Value and geography

In market economy, the exchange of comodities (let’s say land or water) generate a spatial pattern, which present a uneven distribution of productivity, wealth and development. This changing geography of accumulation is the foundation of the process of reproduction and circulation of capital.

Social agents, natural resources and its relations of production operate under this context. The emergent territorial coherence that commands this operation is comprised of society and institutions evolving in the space.

Water regulation service

“Rent and land value are the theoretical categories whereby political economy integrates geography, space and the relation to nature into the understanding of capitalism” (Harvey 2010, cited by Christophers 2016)1.

Above mentioned quote is not gratuite as it gives way to discuss first, the role of the scheme of ecosystem sevices in practice to secure water tupply in Lima; and second, the role Peruvian laws and institutions have in reinforcing capital market mechanisms on the case of a natural resource.

Land is a category related to property deeds. People on the highlands possesing land contributes to the water regulation function by conserving and maintaining green infrastructure such as pastures, lakes, infiltration fields, etc. They receive payment via public investment funded primarly by fees that urban dwellers pay to Lima water utility company.

commodification Green infrastructure projects in Lima watershed (Source: National Water Authority 2019)

The realization of the commodity

To describe, to assess or to evaluate landscape value in terms of ecosystem sevice is pretty straightforward in the epistemological and techno-managerial realm that dominates environmental research and policy making. However, the ontological meaning of this value is of concern for coming to terms theoretically with water resource commodification more satisfactorily.

The land pattern that emerge from relations of water production across the watershed of Lima generate a space of territorial congruence where the ecosystem service scheme plays a catalitic role in diverting capital fluxes to the maintenance and provision of the water commodity.

Reference

  1. Christophers B. 2016. For real: land as capital and commodity. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41 (2): 134-148. Willey. ↩