We develop the general outlines of an evolutionary biodiversity policy that is consistent with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and the institutional economics of John R. Commons. Our model is applied to recent experiences with biodiversity policy in Finland, especially a local policy initiative: Natural Values Trading (2003–2007). The purpose of this experiment was to explore how a voluntary, fixed-term, payment- and incentive-based scheme for biodiversity protection might perform. As a result of the experiment, the principles of the scheme have become a formalised part of Finnish forest biodiversity law and policy. In this paper we analyse the evolution of this particular institutional arrangement by applying Peircean semiosis and the negotiational psychology of Commons. A central component of our approach will be to explicate the role and significance of sign processes in: (1) how and why the need for new policy instruments emerges; (2) how those policies are developed, designed and tested; and (3) how decisions about those new instruments are made. We urge that the sign process should play a greater role in how scholars understand the evolution of biodiversity policy. Semiosis is ‘good to think with’.
AlbertA. and RamstadY.. 1997. ‘The social psychological underpinnings of Commons's institutional economics II: The concordance of George Herbert Mead's “social self” and John R. Commons's will’. Journal of Economic Issues31(4): 881–916.
2.
BergmanM.2009. Peirce's Philosophy of Communication.London: Continuum.
3.
BiddleJ.E.1990. ‘The role of negotiational psychology in J.R. Commons's proposed reconstruction of political economy’. Review of Political Economy2(1): 1–25.
4.
BromleyD.W.2006. Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions.Princeton: Princeton University Press.
CrouchC.2005. Capitalist Diversity and Change: Recombinant Governance and Institutional Entrepreneurs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9.
DeaconT.W.1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and Brain.New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
10.
European Commission2008. Euroopan komissio Valtiontuki nro N 130a/2007 – Suomi Tuki metsäalalle. Bryssel, 13II.2008, K82008)490 lopull. (Aid for the forestry sector – N 130a / 2007).
11.
European Council.2005. Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 of 20 September 2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).
12.
FisherB., TurnerT.K. and MorlingP.. 2009. ‘Defining and classifying ecosystem services for decision making’. Ecological Economics68: 643–653.
Grieg-GranM., PorrasI. and WunderS.. 2005. ‘How can market mechanisms for forest environmental services help the poor? Preliminary lessons from Latin America’. World Development33(9): 1511–1527.
15.
GustafssonL.2008. Luonnonarvokaupan kokeiluhanke 2003–2007. (The experiment of the Natural Values’ Trading 2003–2007). Pori: Lounais-Suomen Metsäkeskus.
16.
GärdenforsP.2004. Conceptual Spaces: The Geometry of Thought. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
17.
HakilaR.1997. Satakunnan luonnonsuojeluselvitys 1995–1998. Osaraportti 1: luonnontilan hallinnan opas. (The state of natural values in Satakunta: The guide). Satakuntaliitto Sarja A: 235. Pori: Satakuntaliitto.
18.
HakilaR.2000. Satakunnan luonnonsuojeluselvitys 1995–1998. Osaraportti 2: Luontokartoitusaineisto. (The state of natural values in Satakunta: The data). Satakuntaliitto Sarja A: 249. Pori: Satakuntaliitto. Online: http://www.pori.fi/kirjasto/satakuntaliitto/a249.htm (read 10.1.2007).
19.
HakilaR.2002. Luonnontilan hallinnan talous (The economics of natural values) A Sarja 264. Pori: Satakuntaliitto.
20.
HakilaR.2006. Johdatus Lumomaahan (Towards the practice of natural values trading)Turku: Pyhäjärvi-instituutti.
21.
HanskiI.2005. The Shrinking World: Ecological Consequences of Habitat Loss. Exellence in ecology 14. Oldendorf/ Luhe, Germany: International Ecology Institute.
22.
HiedanpääJ.2002. ‘European-wide conservation vs local well-being: The reception of Natura 2000 Reserve Network in Karvia, SW-Finland’. Landscape and Urban Planning61(2–4): 113–123.
23.
HiedanpääJ.2004. ‘An institutionalist approach to environmental valuation: the Regional Forest Programme of Southwest Finland as an example’. Environmental Values13: 243–260.
24.
HiedanpääJ. and BromleyD.W.. 2002. ‘Environmental policy as a process of reasonable valuing’, in BromleyD.W. and PaavolaJ. (eds.), Contested Choices: Economics, Ethics, and Environmental Policy (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 69–83.
25.
HodgsonG.M.1993. Economics and Evolution: Bringing Life Back into Economics. Cambridge: Polity Press.
26.
