Date of Award
8-2013
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Geography
Advisor(s)
Tom Perreault
Keywords
environmental governance, environmental justice, Louisiana, political ecology, wetland banking
Subject Categories
Geography
Abstract
Wetland banking is an increasingly prominent environmental governance strategy in the United States. Associated with larger trends toward the financialization of ecosystem services, wetland banking acts as a mode of social regulation while stabilizing a particular regime of accumulation. Its use by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the development of wetlands has certain implications for the distribution of and access to land, water, and capital. This thesis investigates a particular wetland development project in southeastern Louisiana and its relation to a local wetland bank, the Army Corps of Engineers, and a multinational oil company. This thesis concludes that wetland banking as an environmental governance strategy reproduces a system of uneven development and environmental injustice.
Access
Open Access
Recommended Citation
Kantor, Michael, "Banking on the Impossible: The Political Life of Wetlands in Southern Louisiana" (2013). Geography and the Environment - Theses. 5.
https://surface.syr.edu/geo_thesis/5
