Biodiversity and Sectoral Responsibility in the Development of Swedish Forestry Policy, 1988–1993

In 1993 the Swedish parliament deregulated national forestry policy and established an environmental goal in parallel with the previous, long-standing goal of high wood production. This paper shows how the change occurred in the context of major changes in Swedish environmental policy during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Within a short time, new environmental legislation and the introduction of legal protection for small forest and agricultural habitats of high ecological value reoriented national forestry policy, away from an overriding focus on wood production to an increased awareness of nature conservation and biodiversity preservation. Reflecting a major compromise with the state, forest owners have gained greater freedom to manage their land, but must also improve environmental conditions while achieving high wood production, a policy known as ‘freedom under responsibility’. The paper explains how both the parliament and industry supported increased nature conservation and biodiversity to maintain forest health and support the forestry industry, by favouring responsible resource use and not simply protection from human influence.     

Transformation of forest policy regimes in Finland since the 19th century

In this paper, interpretations of sustainable forestry are investigated against the historical background of transformations in the industrial utilisation of forests. Three distinct forest policy regimes in Finland since the 19th century are identified. First, the introduction of the German forestry model, with the central notion of sustained yield, and the establishment of the Finnish Forest Service took place simultaneously in the latter half of the 19th century. These actions aimed at changing patterns of local forest use considered detrimental to long-term forest utilisation. Second, a national forest sector was established during the 20th century. Industrial forestry was seen as a guarantee of economic independence for the new nation-state. Third, during a recent phase the influence of non-governmental organisations and international forest industry companies has increased, and traditional power relations have changed as issues such as biodiversity, forest certification and global investments have been introduced to the debates. It is concluded that the recent transformations in forest management should be read as transformations in industrial forestry rather than as abandonment of industrial forest use models; the legacy of the 19th century German forest science still prevails in forest management.     

Wood Chipping of Indigenous Forest on Private Land in New Zealand 1969–1993

In recent decades the international wood chip industry has been the major cause of indigenous forest destruction in New Zealand. This paper analyses how changing state forest policies have affected wood chipping of indigenous forest. Emphasis is placed on wood chipping on private land through a case study of the reactions and changing attitudes of farmers. It is argued that farmers and Maori landowners often have no other alternative but to allow wood chipping on their land. Although government policies have been tightened in recent years, and although attitudes among private landholders are shifting towards forest conservation, the pressure on New Zealand's lowland indigenous forest remnants continues unabated.     

Maintaining Centralized Control in Community‐based Forestry: Policy Construction in the Philippines

Community‐based forestry management is emerging as an important component of forest policies in the developing world. Using the Philippines as a case‐study, this article critically examines the way in which community‐based forestry is constructed and understood among government policy makers. The author suggests that the new policy discourse of community‐based forestry policy in the Philippines is still shaped by efforts to maintain centralized control over forest management and a political economy orientated towards commercial timber production using the principles of ‘scientific management’. While timber production and the technical aspects of forest management are emphasized, social and environmental considerations remain neglected.     

Forest Policy Reform and the Organization of Logging in Peruvian Amazonia

Reform in the forest sector in Peru resulted in a new forestry law, developed with substantial input from international conservation and donor organizations. While it incorporates the principles of sustainable forest management, biodiversity conservation and livelihood improvement, inconsistencies remain between the regulatory mechanisms and actual practices and outcomes in the field, leading some to consider the legal framework a failure. This article suggests that problems in the sector persist because the legal and regulatory frameworks do not incorporate existing local institutions, norms and practices — all of which are rooted in complex historical social, political and economic relationships. Based on information from interviews, data on movement of timber and analysis of secondary information, the authors examine the local structure, actors and dynamics of the concession forestry system in the Peruvian Amazon. The article focuses on how financial, social and political relationships in the network of actors, and particularly the patronage system, have helped actors in the sector adapt to the new policy framework. It is proposed that any further reform in the forest sector must be based on a keen understanding and appreciation of the praxis of timber extraction in the region.     

