Political Ecology of Forests Flashcards
(103 cards)
1
Q
Who referred to tropical rainforests as the ‘lungs of the planet’?
A
Prince Charles 2008
2
Q
Why is referring to “lungs of the planet” problematic?
A
Scales up politics - creates a global ethical purpose for forests which ignores more localised politics
The global discourse ignores local level
3
Q
How can nature be understood regarding political forests?
A
Nature is co-produced (e.g., Williams, 1972)
4
Q
Why is co-production of socio-natures in pol forests criticised?
A
Post-humanists consider nature to be there, not produced or constructed, as implies human involvement
5
Q
What are the 5 stages in the Political Forests Historiography?
A
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
6
Q
What are fictitious commodities?
A
Commodities not made to be sold (labour, money and land)
Polanyi 1944
7
Q
Why are payments for ecosystem services methodologically flawed?
A
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
8
Q
What is the issue with REDD+ (2005) regarding pol forests?
A
Reduces the value of forests to one metric (carbon)
9
Q
How does power-knowledge interact with pol forests?
A
Power shapes the way knowledge is understood and vice versa
Constructs ideas about pol forests
10
Q
Who said that tropical rainforests are the “lungs of the planet”?
A
Prince (now King) Charles 2008)
11
Q
What does the “lungs of the planet” mean for environmental politics?
A
It scales up politics
- Makes climate change and deforestation a global political issue
- Global discourse is spatial and multiscalar
- Ignores local level
12
Q
How can forests be theorised?
A
Socio-natures (cf. Williams 1972)
13
Q
What is a problem with considering forests as socio-natures?
A
Combines the society nature dualism without critiquing the dualism itslef
14
Q
Who advocated for forests for land management during the colonial era of political forests?
A
Lugard 1922
- Need to claim unclaimed territory
- Increase control over colonies and subjects
- Est forestry depts
15
Q
How should political forests and food regimes be used in essays?
A
As a framework, not a periodisation
applied to specific examples and cases
16
Q
What are the 5 stages in Peluso and Vandergeest’s (2001) political forests paradigm?
A
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
17
Q
What is forest restoration?
A
IPBES 2018 defines it as an activity to recover an ecosystem from a degraded state
18
Q
Why can the IPBES definition of forest restoration bet critiqued?
A
1) How to recover an ecosystem?
2) What was the non-degraded state? What was the starting point?
19
Q
Why is forest restoration considered a win-win-win?
A
- Carbon sequestration
- Habitat function
- People and livelihoods
20
Q
How do Boeyhihartono and Sayer (2012) define landscape?
A
According to landscape ecology / flows and interactions at a larger scale
(thus quite homogenising)
21
Q
How do IPBES define a “degraded state”?
A
“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)
22
Q
What is the geography of degradation globally?
A
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
23
Q
Why is mapping degradation problematic?
A
- Can provide a false representation of the realities of forest “degradation”
- Representation in whose interests?
Cf. Huffman 1996 map representations
24
Q
How is degradation often framed?
A
As ‘opportunity costs’
Foucauldian / Marxist critique?
25
What did the Bonn challenge involve?
Bonn Challenge (2014) to restore 150 million hectares by 2020
26
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
27
Who has considered the social impacts of restoration?
Lofquist et al 2022
28
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)
29
What proportion of deforestation is due to agriculture?
60-80% according to Pendrill et al 2022 (good breakdown of drivers)
30
Is ranching really lucrative?
No - it is actually done by poorer farmers - cereal crops are more lucrative (Garret and Rueda 2019)
31
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)
32
Why does ranching take place?
There are few alternatives...
33
Who has evaluated reforestation policies?
Levy et al 2022
34
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
35
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)
36
Who has highlighted that afforestation does not always mitigate climate change? I
Naudts et al 2016
CHECK IN CITATIONS LIST
37
In what ways was biopolitics involved in colonial forestry?
1. To make people into wage-labourers
2. To civilise them
3. To ensure control over subjects (cf. Elden 2010 technical control over the landscape)
(or colonial biopolitics generally - LINK POL APP!)
Davis and Robbins 2018
38
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
39
What is the aim of Peluso and Vandergeest's (2001) work on Political Forests?
1. Denaturalises forests (see Devine and Baca 2020)
2. Highlights different paradigms of control over people for different reasons (why is less detailed, though)
Peluso & Vandergeest 2015
40
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
41
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
42
Who has drawn attention to the multiple scales implicated in the "Green Neoliberalism" era of Pol Forests?
Devine and Baca 2020
- "Moral and scientific claims" for "how a forest should be used"
43
What stage of political forests has yet to be fully incorporated into the genealogy?
Green Neoliberalism (cf. Devine and Baca 2020) in the Political forest
44
What is the "charismatic forest" (Devine & Baca 2020)?
