Biologists Unite

“To chart the meteoric rise of ‘ecosystem services,’ an evangelized solution to the global biodiversity crisis, requires a history-spanning ambition. To further document the feelings of its practitioners, the ambivalence of its adherents, and the confusions of its critics conversely necessitates a subtle touch and an empathic soul. Daniel Chiu Suarez possesses all these qualities in surplus and demonstrates them in compelling narratives from the heart of the conservation machine. An astounding achievement.”
—Paul Robbins, Dean, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

“A fascinating critical exploration of words, power, and the power of words—figuring out how to make humans, especially decision-making ones, value the world they inhabit is an ongoing and crucial task.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Here Comes the Sun

“Drawing on ten years of fieldwork inside major conservation organizations, Suarez illuminates how biologists have increasingly come to question the efficacy and ethics of the current ecosystem services paradigm, and to envision a more radical version focused on changing capitalism rather than working within it.”
—Rebecca Lave, former President of the American Association of Geographers; coauthor of Streams of Revenue

“In his new book, Biologists Unite, Suarez traces the meteoric rise and fall of [ecosystem services, a] pragmatic but ultimately doomed approach to conservation.”
—New Scientist

“Suarez’s excellent book illustrates the importance of understanding the everyday practices through which the struggles around conservation and capitalism take place. He highlights how, through understanding and participating in mundane bureaucratic practices, we can find opportunities for reworking power relations so as to advance more just and equitable conservation.”
—Catherine Corson, AAG Review of Books

“Biologists Unite is a superb example of why we need academic books. It is based on more than fifteen years of careful research on the ecosystem services (ES) paradigm: its function as a conceptual model and epistemic community, and what it has (or perhaps more accurately, has not) achieved in the world. The book vividly conveys the rich body of evidence that Suarez’s long-term engagement with the ES community produced. Biologists Unite is thus a cool drink of water in a desert of pressure to slice our results thinner so we can publish more papers, more quickly.”
—Rebecca Lave, AAG Review of Books

“A collegial challenge to the idea that ecosystem services should have revolutionized the world by now, and, on the other, a call to arms to ask what it would actually take to do so.”
—Audrey Irvine-Broque, AAG Review of Books

“Written in clear and accessible language, Biologists Unite will appeal to scholars of environmental politics, science and technology studies, and political economy alike.”
—Political Studies Review

Daniel Chiu Suarez is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and C.V. Starr Fellow in International Studies at Middlebury College.

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