Scaling Post‐Industrial Forestry: The Complex Implementation of National Forestry Regimes in the Southern Valleys of Wales

Abstract: Recent years have witnessed increased geographical interest in the changing nature of forestry in the UK. Critical attention has been given to a transition from a previously dominant regime of industrial forestry, primarily concerned with the mass production of timber, to a post‐industrial regime, within which timber production sits alongside a broader range of social, economic and environmental objectives. Investigations of this transition, however, have been largely restricted to analyses of national policy discourse, with relatively little attention given to the implementation of post‐industrial forestry in regional and local spaces. In this paper, we argue that the emergence of this new forestry regime has been associated with a great deal of spatial complexity. Drawing on findings from recent research in the southern valleys of Wales, we highlight the complex geographies bound up with the implementation of national regimes of forestry in the UK, and the significant roles played by the local socio‐natural context in facilitating and resisting the implementation of new forestry regimes in particular spaces.     

Biodiversity and Nature Conservation: Some Common Arguments and Alternative Views

Abstract

The impact of human activities on the environment is perhaps now reaching its greatest level of awareness in human history. There is concern regarding health effects of pollutants generated by industry, climate change related to burning of fossil fuels and effects of anthropogenic activities in terms of promoting the extinction of biological species. Proposals are being put forward at local, national and international levels to preserve biodiversity. It is commonly believed that human activities, if not controlled, will lead to dramatic decreases in the earth's biodiversity. In this report, temporal perspectives of biodiversity (e.g. from palaeontology) are emphasized both as reasons for conservation and as possible errors of reasoning in conservation debates. Questions and novel implications related to an integral view of humans as a part of nature are also presented in the context of related environmental issues.     

Trans-Pacific Wood Chip Exports: the Rise of Chile

This study analyses the background to the rise of Chile as a major wood chip exporter, and assesses the environmental impact and relative economic importance of the Chilean wood chip industry. Chile is acting as a ‘surrogate’ for lost Australian hardwood chip exports to Japan. Compared to other countries, the wood chip industry in Chile has had a disproportionate impact on its remnant native forests and is essentially predicated on unsustainable forest management practices. Despite this, the relative economic importance of Chile's export wood chip industry is low when compared to value-added forest product export industries such as chemical pulp.     

Co‐opting Conservation: Migrant Resource Control and Access to National Park Management in the Philippine Uplands

The history of political and economic inequality in forest villages can shape how and why resource use conflicts arise during the evolution of national parks management. In the Philippine uplands, indigenous peoples and migrant settlers co‐exist, compete over land and forest resources, and shape how managers preserve forests through national parks. This article examines how migrants have claimed lands and changed production and exchange relations among the indigenous Tagbanua to build on and benefit from otherwise coercive park management on Palawan Island, the Philippines. Migrant control over productive resources has influenced who, within each group, could sustain agriculture in the face of the state's dominant conservation narrative — valorizing migrant paddy rice and criminalizing Tagbanua swiddens. Upon settling, migrant farmers used new political and economic strengths to tap into provincial political networks in order to be hired at a national park. As a result, they were able to steer management to support paddy rice at the expense of swidden cultivation. While state conservation policy shapes how national parks impact upon local resource access and use, older political economic inequalities in forest villages build on such policies to influence how management affects the livelihoods of poor households.     

Bridging the Knowledge-gap Between the Old and the New: Regional Marine Experience Production in Orust,Västra Götaland,Sweden

Abstract

Today many regions in the industrialized world have to deal with a transformation from traditional industry such as agriculture or manufacturing to service-oriented production such as tourism. Nevertheless, few studies highlight the possibilities and limitations of inter-sectoral knowledge sharing among stakeholders representing these sectors and hence there seem to be missed opportunities for mutual collaboration in the era of experience production. Using an evolutionary perspective, this article aims to analyse how the leisure boat manufacturing and the tourism sectors in the municipality of Orust on the Swedish west coast, combine knowledge from these two sectors as a way to spur innovation in experience production. The article shows how there are a number of limitations to sectoral knowledge interaction. Some of them can be linked to the conservative nature of the traditional industry, and to the immature nature of the tourism sector, others to the role of policy. However, at the same time as there being a number of obstacles for collaboration, the article reveals some interesting possibilities to form inter-sectoral knowledge sharing.     

