Economic outcomes in New Zealand: a varieties of capitalism lens

This article situates New Zealand in the Varieties of Capitalism literature and then uses this theoretical framework to provide a critical analysis of the country’s recent economic under-performance. It argues that while New Zealand is rightly assumed to reflect a near pure example of a free-market Liberal Market Economy, its historical trajectory has been rather more mixed. This has led some analysts to assume that a shift from a ‘Coordinated’ to a ‘Liberal’ Market Economy has occurred, yet the state played a much heavier-handed role in creating and overseeing such apparently cooperative mechanisms than is the case in true coordinated market economies. When the state removed such support structures as the results of pro-market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a lack of ‘coordination’ altogether in the New Zealand political economy. Businesses, either on a collective or an individual basis, did not step in to perform functions previously delivered by the state. This analysis is applied specifically to the fields of skills formation, or vocational education and training, and research and development, as illustrative examples of this broader critical line of argument.     

New Zealand’s “arc of influence”: the “clean,blue, green” country

Over the last 50 years, the area of New Zealand has been expanded to include territorial seas, an Exclusive Economic Zone, marine protected areas, an extended continental shelf, the Ross Sea, and a wedge of the Antarctic continent. While New Zealand’s territory is now significantly more marine rather than terrestrial, the country is often imagined as a series of isolated islands floating adrift in the Pacific. In this paper, we consider how the space of the nation-state can be reimagined to create a more relevant sense of place and identity. We argue that the perception of New Zealand as “100% pure” and “clean green” can be developed into a “clean, blue, green” image that better reflects the country’s expansive and diverse “arc of influence” through conservation values. We focus on the role of mapping within this issue; critiquing existing maps of New Zealand’s marine territory while also presenting our own speculative maps.     

The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Program in Australia: constraints and opportunities for localized sustainable development

Since their creation under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Program in 1976, biosphere reserves have provided an international framework for linking protected areas with their associated working landscapes. In Australia, twelve biosphere reserves were added to the World Network between 1977 and 1982. That initial flurry of activity has been followed by twenty-five years of limited interest and development in biosphere reserves in this country, although evidence suggests that new energies are being directed to it. After sketching the origins of the biosphere reserve concept and its central tenets, we explore those environmental, cultural and institutional factors that may be promoting renewed interest in the program. We then review the initial implementation and current status of the Australian Biosphere Reserve Program. Factors supporting the limited success that exists in the program in Australia are highlighted, and the new form of biosphere reserve is illustrated with reference to Australia's recent and only urban biosphere reserve, at the Mornington Peninsula, in the state of Victoria. We speculate that prospects for biosphere reserves in Australia are brighter because of the provision for biosphere reserves under the Commonwealth of Australia's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (DEH 1999), the conceptual relevance of the biosphere reserve to bioregional and catchment management more generally and the continued success of existing model biosphere reserves.     

Biodiversity and Business: Coming to Terms with the 'Grand Bargain'

The Convention on Biological Diversity incorporates an exchange that has been described as a 'grand bargain' which balances the needs of both technologically and biologically endowed countries. The role of genetic resources in R&D and sales varies by industry sector, however, so it is difficult to generalize on company demand for genetic resources and fair and equitable benefit-sharing. It is important, therefore, to examine the particular features of industry R&D programmes, providers of genetic resources, and trends in benefit-sharing partnerships in specific industry sectors. This article examines markets for genetic resources, costs and duration of R&D, types of genetic resources accessed, providers of genetic resources and benefit-sharing partnerships in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, crop protection, seed, botanical medicine, horticulture, and personal care and cosmetic industries. The article concludes that experience and 'best practice' in benefit-sharing have progressed quite significantly on a number of fronts in the past decade, including the development of corporate policies in response to the CBD. The most effective form of benefit-sharing, and realization of the ' grand bargain' envisaged by the CBD, is found through partnerships between private-sector and source-country institutions that link commercial use with sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.     

The Writing on the Wall: The Concealed Communities of the East Yorkshire Horselads

This paper examines the graffiti found within late 19th and early 20th century farm buildings in the Wolds of East Yorkshire. It suggests that the graffiti were created by a group of young men at the bottom of the social hierarchy—the horselads—and was one of the ways in which they constructed a distinctive sense of communal identity, at a particular stage in their lives. Whilst it tells us much about changing agricultural regimes and social structures, it also informs us about experiences and attitudes often hidden from official histories and biographies. In this way, the graffiti are argued to inform our understanding, not only of a concealed community, but also about their hidden history.     

The Political Life of Natural Infrastructure: Water Funds and Alternative Histories of Payments for Ecosystem Services in Valle del Cauca,Colombia

This article shows the two-way relation between global norms and local conditions as they shape Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) theory and practice, through a case study of a water fund in Valle del Cauca, Colombia, the heartland of the country's sugarcane industry. Drawing on interviews, survey data and historical research, the article argues that the water fund should be understood in the context of the history of infrastructure for the sugarcane industry in the region, and that this infrastructural perspective provides a more nuanced insight into the fund's political life than the traditional PES framing. Furthermore, the article shows how the norms embedded in this locally grown programme circulated through international networks to influence PES theory and design. This case offers one example of the need to attend to the multiple and geographically specific histories of actually existing PES in order to understand its diversity in the present.