Social innovation in the Welsh Woodlands: Community based forestry as collective third-sector engagement

Abstract

Commonly owned forests and common property regimes are types of forest ownership that exist in many European countries in various forms: they include traditional commons with a more or less unbroken history of 500 years or more, typically to be found in Austria, France, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland (Živojinović et al., 2015). As an outcome of land reforms in the 18th and 19th centuries, community-owned or-managed forests were established for instance in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Sweden, and also very recently in the UK (Weiss et al., 2017a). Especially in such recent developments in the UK, third sector ownership is the principal type: it is social enterprises, environmental or other non-profit distributing 1 organisations that increasingly acquire forest for special management objectives that often are also in the public interest. "Social enterprises", also called "social business" (European Union, 2014, 67f.) or "social economy" (European Union, 2014, 37f.) all include not-for profit enterprises who can be promising drivers of social innovations in structurally weak rural regions. Such enterprises strive to tackle social problems and to stabilise and improve the living conditions in these regions. One important factor for their functioning is volunteering. Volunteers are important for social connectedness, social inclusion and enhancement of wellbeing within communities (Brodie et al., 2009). The definition of social innovation (SI) developed within the SIMRA-project 2 is "the reconfiguring of social practices, in response to societal challenges, which seeks to enhance outcomes on societal well-being and necessarily includes the volunteer engagement of civil society actors" (Polman et al., 2017). From this definition it becomes clear that SI is not limited to being associated

Rural social enterprises in Europe: A systematic literature review

“…Within the reviewed studies, the involvement of the local community has been identified as a key factor for building legitimacy within the community and for being able to mobilise the necessary resources that support the emergence and the sustainability of these organisations (Healey, 2015;Jarl Borch et al, 2008;Valchovska and Watts, 2016;Vestrum, 2014;Vestrum et al, 2017). This local involvement also shows the critical role played by volunteers' time, energy and expertise, both in the emergence and sustainability of rural social enterprises (Calderwood and Davies, 2012;Farmer et al, 2008;Haugh, 2007;Ludvig et al, 2018;Perry and Alcock, 2010). Nevertheless, the presence of volunteers also carries downsides, as they can limit the growth potential of the organisations, create tension with paid staff and an excessive reliance on them can provoke volunteer fatigue and burn-out (Calderwood, 2013;Sonnino and Griggs-Trevarthen, 2013;Wyper et al, 2016).…”

Governance of Social Innovation in Forestry

“…In forestry, mutual arrangements and collective action, for example community forestry [26] can result in institutional changes also taking the form of altered actors' arrangements [27]. The inclusion of civil society leads to institutional change that tends to lead to the re-organisation of societal actors (forest owners, forest managers, consumers, producers) and their relationships [28].…”

Social Innovation as a Prospect for the Forest Bioeconomy: Selected Examples from Europe

“…Examples for community engagement can be found in grassroots movements that evolve through investment of a considerate amount of continuous volunteer work. Such types include community forestry activities like Coppice Wood College (CWC) or Woodlands Skills Centre (WSC) in Wales on communal woodland [39]. Their collective activities have evolved over many years and combine social forestry and communal land management with skills-based training and educational services on woodland management as well as craft-making.…”