The Production and Destruction of Forests through the Lens of Landesque Capital Accumulation

Abstract

We discuss the management of trees and forests through the lens of “landesque capital.” A theoretical point of departure is how landesque capital accumulates through a process that relies on both the ‘work of nature’ and the ‘work of people.’ This approach highlights the importance of undertaking a critical analysis of labor investment and its landscape legacies in relation to ecological processes, social dynamics, and political economy. Empirically we draw on the case of smallholder production of coffee and annual crops in southwestern Ethiopia. We show how both the production (generation and maintenance) and destruction of forests in the study area are largely shaped by processes of landesque capital accumulation and discuss the importance of analyzing how people contribute to produce forests to meet production goals in contrast to the ubiquitous notion of humans as a solely destructive force of change in forest ecosystems.

Application of the extended theory of planned behavior in predicting the behavioral intentions of Iranian local communities toward forest conservation

“…This has caused them to destroy forests directly or indirectly and knowingly or unknowingly ( Jana et al, 2014 ). Therefore, even if events such as fires or storms naturally cause forest destruction, however, for the above-mentioned reasons, disturbances caused by human activities are often at the center of deforestation analyzes ( Börjeson and Ango, 2021 ). Currently, in most rural areas of Iran, local people are in close relationship with their surrounding natural environment, especially forests, and a large part of their lives depends on the forest products ( Savari et al, 2022b ).…”

Genes in the Chagra: Crop and Crop Wild Relative Landesque Capital among Amazonian Runa in Ecuador

“…Building from White's (2022) dissertation research, we argue for the analytical usefulness of the term landesque capital, the expansion of its analytical lens to include plants and the broader gene pools of crops (i.e., CWRs); we highlight selection pressures that may be operating among Amazonian Runa via ethnobotanical case study. First, we agree with Borjeson and Ango (2021, 268) that there is a: “usefulness of placing analytical attention on legacies of labor-ecosystem relations, or ‘hybrid labor,’ and the…production of forests by people co-working with [ ecosystem processes ] .” Landscape modification, as a term, encompasses a massive swath of literature, not exclusively targeted toward beneficial landscape modification, ongoing historical ecological processes, or the biological and cultural resources generated therein. We further argue that the usefulness of the term landesque capital lies in its applied historical ecological view of landscape modification as practice and biocultural diversity as a resource .…”

“…Mid-1980s studies of landesque capital defined it as “any investment in the land with an anticipated life well beyond that of the present crop…” (Blaikie & Brookfield, 1987, 9) wherein capital was only a metaphor for a resource or store of value (Morrison 2016, 54) of anthropogenic landscape modification legacies. The concept's full analytical power, however, has only begun to be realized as discourse has come to analyze past theories of incremental landscape change (Doolittle 1984) and, by extension, begun to contemporarily grapple with unintentional but enduring forms of landscape transformations (Börjeson 2007, 2014; Stump 2006). Landesque capital's usefulness as a term now lies in its focus on how any form of labor may be “stored” through landscape transformations that increase long-term environmental usefulness or productivity (e.g., stone walls, terraces, irrigation canals, raised fields, and anthropogenic soils), regardless of why and how that landscape is transformed (Widgren 2007) and whether the value is immediately recognized.…”

“…Such recognition, however, is ultimately critical to decolonizing scientific histories of plant breeding, landscape modification, and contemporary issue of usage rights (McAlvay et al 2021). Consequently, we advocate for the extension of this concept to plants (Börjeson and Ango 2021) instead of the more conventional soilscapes or landforms (i.e., brown landesque capital) and underscore the importance of studying how such genetic landesque capital may be built intentionally, unintentionally, incrementally, and systemically. Specifically, we expand the focus to how genetic forms of green landesque capital can be created among Amazonian Runa through practices including: artificial selection, seed saving, transplantation, and co-management of potentially interfertile crop and CWRs species from the same genera.…”

Investigating Endemic Species Conservation Hotspots Based on Species Distribution Models in Swat Region, Hindu Kush Pakistan

“…The number of endangered species increases notably each year [7] The destruction and modification of Land 2024, 13, 737 2 of 18 habitats, attributed to human overexploitation, pollution, and climate change, are key factors leading to the decline in natural populations and sometimes the complete loss of certain species. Many endangered species are typically limited to specific geographic regions, often existing in only a few remaining small wild populations [8]. A substantial proportion of these endangered species are endemic, making them unique, and often only a few small wild populations remain resilient [9].…”