(ForTran consortium) sub-project Transforming forest owners’ practices (ForTran)
The research was funded by Strategic Research Council at the Research Council of Finland.
Main funder
Funder's project number: 358524
Funds granted by main funder (€)
- 339 861,00
Funding program
Project timetable
Project start date: 01/10/2023
Project end date: 30/09/2026
Summary
WP 1 asks why some forest owners and professionals choose less sustainable forest management practices while others are involved in adopting and developing sustainable alternatives and/or engage in voluntary conservation. Our primary method will be the ethnographic method. The outcome of the WP1 will be a nuanced understanding of forest owners’ and environmental and forestry professionals’ knowledge, networks, and practices to promote mutually acceptable and just pathways toward sustainable and resilient forest management and biodiversity conservation. Tasks. 1.1. Actors’ visions of sustainability and resilience. Forest owners may have ideas and visions of resilience and sustainability that do not translate into concrete forest management practices and conservation contracting. By studying forest owners’ visions, we make room for a plurality of knowledge. 1.2. Actor network and power structures. We analyze power relationships between forest professionals (e.g., the Finnish Forest Centre, forest management associations, ELY Centres) and private forest owners to understand what prevents the latter from engaging in sustainable practices. These insights can be used to develop policy interventions that foster sustainable forest management practices and biodiversity conservation. 1.3 Cultural transition. Forest owners’ and forest and environmental professionals’ perspectives on what is feasible and desirable forest use is mediated by their human-forest relationships (HFRs)(REF). Although every individual has their own unique HFR, the prevailing discourses and practices (Takala et al. 2022?) within actor networks and organisations constitute a socio-cultural layer of HRFs, which is by default resistant to changes. T1.3 considers understanding of HFRs within the actor network as a key to unlock cultural transition towards stronger sustainability. Using the data gathered in T1.1 and T1.2, T1.3 first analyses the spectrum of HFRs and scrutinises their joint and differing features and connects those to intangible cultural heritage. Thereafter, T1.3 organises a series of futures heritage workshops (Paaskoski et al. 2022) in which the forestry and environmental actors’ HFRs are discussed and sustainability action intentions are co-constructed to contribute to actors’ self-efficacy and agency. Experimenting and communicating the sustainability actions in the project’s just transition arenas will then foster alterations in discourses and practices, thus enabling and accelerating the actor-driven cultural transition in forest use.
