Political Ecology of Forests Flashcards
Who referred to tropical rainforests as the ‘lungs of the planet’?
Prince Charles 2008
Why is referring to “lungs of the planet” problematic?
Scales up politics - creates a global ethical purpose for forests which ignores more localised politics
The global discourse ignores local level
How can nature be understood regarding political forests?
Nature is co-produced (e.g., Williams, 1972)
Why is co-production of socio-natures in pol forests criticised?
Post-humanists consider nature to be there, not produced or constructed, as implies human involvement
What are the 5 stages in the Political Forests Historiography?
1) Colonialism and making forests productive
2) Post-independence
3) Cold war and jungle control
4) Tropical forest international importance
5) Climate change narratives
see notes for Pol Forest essay
What are fictitious commodities?
Commodities not made to be sold (labour, money and land)
Polanyi 1944
Why are payments for ecosystem services methodologically flawed?
For practical issues ref back to Polanyi 1944
Nature is a reluctant commodity - it is not easy to commodify, quantify and control
Boundaries are fluid and conflicting cultural associations
HARD TO QUANTIFIY AND QUALIFY
What is the issue with REDD+ (2005) regarding pol forests?
Reduces the value of forests to one metric (carbon)
How does power-knowledge interact with pol forests?
Power shapes the way knowledge is understood and vice versa
Constructs ideas about pol forests
Who said that tropical rainforests are the “lungs of the planet”?
Prince (now King) Charles 2008)
What does the “lungs of the planet” mean for environmental politics?
It scales up politics
- Makes climate change and deforestation a global political issue
- Global discourse is spatial and multiscalar
- Ignores local level
How can forests be theorised?
Socio-natures (cf. Williams 1972)
What is a problem with considering forests as socio-natures?
Combines the society nature dualism without critiquing the dualism itslef
Who advocated for forests for land management during the colonial era of political forests?
Lugard 1922
- Need to claim unclaimed territory
- Increase control over colonies and subjects
- Est forestry depts
How should political forests and food regimes be used in essays?
As a framework, not a periodisation
applied to specific examples and cases
What are the 5 stages in Peluso and Vandergeest’s (2001) political forests paradigm?
1) Colonialism and extractions
- Later conservation awareness
2) Post- indep and intl organisations in conservation / Green Rev time
3) Jungles and military control/surveillance
4) Pol Forests intl - local and intl changes (Fairhead and Leach 2003)
5) The moral scalar politics of climate change
What is forest restoration?
IPBES 2018 defines it as an activity to recover an ecosystem from a degraded state
Why can the IPBES definition of forest restoration bet critiqued?
1) How to recover an ecosystem?
2) What was the non-degraded state? What was the starting point?
Why is forest restoration considered a win-win-win?
- Carbon sequestration
- Habitat function
- People and livelihoods
How do Boeyhihartono and Sayer (2012) define landscape?
According to landscape ecology / flows and interactions at a larger scale
(thus quite homogenising)
How do IPBES define a “degraded state”?
“Degradation” causes by human-induced decline in biodiversity?
- What about chains of explanation?
- What about capital?
- What about places used for commercialised agriculture?? Surely that is also degraded?
(So Europe is most degraded - link WIlliams 1972 human hist w nature history)
What is the geography of degradation globally?
Considered to be in Global South, actually in more ubiquitous
- Strassberg et al 2020 consider the South to be an issue re priority of restoration
Why is mapping degradation problematic?
- Can provide a false representation of the realities of forest “degradation”
- Representation in whose interests?
Cf. Huffman 1996 map representations
How is degradation often framed?
As ‘opportunity costs’
Foucauldian / Marxist critique?
What did the Bonn challenge involve?
Bonn Challenge (2014) to restore 150 million hectares by 2020
What is the problem with the Bonn challenge?
- Little awareness of how many trees (only measured according to hectares)
- What type of trees / what type of landscape?
AND OTHER QUESTIONS FOR PE
- Who benefits?
- Who decides etc - Bernstein’s (2014) 4 questions
Who has considered the social impacts of restoration?
Lofquist et al 2022
What do most statistics on deforestation measure?
Tree cover loss according to remotely-sensed data….
But what about the impacts on ecosystems? (Hansen et al 2016)
What proportion of deforestation is due to agriculture?
60-80% according to Pendrill et al 2022 (good breakdown of drivers)
Is ranching really lucrative?
No - it is actually done by poorer farmers - cereal crops are more lucrative (Garret and Rueda 2019)
What has been suggested as a means of preventing deforestation? What is the issue with these approaches?
- Sacrifice zones (Brandstrom 2009)
- Do not account for the commodification of a nature or other ecological ramifications….
(see Garrett 2022)
Why does ranching take place?
There are few alternatives…
Who has evaluated reforestation policies?
Levy et al 2022
Who has considered power and decision making regarding landscape restoration? Why is it limited as an analysis?
Bliss et al 2011
Too superficial - does not consider legitimising aspects of power-knowledge and morality side of things
Who has discussed the role of trees and forests during colonialism?
Davis & Robbins, 2018
- French colonial forestry
- Specific targets
- Territorialisation and biopolitics (control over populations)
Who has highlighted that afforestation does not always mitigate climate change? I
Naudts et al 2016
CHECK IN CITATIONS LIST
In what ways was biopolitics involved in colonial forestry?
- To make people into wage-labourers
- To civilise them
- To ensure control over subjects (cf. Elden 2010 technical control over the landscape)
(or colonial biopolitics generally - LINK POL APP!)
Davis and Robbins 2018
Give an example of targets of colonial forestry?
- French colonial ministry exported the ‘taux de boisement’ policy to India
- Stipulated an afforestation rate of 30-33%
Davis and Robbins 2018
What is the aim of Peluso and Vandergeest’s (2001) work on Political Forests?
- Denaturalises forests (see Devine and Baca 2020)
- Highlights different paradigms of control over people for different reasons (why is less detailed, though)
Peluso & Vandergeest 2015
When discussing Political Forests, what is important to consider?
- Am I discussing Pol Forests under Peluso and Vandergeest’s (2015) framework
- OR am I discussing them in the context of co-produced socio-natures / as a political landscape?
JUSTIFY AND EXPLAIN FOCUS
Who has linked political forests to “Green Neoliberalism”? What are the main points?
Devine and Baca 2020
- State involved (link Polanyi 1944)
- Multiple actors “(re)making political forests”
- Global importance as bio hotspots and carbon sinks