Towards an itinerary in ecological accounting: actors, rationalities and ecological valuation systems

Abstract

In the last decades, environmental issues have been positioned in heterogeneous disciplinary fields, due to the realities of the contemporary environmental crisis. In the economic sciences, the vision of environmental economics focused on the monetary valuation of nature as a premise for the solution of environmental problems prevails; subsidiary to such vision, environmental accounting is oriented in the same direction. However, the imposition of valuation systems alien to the rationality of the actors involved in a given context deepens environmental problems and conflicts. The conceptual construction of ecological accounting is then proposed, focused on recognizing and understanding the plural forms of environmental rationality supported by different actors. This will allow understanding different, and in some cases contradictory, forms of representation and valuation of nature. To exemplify this theoretical-methodological itinerary, the study addresses the underlying rationality of the actors that converge in the Macizo Colombiano, a highly biodiverse region, identifying three possible forms of representation and valuation, different and irreducible.