- A paradigm in Political Forests concerning the multiscalar politics of forests in the South
- Moral value of forests as bio hotspots and re climate change
45
Why is considering political forests as co-produced (in Peluso and Vandergeest 2015) useful?
- LOCAL AS WELL AS GLOBAL INVOLVEMENT
- Highlights multitude of resistances
- Many different enironmentalities produce the forest (some subverted and co-opted)
See Devine & Baca 2020
46
Why is restricting access to forest territories important?
Helps commodify them as exchange value, ignoring other use values
(alluded to in Devine & Baca 2020)
47
What is Green Grabbing?
"the appropriation of land and resources for environmental ends"
- Same as land grabbing, but considered morally justifiable
Fairhead et al 2012
48
What has Leach et al 2012 highlighted about green capitalism?
- 20th century about conserving landscapes
- Now about REPARING landscapes
Leach et al (2012)
49
What is problematic about the logic of repair?
Destruction occurs elsewere (Fairhead et al 2012)
- Actually intensified
50
Who coined the phrase "selling nature to save it"?
McAfee 1999
51
What does Buscher 2011 call financialisation of conservation through PES?
"fictitious conservation" Buscher 2011
52
What is a Polanyian critique of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES)?
Only supports more EFFICIENT NATURES - others are not worth preserving
- An issue of qualification of nature
See Fairhead et al 2012
53
Who decides the value of ecosystem services?
No one - it is often arbitarily set by financial markets (Fairhead et al 2012)
- COULD BE UNDERCUT!
54
Who has highlighted that there is "a large gap between neoliberal theory and practice"?
Castree 2011
55
What do Fairhead et al 2012 highlight about Green Grabbing?
- A universal rule of free market capitalism
- Yet scale specific
56
How is environmental destruction considered under the rubric of "green capitalism / neoliberalism"?
Environmental destruction considered market failure
Scales 2017
57
What did Raymond Williams (1972) highlight about the externalities of capitalism?
- Externalities are considered biproducts not accounted for or valued
- e.g., pollution impacts (Scales 2017)
Williams 1972
58
What is the problem with green capitalist systems like Coasian bargaining?
They assume that there is a minimum amount of environmental damage (Scales 2017)
59
What is PES?
- A method of accounting for the environment
-
60
What are the two dimensions to the flaws of Green Capitalism?
1. Marxist: inherent flaws with capitalism
2. Polanyi: institutional failures (quantification and qualification)
61
What is the "treadmill of production"?
- Treadmill of production devised by Schnaiberg 1980
- Capitalism must expand, intensify, GROW OR DIE
See Scales 2017
62
What is the main trouble with PES?
- Doesn't really solve problems (could even make them worse by exposing to financial forces)
- Only in the interests of accruing returns on investments
Scales 2017
63
What is a good paper on the EnvironmentalitIES of political forests?
Fletcher 2010
64
Who first applied governmentality to the envirionment? Who has since critiqued it and why?
- Environmentalitity first devised Luke 1999
- Agrawal (2005) highlighting that everyone has an environmentality
65
How can environmentalitity complement analyses of green capitalism?
Highlights social institutions and political arrangements (within a Polanyian framework)
66
What is governmentality?
A way of instilling a self-sustaining form of governance among subjects
A mentality (art) of government
67
What is the problem with Fletcher (2010) on environmentality?
Makes state sound exceptional in green capitalism... yet state is integral for markets!
68
Why are seeds of change in PE contentious?
People have different futures and environmentalities in mind (Fletcher 2010)
69
When did Peluso and Vandergeest devise political forests? What overall method do they use?
Peluso and Vandergeest 2001
- uses a Foucauldian Genealogy (history of the present)
- BUT could also be historically materialist
70
How are political forests created?
Territories controlled by the state (Peluso and Vandergeest 2001)
This does mean that Peluso and Vandergeest's idea is reductive (ignores resistances at first sight; Fletcher 2010)
71
Are all political forests used by the state for the state?
No, some are used for conservation or leased to private actors
Peluso and Vandergeest 2001
72
How important were customary rights for Pol Forests?
They ensured territorialisation and biopolitics (control over populations) of the forest territory
Peluso and Vandergeest 2001`
73
How have Peluso and Vandergeest recently reconsidered Political Forests?
1. RESISTANCE in Malaya
- including violence (post-war jungles)
2. Scientific KNOWLEDGE SHAPES Pol Forests
- Not part of agriculture; moral developments recently etc
3. Forests as a social construct under capitalism
4. Conservation paradigm - no longer extraction
- POLITICAL FORESTS ARE REMADE AND REUSED!
Peluso and Vandergeest 2020
74
Who has provided a functionalist perspective on forests in the political economy?
Barr and Sayer 2012
- Forests increasingly integrated into the global economy through investments and chains of commerce
- A FOCUS ON REDD+
- Corruption... (essentialist narratives for South!)
