduced parallel spatial and financial mechanisms through a conservation policy. By earmarking the water fees from large users for funding the payments to forest owners, the state established a link between two different (and sometimes competing) land uses for the reproduction of capitalist territorial organisation. Secondly, the thesis looks at the early attempts to value land through neoclassical ground rent theories and how they influence the conception of present-days PES. It traces back to H. Von Thünen the need to value marginal land by defining spatial and economic frontiers in order to facilitate the circulation of rents. This thesis shows how the neoclassical notion of ground rent suggests a continuity in both. It posits that despite the removal of land as a production factor in neoclassical economics, landed property cannot be overlooked when examining abstract monetary environmental valuations and PES models.

Date of Award	1 Mar 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Japheth Wilson (Co Supervisor) & Erik Swyngedouw (Main Supervisor)