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conduct). Equally, however, these representations facilitated the abstraction of
timber and indeed whole forests from specifi c social and ecological context, making
them commensurate across space and time and thereby enabling exchange and com-
modifi cation to proceed. While these processes of 'statistical picturing' are hardly
innocent of power relations (Prudham, 2007b), they also have material effects
beyond consolidating managerial expertise and commodifi cation processes. Rather,
and as Demeritt also observes, abstraction away from the specifi city of forests is
also complicit in the production of ecologically simplifi ed forests in the image of
the abstraction, while also tending to downplay social contestation of access to and
control of forests as social spaces (see Robbins, 2001; Braun, 2002).
Emphasis on the systematic representations that underpin abstraction highlights
complex cultural and political processes by which nature as a set of
sign-values
is
made to circulate in or attendant with the commodity-form, which in turn is pro-
ductive of prevailing conceptions of nature itself on an increasingly widespread if
not global scale (Smith, 1984; Braun, 2006). Morgan Robertson (2000) has inter-
rogated some of this sort of representational 'work' as it has applied to the circula-
tion of wetlands as exchangeable commodities under the US wetland banking
system, with a focus on the articulation of environmental science and the commodi-
fi cation of nature. Since the early 1990s, development in wetlands has required a
permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers, often granted on the condition of
offsets or mitigation. This has propelled the development of systems of commensu-
rability in wetland services. Entrepreneurs began building, restoring, or saving wet-
lands and applying for certifi cation from the Corps in order to then sell the wetland
'credits' to would-be developers. 'Thus was born wetland mitigation banking: the
fi rst successful market in ecosystem services defi ned as such, rather than (as in the
case of air- pollution credits) defi ned in conventional units of weight or volume.
Though still a small industry it is experiencing geometrical growth in membership,
and has captured the imagination of those who promote market-led environmental
policy' (Robertson, 2006, p. 372). Robertson (2006) pays particular attention to
the role of scientists in certifying wetlands, and in monitoring the status of wetlands
in the programme. Teams of ecologists are enrolled to make scientifi c judgements
about commensurability using what are called Rapid Assessment Methodologies
(RAMs!). As Robertson writes, 'RAMs function as instruments of
translation
between science, policy, and economics
. . . . Early in the development of wetland
banking it was recognized that the commodity to be traded must be defi ned in a
way that maintained a consistent identity across space and time. . . . This task must
be accomplished before any market can function, not just markets in ecosystem
services' (Robertson 2006, p. 373, emphasis added).
All this in mind, it is important to remember that abstraction is not suffi cient for
commodifi cation to occur, nor is exchange the only nor perhaps even most salient
feature of commodifi cation. Consider, for instance, Cronon's narrative about wheat.
While he dwells on the construction of new categories of wheat's representation
and the concomitant expansion of the Chicago wheat exchange, there is no discus-
sion of processes of farm consolidation, changing agronomic practices, proletari-
anisation, and rural to urban migration in the context of a rapidly expanding wheat
market. Instead, one might well argue that as powerful as Cronon's insights remain,
he ends up re-inscribing what Marx called the 'fetish of the commodity' by focusing
narrowly on commodities as exchange-values unto themselves (see the next section
on fetishism). In a useful review and synthesis, Castree (2003) argues that there are
