Devolution in the Woods: Community Forestry as Hybrid Neoliberalism

Abstract

This paper explores the remarkable congruence between the proliferation of community forestry initiatives in North America in recent years and the ascendance of particular forms of neoliberalism. In it I argue that, in the United States in particular, such initiatives are best understood as hybrids between ‘rollout’ neoliberalism and contemporaneous trends in the management of protected areas and state-owned forests. This interpretation contributes to recent arguments that the environment has been understudied as an arena through which neoliberalism has been actively constituted, rather than simply a passive recipient of ‘impacts’. Moreover, surprisingly little academic work has explored the imbrications of specific changes in environmental governance and evolving neoliberalism in the latter's ‘First World’ geographic hearths, such as the USA and the United Kingdom. In this paper I undertake such an investigation with respect to community forestry in the United States. The paper traces the major antecedents, introduction, and institutionalizations of community forestry in the United States, and shows how their conceptualizations and enactments of ‘community’ are structured by hegemonic neoliberal ideas, making community forestry in this context supplementary, rather than oppositional, to neoliberal restructurings. Exploration of the current Bush administration's enthusiastic adoption of central elements of community forestry bolsters this interpretation. Finally, the conclusion draws implications from this case for debates in political ecology.

Gold Country: the politics of landscape in exurban El Dorado County, California

“…While political ecological analysis is most often applied in the developing world and in rural areas (Robbins 2004), a growing group of geographers and other researchers have demonstrated its usefulness to understanding conflict in urban North America, beginning to answer the call for this type of work by James McCarthy (2002;2005). Byrne et al (2007), for instance, employ political ecological analysis to explore the conflicted history of a large park in Los Angeles, while Robbins (2007) uses political ecology as one lens through which to understand the relationship of Americans and their lawns.…”

“…Wheeler (2007) finds that exurban development accounted for 57 percent of land development in six sample U.S. metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2005. Third, the impact of exurbia on ecological systems appears to be marked, and includes both direct impacts like habitat destruction and the more indirect effects of road construction and homes "perforating" the landscape (Brown et al 2005;Odell et al 2003;Peterson et al 2008;Theobald 2004;2005;Theobald et al 2003). Fourth, exurban development is profoundly changing once-rural communities' appearance, politics, and identity Travis 2007;Walker and Fortmann 2003;Woods 2006).…”

“…The result, according to several respondents, is that all sides attempt to delegitimize and thus demobilize local planning capabilities, particularly when such capabilities do not seem to be serving their interests. Such demobilization of government is a key feature of turn-of-the-millennium neoliberalism in general, which emphasizes a reduction in the role of the state in regulating society (Larner 2003;McCarthy 2002;2005).…”

Community Forestry Incentives and Challenges in Mozambique

“…Devolution of forest resources and responsibilities has often been identified as key to ensuring community forest management [1,5,8,35]. In the cases of Mucombedzi and Pindanyanga, the land delimitation was facilitated by the Forest Service as part of the technical assistance between 2003 and 2005.…”

From shouting to counting: civil society and good governance reform in Cambodia

“…2 In particular it will highlight how under this reform project a particular model of civil society is being cultivated, linked to neoliberal modes of governance as a technical/managerial sphere tasked with streamlining market mechanisms into an ideal type liberal democratic state. In this respect the article contributes to a growing literature that has critically engaged with civil society's cooption under neoliberal frameworks more broadly (see Alvarez 1999;Schild 2002;Townsend et al 2002;Jad 2004;Kamat 2004) and the effects of 'hybridisation'; the interweaving of neoliberal norms into everyday spaces (McCarthy 2005;England and Ward 2007).…”