Unmainstreaming Natural Capital

There is a lot of confusion in some countries in Latin Amer i ca as to what TEEB is about.There are some that think it's some kind of cap i tal ist plot to take over Mother Nature, and tear it up, and sell her, or do stuff like that.Nothing of that is true. . . .In English, we have just one word, called "love," which covers all kinds of love, like the love of a friend for a friend.I think in Spanish it's called te quiero.And for a family member it's called te adoro; and for your partner it's called te amo.But in English it's just love.Now, just as English is insufficient to explain the concept of love, I put it to you that Spanish is insufficient to explain the difference between price and value.Because for you, valorar is price, and precio is also price.The confusion, I think, is partly a linguistic confusion.To me, there is an ocean of difference between valuing ecosystem services and pricing nature.It's completely dif fer ent.And yet time and time and time again one NGO after the other keeps telling me that "No, you are selling Mother Nature, you are pricing nature."I'm saying: "Hello, valuing ecosystem services to integrate these values into systems of national planning for public goods, to be better maintained because they are better recognized as valuable, and because they are better considered within government planning machineries-how is that pricing Mother Nature!?" -Pavan Sukhdev, study leader of TEEB Getting Stuck InOver the last three chapters, I examined one of the most iconic organizations working to "mainstream" ecosystem services-the Natu ral Capital Proj ectand how its personnel reckoned with the profound challenges associated with putting such ideas into practice.These next two chapters also interrogate consequential attempts to operationalize ecosystem services, albeit in a rather dif fer ent context.Specifically, I will begin to narrate my experiences doing long-term research within "the largest global effort in establishing a 5 Unmainstreaming Natu ral Capital