The (Mis)Use of Disaster as Opportunity: Coerced Relocation from Celaque National Park,Honduras

Abstract: “Disaster capitalism” refers to political economic processes that take advantage of mass trauma to impose neoliberal capitalist economic policies, facilitating the redistribution of wealth and exacerbating socio‐economic divisions. Here the basic tenets of disaster capitalism are applied in another context: how natural disasters can be used to impose exclusionary protected area conservation principles with similar socio‐economic consequences and ecological ramifications. The post‐Hurricane Mitch relocation of resident populations from Celaque National Park, Honduras serves as a case study whereby a natural disaster, combined with the effects of neoliberal structural adjustment policies, created the opportunity to implement a universal model of exclusionary nature protection. The resultant displacement and increased semi‐proletarianization of the affected population effectively served the capitalist interests of international conservation and the agro‐export coffee industry and, contradictorily, worked against the proclaimed goals of nature preservation through exclusionary national park policies.     

Empire forestry and the origins of environmentalism

When and where did the environmental movement begin? To understand how a public endued with the principles of laissez-faire reversed in such short order a century-old policy of government land disposal, this paper examines how public ownership of land came to be celebrated, with a newly defined professional corps of government foresters such as Dietrich Brandis and Gifford Pinchot feted as popular heroes. Hard-headed environmentalists and legislators found in empire forestry a ready-made model to construct vast areas of the public domain as a utensil for not only environmental but state purposes—industrial, settlement, and budgetary. The empire forestry matrix of government reservations, fire protection, and revenue-enhancing forests solved the tension between romantic preservationist notions and laissez-faire ideals and gave the compromise from which modern environmentalism emerged: it posed environmental problems and solutions as a means to construct the state. This article traces the international trail of modern environmentalism from India, under Lord Dalhousie's forest charter, to the British colonies in Africa and Australasia where it matured, and finally to Canada, the United States and other parts of the globe where environmentalism permanently entered the pantheon of democratic political creeds.     

Parcs nationaux et populations locales dans l’ouest canadien : de l’exclusion à la participation

Canadian national parks are well‐known for protecting natural areas dedicated to ‘the benefit and the enjoyment of the Canadian people’. The history of national parks illustrates the evolution of a concept of nature from functional conservation, such as tourism, to an environmental conception, based on ecosystem protection and biodiversity preservation. Banff, Waterton Lakes and Wood Buffalo National Parks in Alberta, and Kootenay National Park in British Columbia (four of the fourteen parks established before 1930, the year the National Parks Act was passed) have been chosen for this study in order to understand how national parks have dealt with local communities since the beginning of the national park movement, and how these relationships have changed during the last forty years. Inclusion of local communities and collaborative management processes have been well developed in northern Canadian parks since the mid‐eighties. These practices have been considered successful in this region, but the situation is very different in the southern parks, especially those that were created before 1930. However, things have changed since Aboriginal culture and rights have been recognized in judgements rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada and by the Canadian Constitution. In the four parks chosen for this study, involvement of local communities and the development of their participation have been slow. Round tables and participation in the creation of interpretation sites and exhibits of Aboriginal history can be considered a step toward further cooperation.     

KHAT EXPANSION AND FOREST DECLINE IN WONDO GENET, ETHIOPIA

This study analyses the expansion of khat production in relation to forest decline in the Wondo Genet area in south-central Ethiopia. By assessing spatial variables and social factors, and using remote sensing and social survey techniques, the extent to which this new cash crop contributes to deforestation is explored.
The results indicate that khat has expanded rapidly in terms of land area used for its production at forest frontiers, in isolated forest patches and within farmland since the mid-1980s. This is mainly due to high economic advantage, high market demand and favourable means of transport as well as the existence of a cohesive trade network. Moreover, the properties of the crop also facilitate expansion. The increased production of khat appears to be a result of conscious choice and rational decisions made by male farmers, regardless of religious, cultural and policy discouragement and despite khat's possible negative impact on livelihood security.
Although it is found that khat expansion does not explain forest decline in the study area per se, it plays an important role in enhancing multifaceted interaction between people and forest. The expansion influences forest decline directly by conversion, and indirectly through increased human activity in proximity to forests. The conversion has resulted in a reduction of forest area, resilience and regeneration. Khat production has changed human settlement patterns, suppressed production of other crops and influenced women's income negatively. These aspects increase the demand for wood and it renders the forest an important source of supplementary incomes. Khat production may create tension, resulting from a conflict in interest between sustaining the native forests, with subsequent environmental benefits for the larger social group, and the economically driven choice land use made by khat farmers.     

