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ABSTRACTThis article explores the contradictions that have emerged along the commodity chain of the endangered medicinal tree Prunus africana in Madagascar. The study provides a unique opportunity to build on theories of access, highlighting in particular the themes of social relations, culture and power in mediating access to natural resources and benefits that derive from commercialization. Commodity chain analysis is employed to illustrate that property rights, based solely on formal rights, legal claims or customary rights to 'natural commodities' are insufficient to measure who is able to gain and maintain access to the species. The results show that power, regulation and exclusion have a much greater impact on who is able to tap into the benefits of P. africana commercialization. This article illustrates how extraction firms in Madagascar have over the years finessed their way, through 'green conditionalities' or conservation concessions, into continued extraction of P. africana — all in the face of widespread regulation.

Biofuels are just one of a host of bioeconomy initiatives which promise to deliver 'inclusive' sustainable development through innovations in bio-based products and services in the global south. Yet to critics, biofuels are seen as prime drivers in a global 'land grab,' rainforest clearance, and the dispossession of farmers. Responding to these concerns, firms in Madagascar have shifted production away from large plantations to small-scale production of the more 'environmentally-friendly' biofuel crop Jatropha curcas. Using a political ecology lens and building upon critical discourse analysis found in cultural political economy, I analyse perspectives of on the material effects and emerging politics surrounding a case of a British-biofuel start-up firm in the northwest Madagascar. I demonstrate that access to biofuel land and labour is dependent upon the inclusion of Malagasy in rural development projects. However, rather than delivering on the promises of biofuels, jatropha has largely emerged as a failed development strategy. This article examines the unaccounted for power that varied and diverse actors derive by promoting the inclusion of individuals and groups to share in benefits, and the material consequences of private sector development in the global south.

Addressing a worldwide concern, the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio provided the first global regulatory consortium dealing with the plight of genetic resources. However, far from settling concerns, the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) sparked numerous debates coalescing around the proprietary use and control of genetic resources. Some contend it is the subsequent phrasing and adoption of the term genetic resources by the CBD protocols that framed genetic or biochemical material and information in the context of an "exchangeable commodity," thereby conflating the value of genetic materials to that of a commodity to be captured, extracted and manipulated similar to previous forest-based natural resources (e.g., high-value timber, charcoal). Genetic resources are similar in ways to forest-based commodities by the spatial configurations they both share. But researchers theorizing natural resources note that it is the "different properties and commodity characteristics" that shape the processes according to which labor and value are appropriated for the distribution of benefits (Peluso and Watts, 2001:26). My research question focuses on how the material (biophysical and social) characteristics of genetic resources shape the spatial and temporal dimensions of bioprospecting in Madagascar. As my point of departure, I have constructed a three-part resource typology of plants that were once or are currently being extracted from Madagascar for biomedical uses. This resource typology follows the temporal stages leading to commercialization. These different stages of commercialization include: (1) non-articulated (early stage- relies on the biological material), (2) semi-articulated (intermediate stage- semi-synthetic) and, (3) fully articulated (most advanced stage- have isolated the compound for chemical synthesis). For this research, I will employ a Commodity Chain Analysis (CCA) to follow the relations of each of the types of resources included in the typology. With the use of a CCA, I will investigate the chain of relations including the prospecting or exploration, production/collection, transport and exchange of genetic resources. The product of this research will be helpful by those evaluating the relevance of current Access and Benefit Sharing protocols (ABS), and the application of more efficient distributive mechanisms.

The European Commission defines the bioeconomy as a "transition economy which seeks to increase efficiency, optimize use and decrease environmental impact through the reduction of waste and greenhouse gas emissions." However, attempts to substitute or control nature through efficient bio-based technology have not lived up to expectations and much of the industry still relies on globally sourced biomass to drive the bioeconomy. This article examines the social and political economic relations surrounding small-scale production of the feedstock castor oil plant (castor, Ricinus communis) in the deep south of Madagascar. Theorizing the bioeconomy through the lens of a "small-scale commodity frontier," it builds from recent injunctions by Jason Moore to show how the appropriation of cheap nature (including paid and unpaid labour) is both historically and geographically co-produced. The castor value chain is held up as a way to transform regional economies and a "silver bullet" to alleviate poverty and address food security in some of the most economically marginal areas of Madagascar. We adopt a regional and feminist political ecology approach to illustrate what is behind this discursive cloak of "development imaginaries," making visible the social relations surrounding castor production and demonstrating the historical marginalization involved in producing the frontier.

Abstract The United States military is treating climate change as a crucial factor in its preparation for future conflicts. This concern manifests not only in strategic planning and forward-looking documents, but also in building infrastructural capacity and material provision. Yet, the impetus to 'green' the military goes beyond the deployment of existing technologies. We examine several facets of the military's role as an environmental actor, particularly through its promotion of the US Navy's 'Great Green Fleet' (GGF), which actively supports the development of advanced biofuels by subsidizing their development and facilitating wider marketization. The GGF promises to reduce military reliance on conventional fossil fuels and reconfigure its energy sourcing, thus reducing dependence on imported hydrocarbons; this is with an eye towards ultimately severing the logistical relationship between existing energy infrastructures and the spaces of military intervention. Taking an integrated lens of political ecology and geopolitics - 'geopolitical ecology' - we seek to provide an understanding of the production of weaponized nature. We demonstrate that the US military's discursive use of climate change to justify the provision of new military hardware and advanced biofuels promotes a vision of resource conflicts to support the development of technologies to overcome the constraints to delivery of fuel to emergent front lines. We argue that while this may appear to be militarized greenwashing, it signals a shift in the logics and practices of fuel sourcing driven by a dystopian vision of climate change, which the US military played a significant role in creating.

