Governance in the Boreal Forest: What Role for Local and Indigenous Communities?

Abstract

This chapter describes key trends in boreal forest governance in the twenty-first century and implications for the engagement of local and Indigenous communities. By focusing on three global trends—internationalization, marketization, and decentralization—we highlight the evolving role of local and Indigenous communities in increasingly hybrid and multiscale governance arrangements. We present two case studies, community forests in Canada and Sami–industry collaborative planning in Sweden, to analyze the qualities of local governance initiatives and how they seek to transform conventional approaches to economic development and land-use practices according to the values and priorities of local and Indigenous communities.