HodgsonG.M.2004. The Evolution of Institutional Economics: Agency, Structure and Darwinism in American Institutionalism. London: Routledge.
HoffmeyerJ.2008. Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs.London: University of Scranton Press.
29.
HookwayC.1985. Peirce. London: Routledge.
30.
HulswitM.2002. From Cause to Causation: A Peircean Perspective. Philosophical Studies series 90. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
31.
JuutinenA., MäntymaaE., MönkkönenM. and SventoR.. 2008 ‘Voluntary agreements in protecting privately owned forests in Finland – To buy or to lease’. Forest Policy and Economics, 10(4): 230–239.
LightA. and KatzE. (eds.) 1996. Environmental Pragmatism.London: Routledge.
35.
MA – Millennium Ecosystem Assessment2005. Ecosystems and human wellbeing: Biodiversity synthesis. Washington D.C: World Resources Institute.
36.
MetcalfeJ.S.2007. ‘Evolutionary concepts in relation to evolutionary economics’, in DoflerK. (ed.), The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 391–430.
37.
Ministry of the Environment2003. Etelä-Suomen metsien monimuotoisuusohjelman luonnonsuojelubiologiset kriteerit. [Conservation biological criteria for forest protection in southern Finland.] Suomen ympäristö 634. Helsinki: Ympäristöministeriö.
38.
MinteerB.A.2005. ‘Environmental philosophy and the public interest: A pragmatic reconciliation’. Environmental Values14: 37–60.
39.
MinteerB.A.2006. The Landscape of Reform: Civil Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America.Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
40.
MirowskiP.1988. Against Mechanism: Protecting Economics from Science. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
41.
MirowskiP.1994. ‘The realms of the natural’, in MirowskiP. (ed.), Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 451–483.
42.
MurphyJ.B.1994. ‘Two kinds of order in society’, in MirowskiP. (ed.) Natural Images in Economic Thought: Markets Read in Tooth and Claw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 536–582.
43.
NortonB.G.2005. Sustainability: The Philosophy of Adaptive Ecosystem Management. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
44.
NortonB.G.1996. ‘Integration or reduction: two approaches to environmental valuation’, in LightA. and KatzE. (eds.), Environmental Pragmatism (London: Routledge), pp. 105–138.
45.
PagiolaS., ArcenasA. and PlatiasG.. 2005. ‘Can environmental services help reduce poverty? An exploration of the issues and the evidence to date from Latin America’. World Development33(2): 237–253.
46.
PeirceC.S.1934. Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols, HartshorneC. and WeissP. (vols 1–6) and A. Burks (vols 7–8). 8eds.) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
47.
PiersonP.2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
48.
PiersonP.2006. ‘Public policies as institutions’, in ShapiroI., SkowronekS. and GalvinD. (eds.), Rethinking Institutions: The Art of the State (New York: New York University Press), pp. 114–131.
49.
RamstadY.1990. ‘The institutionalism of John R. Commons: theoretical foundations of volitional economics’, in SamuelsW. (ed.), Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology (Boston: JAI Press), pp. 53–104.
50.
ReynoldsA.2002. Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics: The Philosophy of Chance, Law and Evolution.Vanderbilt University Press.
51.
RortyR.1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
52.
RutherfordM.1994. Institutions in Economics: The Old and the New Institutionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
53.
ShackleG.L.S.1961. Decision, Order, and Time in Human Affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
54.
SheriffJ.F.1989. The Fate of Meaning. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
55.
ShortT.L.2004. ‘The development of Peirce's theory of signs’, in MisakC. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Peirce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 214–240.
56.
TEEB.2009. TEEB – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for national and international policymakers. Summary: Responding to the value of nature 2009. Wesseling: Welzel+Hardt.
57.
ThelenK.2004. How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in German, Britain, the United States and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
58.
WallaceK.J.2007. ‘Classification of ecosystem services: Problems and solutions’. Biological Conservation139(3–4): 235–246.
59.
VanbergV.J.1994. Rules and Choice in Economics. London: Routledge.
60.
VatnA.2010. ‘An institutional analysis of payments for environmental services’. Ecological Economics69(6): 1245–1252.
61.
VeblenT.1898 (1990). ‘Why is economics not an evolutionary science?’ Quarterly Journal of Economics, 12(July), reprinted in The Place of Science in Modern Civilization (London: Transaction Publishers), pp. 56–81.
62.
von HayekF.A.1982. Law, Legislation, and Liberty. London: Routledge.
63.
WestonA.1992. Toward Better Problems: New Perspectives on Abortion, Animal Rights, the Environment, and Justice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