Does everyone have the right to benefit from science? If so, what shape should benefits take? This article exposes the inequalities involved in bioprospecting through a relatively neglected human right, the right to benefit from science (HRS). Although underexplored in the literature, it is acknowledged that market-based conservation practices, such as bioprospecting, often rely on cheap "casual" labor. In contrast to critical discourses exposing the exploitation and misappropriation of indigenous people's cultural and self-determination rights in relation to bioprospecting (i.e., biopiracy), the exploitation of a low-skilled labor force for science has been little examined from a human rights perspective. Reliance on cheap labor is not limited just to those directly involved in creating local biodiversity inventories but constitutes a whole set of other workers (cooks, porters, and logistical support staff), who contribute indirectly to the advancements of science and whose contribution is barely acknowledged, let alone financially remunerated. As precarious workers, it is difficult for laborers to use existing national and international labor laws to fight for recognition of their basic rights or easily to rely on biodiversity and environmental laws to negotiate recognition of their contribution to science. We explore to what extent the HRS can be used to encourage governments, civil society, and companies to provide basic labor and social rights to science. This should be of keen interest to geographers, who for the most part have limited engagement in human rights law, and has wider significance for those interested in exploitative labor and rights violations in the emerging bio- and green economy.

ABSTRACTAnalysis of commodity chains has provided important insights on how power, resource and market access mediate the distribution of benefits and risks. Given this analytical potential, Commodity Chain Analysis (CCA) is now being applied to the study of biofuels and carbon markets to gain systematic insight into the circumstances, relationships and transformations involved in their production and exchange. By building on and adapting this approach to three distinct case studies (biofuels in Madagascar and forest carbon in Cambodia and Laos), this article contributes new insights on the emergence of value within market environmentalism. The analysis highlights methodological challenges in applying CCA to commodified forms of nature, and the significance of knowledge and value negotiations. All three cases illustrate that it remains highly uncertain whether or not market exchange can ultimately be realized. As in the case of traditional commodities, pre‐existing conditions of power and access shape modes of production and network configuration. Parallel and intersecting commodity networks (e.g. for land and timber) also require us to think beyond the traditional single‐commodity focus. Thus, the authors call for an expanded analytical focus in applying CCA to non‐material 'green' commodities which places greater emphasis on value negotiations and connections within new 'commodity frontiers'.

Since emerging in 2009, cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, have captured the imaginations of many investors and users in accumulating private wealth detached from government control and oversight. This article examines how the rise of bitcoin has particular geographies and trajectories of uneven development across the globe. The generation (or mining ) of cryptocurrencies is computationally-intensive, requiring computer hardware, cool air and cheap energy. Adopting the case study of Quebec, Canada, we show how these variables interact to produce a relationship between digital currencies, economic imaginaries and space in the regions where cryptomining is clustered. We argue that these new geographies of cryptocurrency mining leave residual marks on the regions where they are located but remain highly mobile moving from location to location in search of the cheap energy that supports private accumulation. Adopting an illustrative case study of Quebec, Canada, we work to render visible the materiality of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin. Far from existing both nowhere and everywhere, the generation of bitcoin is foregrounded in local contexts and regional economic imaginaries with both spatial and social implications for the cities and towns where cryptomining takes place. We conclude with a call for further research into this emergent crypto-regionalism and its consequences.

This paper examines the US military's impact on climate by analysing the geopolitical ecology of its global logistical supply chains. Our geopolitical ecology framework interrogates the material‐ecological metabolic flows (hydrocarbon‐based fuels, water, sand, concrete) that shape geopolitical and geoeconomic power relations. We argue that to account for the US military as a major climate actor, one must understand the logistical supply chain that makes its acquisition and consumption of hydrocarbon‐based fuels possible. Our paper focuses on the US Defense Logistics Agency – Energy (DLA‐E), a large yet virtually unresearched sub‐agency within the US Department of Defense. The DLA‐E is the primary purchase‐point for hydrocarbon‐based fuels for the US military, as well as a powerful actor in the global oil market. After outlining our geopolitical ecology approach, we detail the scope of the DLA‐E's operations, its supply chain, bureaucratic practices, and the physical infrastructure that facilitates the US military's consumption of hydro‐based carbons on a global scale. We show several "path dependencies" – warfighting paradigms, weapons systems, bureaucratic requirements, and waste – that are put in place by military supply chains and undergird a heavy reliance on carbon‐based fuels by the US military for years to come. The paper, based on comprehensive records of bulk fuel purchases we have gathered from DLA‐E through Freedom of Information Act requests, represents a partial yet robust picture of the geopolitical ecology of American imperialism.

Given a history in political ecology of challenging hegemonic "scientific" narratives concerning environmental problems, the current political moment presents a potent conundrum: how to (continue to) critically engage with narratives of environmental change while confronting the "populist" promotion of "alternative facts." We ask how political ecologists might situate themselves vis-à-vis the presently growing power of contemporary authoritarian forms, highlighting how the latter operates through sociopolitical domains and beyond-human natures. We argue for a clear and conscious strategy of speaking power to post-truth, to enable two things. The first is to come to terms with an internal paradox of addressing those seeking to obfuscate or deny environmental degradation and social injustice, while retaining political ecology's own historical critique of the privileged role of Western science and expert knowledge in determining dominant forms of environmental governance. This involves understanding post-truth, and its twin pillars of alternative facts and fake news, as operating politically by those regimes looking to shore up power, rather than as embodying a coherent mode of ontological reasoning regarding the nature of reality. Second, we differentiate post-truth from analyses affirming diversity in both knowledge and reality (i.e., epistemology and ontology, respectively) regarding the drivers of environmental change. This enables a critical confrontation of contemporary authoritarianism and still allows for a relevant and accessible political ecology that engages with marginalized populations likely to suffer most from the proliferation of post-truth politics.