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Presentation short abstract

Life in the Balance: Private Expertise at the Intersection of Conservation and Extraction

Presentation long abstract

Consulting firms are playing an increasingly significant, albeit overlooked, role in the administration of environmental law. Existing research suggests their rise can be seen as part of the broader project of neoliberal deregulation and declining state capacity, which have pushed governments to outsource responsibilities to private actors with specialized market-based expertise. I argue that rather than being driven solely by state retreat, the turn to private expertise was in part driven by the failure of government agencies to internalize the epistemological requirements of landmark environmental law. I draw on government archives, industry publications, and interviews with practitioners to document the rise and spread of consulting firms as key actors in reconciling resource extraction with conservation law.