Abstract
Worldwide, bioeconomy is promoted as an ‘engine for sustainable development’. However, increasingly, the notion that ‘the bioeconomy’ will facilitate sustainable development per se is challenged. Based on the assumption that when leaving the relations between ‘nature’ and ‘society’ unquestioned, inherent inequalities are rather reproduced than overcome, we draw upon a social-ecological framework to analyse the societal relations to nature in the Namibian bioeconomy. In Namibia, with independence, an array of different benefit-sharing mechanisms have been developed to implement local participatory governance structure, which will be further streamlined under the newly introduced access and benefit-sharing law. Results show that despite efforts to facilitate a diversity-based bioeconomy, separating structures and trade-offs are persistent. Images of ‘nature’, like the ‘eternal Namibian landscape’, that draw upon colonial notions are frequently used to market indigenous natural products. Institutions to ‘nature’ that guarantee fair and equitable terms of trade are often only short-term and/or small-scale, e.g. as shown at the case of Devil’s claw, Hoodia and Namibian Myrrh. Even when perspectives cannot be assigned in a stereotypical way between user and provider, and instead, all actors refer to biodiversity and traditional knowledge as ‘welfare of the people’, ‘cultural heritage’, ‘input for R&D’, ‘community benefit’, and ‘marketing tool’, a rational-instrumental reasoning tends to be favoured of a normative-ethical one. A more diversified awareness towards the dialectics entailed in the conception, making, and management of ‘nature’ potentially inhibiting an inclusive sustainable development is relevant at any theory–practice interface, including development project-management and environmental policy-making.
Highlights
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, bioeconomy1 has been promoted as the ‘world’s new economic engine’ for sustainable development that addresses the challenges of humanity: overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, economic crisis, and poverty [3, 4]
The unexplored question is: How to create an inclusive sustainable bioeconomy based upon the principle of fairness and equity? Especially, the ‘how to do sustainability right’ is highly debated: While some scholar argue for a technology-driven approach to facilitate the integration of sustainability into the bio-based industries [8], other criticise the bioeconomy for its technological fix, pre-empting alternative visions [9]
A detailed overview of the history of the Namibian bioeconomy goes well beyond the scope of this paper, current societal relations to nature (SRN) can only be understood by embedding them in its historical context
Summary
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, bioeconomy has been promoted as the ‘world’s new economic engine’ for sustainable development that addresses the challenges of humanity: overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, economic crisis, and poverty [3, 4]. In order to facilitate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nation proclaimed: a sustainable bioeconomy can feed the world and save the planet [5]. Thereby, the vision is created that bio-based technological innovations, especially in the energy and biotechnology sector, will spur a wave of technological disruptions that is benefiting businesses, society, and nature alike [6]. The unexplored question is: How to create an inclusive sustainable bioeconomy based upon the principle of fairness and equity? The ‘how to do sustainability right’ is highly debated: While some scholar argue for a technology-driven approach to facilitate the integration of sustainability into the bio-based industries [8], other criticise the bioeconomy for its technological fix, pre-empting alternative visions [9]. Especially in Europe, tend to focus on eco-environmental aspects of how to transfer from an extractive fossil-fuel to a bio-based, green, and circular re-use economy [2, 10–13, ], thereby, paying limited attention to agro-societal aspects
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