Carbon Nullius and Racial Rule: Race,Nature and the Cultural Politics of Forest Carbon in Canada

Abstract: Critical geographers have paid remarkably scant attention to issues of climate change, even less so to forest carbon management policy. Building on geographic debate concerning the ontological production of nature and race, this paper argues that at stake in the climate change debate are not simply questions of energy geopolitics or green production. Also at issue in the climate debate are powerful questions of identity, the national form and race. This paper considers how a particular slice of the climate debate – forest carbon management discourse pertaining to Canada's boreal forest – enacts a political geography of racial difference, one that seeks to accommodate an imagined mode of traditional aboriginal life to the exigencies of global climate change mitigation and, importantly, to a logic of global capital now well into its ecological phase.     

Eco-socialism and the political ecology of forest conservation in the Greater Khingan Range,China

State-owned forestry enterprises (SOFEs) in China, established during the Maoist era for forest exploitation, have undergone significant reorganization under the Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP). In this study, drawing on the perspectives of political ecology and a case study from a SOFE in the Greater Khingan Range in northeast China, we develop an eco-socialist perspective to understand this particular approach to forest conservation. The concept of eco-socialism is mobilized to describe how, as a form of all-encompassing social organization with overwhelming political, social, and economic power in the forestry regions, the eco-restructuring of SOFEs is key to the success of forest conservation. Four eco-restructuring processes have been identified: (1) declining timber sales and increasing central subsidies; (2) restructuring of work-units; (3) creating redundancies; and (4) developing new sustainable economic activities. Furthermore, these eco-restructuring processes, both mandated and supported by the central government, have a significant impact on state-society relationship. While the resources given by the central government allow SOFEs to maintain a stable relationship with some workers by providing them a relatively stable livelihood, the laid-off workers are the major victims of the process, as they suffer from loss of income, economic stability, and social self-esteem. This study enriches the literature by incorporating eco-socialist governmentality into the political ecology of forest conservation and illustrating how the political ecology perspective can be a powerful tool in the collective effort to craft sustainable and socially just futures in China.     

From the editors

From a background in documenting traditional Sami knowledge of major predators, the author discusses the conflict of interests between Sami reindeer herding and Swedish environmental policy on the matter of governmental administration of predators. The author argues that a recognition of the fact that different cultures see and relate to nature and the countryside from different standpoints and within different frames of reference is missing in today's debate in Sweden. According to the author this could lead to a situation of eco‐colonialism if Sami experiences and apprehensions are not taken into account in Swedish environmental policy.     

THE GOVERNMENT’S BUSINESS?

The engagement of Swedish industry in the Liberian American–Swedish Minerals Company (LAMCO), which mined iron in Liberia between 1963 and 1989, was the largest Swedish commercial investment in Africa during the Cold War. In this paper I investigate how political and administrative actors of the Swedish government conceptualized the link between private and public interests in the context of LAMCO’s operations, and how this shaped Swedish government policy towards the company and Liberia. I identify two phases: a phase of almost unanimous political support for LAMCO and close Swedish–Liberian relations from ca. 1955 to 1965, and a more fragmented phase following 1965, during which LAMCO was increasingly understood as a political liability. My findings show how business interests could figure into Swedish foreign policy during the Cold War, highlighting the coherence with which Swedish industry and government acted in relation to the commercial interests in Liberia before ca. 1965, but also the lack of coherence – between government and industry as well as within the state apparatus – that followed the turn to a more activist policy after the mid-1960s.     

Forest crisis narratives: Illegal logging,datafication and the conservation frontier in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains

Environmental crisis narratives escalate around the world. Their production and consequences demand scholarly attention. Drawing on the analytical tools of political ecology and highlighting long-term historical developments, this article examines the shift to a new narrative of conservation in forestry, which displaces older structures of state forest management. In particular, we explore the emergence and unfolding of a crisis narrative of illegal logging, which escalated in Romania in the last thirty years. Based on long-term research of digital sources, interviews and fieldwork, we analyze the contents of this narrative, the way it produced heroes and villains, and its entanglements with processes of datafication, criminalization, and the surge of forest violence. We argue that (1) the genealogies of the forest crisis narrative can be understood in relation to frontier-specific processes of deregulation and re-territorialization, which generate acute struggles for forest control and legitimacy; (2) the narrative of illegal logging unravells as a media spectacle surrounding the production of data by a plurality of state and non-state actors (3) in the attempts to curtail illegal logging, the emphasis on law, surveillance and criminalization posits forest conservation one step short of militarization, fuelling the trends for global environmental law enforcement and securitization of conservation.