February 28.  The Commodification of Nature.  According to environmental historians a major driver in uses and misuses of nature has been the tendency to fragment landscapes and treat nature’s parts as commodities. We’ll look at the issue of fragmentation–physically, legally, and intellectually–and its resulting problems.  We’ll also consider methods of valuing nature, critique the market as a driver, and trace the twentieth-century shift from conservation of discrete resources to the promotion of ecological functions/services.