Does not mention capitalism once!
75
What do Barr & Sayer 2012 focus on?
REDD+ in forest pol econs
76
What is a good case study of violent territorialisation by the state and development agencies against those who practice Swidden?
Barr & Sayer 2012
- Focus on swidden in Malaya (inc. Indonesia and Laos)
"state agencies have actively sought to resettle upland communities practicing swidden agriculture and to induce them to adopt sedentary agricultural production systems" in the name of development
- Forceful relocations and changes to practices
- Very little compensation!
77
Who has discussed the ignorant introduction of Eucalyptus in S Africa, Thailand + India?
Bennett 2010
- Capitalism introduced through marketisation + standardisation with Eukalyptus (CHEAPS)
- Aesthetic qualities of order in plantation landscapes
- Wage labourers housed near forests
- Ecological and fire impacts
78
Why did Thailand continue to plant Eucalyptus despite a poor track record of the species elsewhere?
- Profit
- To appease the FAO in 1985
- Eucalyptus planted on marginal land
Bennett 2010
79
What is a good example of how forests were discursively represented vs reality?
Byrant 1996
Plantations romanticised in literature
80
Who has focussed on the power of the state in political forests?
Corson 2011
The state has the power to "decide who could accumulate wealth from Madagascar’s forests"
81
What is a good example of expanding state owned land to stop biodiversity loss?
Corson 2011
- Madagascar
- State takeover of 10% lands target set in 2000
- Land AND its contents privatised
- More non-state NGOs lobbying
- ACCUMULATION THROUGH DISPOSSESSION
82
Who has focussed on forests for conservation?
Holmes 2014
In the present day
83
Who discussed "scientific forestry" in Cameroon during colonialism?
Lanz 2000
- German ideas, used by British in Cameroon
- Essentially rendered forests technical for maximum extraction and profit
- Anything in the way of extraction or measurement removed/ignored
- Weber's RATIONALISM
84
What are permanent and non-permanent forests? What are the implications for deforestations?
- Permanent = protected by the state for conservation
- non-permanent can be destroyed
Lanz 2000
85
Who has highlighted how forestry moved away from extractivism towards conservation during colonialism?
Lanz 2000
86
What force "predominates over the rest" in destroying the envirionment?
Castree (2015) says capital does
87
How does Scales (2016) describe the marketisation of forests in the South?
"carbon markets and financial capital are increasingly shaping the world's tropical forests."
Scales 2016
88
Who discusses cash crops and "moralising taxes" in forcing people to surrender their labour power to capitalism?
Scales 2016 during colonial forestry
89
When was the conservation paradigm for tropical rainforests?
1960-1990s (increasingly over this period)
Since 2000s with neoliberal conservation
90
Why is the UN-REDD+ called a "triple-win" by Scales 2016?
1. Expansion of financial capitalism to new frontiers
2. Poverty alleviation through investments in states
3. Supposedly incentivises conservation of forests
Scales 2016
91
What are forests under a Polanyian rubric?
"reluctant commodities"
Scales 2016
V hard to quantify and demarcate a forest accurately, with ecological consequences
92
What does Scales (2016) refer to changes to forests in the South as?
"Forest regimes"
- A better alternative to pol forests?
- Akin to food regimes
- Renders social and ecological relations technical
93
Who coined "green capitalism"?
Prudham 2009
94
In what ways is conservation increasingly an outcome of capitalism?
A way of investing more surpluses in PES for a return
Scales 2015
95
How is ecology implicated in pol forests?
Discipline nature (Scales 2015)
96
What does PES entail for political forests?
- No longer accumulation of capital entirely by extraction
- Financialization of conservation = accumulation of capital through returns on investments
e.g., Scales 2015
97
How have political forests been involved with conservation over time?
1. Extraction in colonialism
2. Gradually also conservation against extraction
3. Increasingly green neoliberalism = accumulation of capital
- (in doing so also conserves nature as it is destroyed elsewhere)
Hence forests are a DIRECT (extraction and PES) and INDIRECT outcome of capitalism
98
What paper expands political forests to consider commodity fronteris?
Scales 2016
Forests a new commodity fronteir
99
How could political forests be redefined as institutions?
Viz Polanyi 1944
Allow capitalism to function by controlling territory in the interests of profit
100
Who linked extraction to needing to have colonial forests for conservation?
Lanz 2000
- DEMINISING RETURNS FROM EXTRACTION
- Scientific forestry needed to preserve forests for more incremental extraction
101
Are all forests apolitical, even those used for conservation?
No, they are themselves an indirect outcome of capitalist extractions!
102
Where did Peluso and Vandergeest focus their research?
In SE Asia
POLITICAL FORESTS ARE SPECIFIC TO SE ASIA
Peluso and Vandergeest 2001
103
Do Pol Forests have to be forests?
No, but are defined as such (Barr and Sayer 2012)
