Suchergebnisse

The study of invasive plants and animals calls strongly for a critical approach due to the deeply social nature of invasion landscapes, the power relations affecting the science of invasions, and the differential impacts of weed or pest control on lives and landscapes. I first explore what a "critical" invasion science means. Then I investigate several aspects of invasion science ripe for critical analysis: the history of the science (to understand what the science is doing and why), the terminology and categories of analysis, and the highly contested social, political, and ethical context within which invasion management takes place. I conclude with four proposals for further work in critical invasion science and examples of the types of questions it might ask.

Forest transitions have recently received much attention, particularly in the hope that the historical transitions from net deforestation to forest recovery documented in several temperate countries might be reproduced in tropical countries. The analysis of forest transitions, however, has struggled with questions of forest definition and has at times focussed purely on tree cover, irrespective of tree types (e.g. native forest or exotic plantations). Furthermore, it has paid little attention to how categories and definitions of forest are used to political effect or shape how forest change is viewed. In this paper, I propose a new heuristic model to address these lacunae, building on a conception of forests as distinct socio-ecological relationships between people, trees, and other actors that maintain and threaten the forest. The model draws on selected work in the forest transition, land change science, and critical social science literatures. It explicitly forces analysts to see forests as much more than a land cover statistic, particularly as it internalizes consideration of forest characteristics and the differential ways in which forests are produced and thought about. The new heuristic model distinguishes between four component forest transitions: transitions in quantitative forest cover (FT1); in characteristics like species composition or density (FT2); in the ecological, socio-economic, and political processes and relationships that constitute particular forests (FT3); and in forest ideologies, discourses, and stories (FT4). The four are interlinked; the third category emerges as the linchpin. An analysis of forest transformations requires attention to diverse social and ecological processes, to power-laden official categories and classifications, and to the discourses and tropes by which people interpret these changes. Diverse examples are used to illustrate the model components and highlight the utility of considering the four categories of forest transitions.

Forest transitions have recently received much attention, particularly in the hope that the historical transitions from net deforestation to forest recovery documented in several temperate countries might be reproduced in tropical countries. The analysis of forest transitions, however, has struggled with questions of forest definition and has at times focussed purely on tree cover, irrespective of tree types (e.g. native forest or exotic plantations). Furthermore, it has paid little attention to how categories and definitions of forest are used to political effect or shape how forest change is viewed. In this paper, I propose a new heuristic model to address these lacunae, building on a conception of forests as distinct socio-ecological relationships between people, trees, and other actors that maintain and threaten the forest. The model draws on selected work in the forest transition, land change science, and critical social science literatures. It explicitly forces analysts to see forests as much more than a land cover statistic, particularly as it internalizes consideration of forest characteristics and the differential ways in which forests are produced and thought about. The new heuristic model distinguishes between four component forest transitions: transitions in quantitative forest cover (FT1); in characteristics like species composition or density (FT2); in the ecological, socio-economic, and political processes and relationships that constitute particular forests (FT3); and in forest ideologies, discourses, and stories (FT4). The four are interlinked; the third category emerges as the linchpin. An analysis of forest transformations requires attention to diverse social and ecological processes, to power-laden official categories and classifications, and to the discourses and tropes by which people interpret these changes. Diverse examples are used to illustrate the model components and highlight the utility of considering the four categories of forest transitions.

"Forest transitions" have recently received much attention, particularly in the hope that the historical transitions from net deforestation to forest recovery documented in several temperate countries might be repro- duced in tropical countries. The analysis of forest transitions, however, has struggled with questions of forest definition and has at times focussed purely on tree cover, irrespective of tree types (e.g. native forest or exotic plantations). Furthermore, it has paid little attention to how categories and definitions of forest are used to polit- ical effect or shape how forest change is viewed. In this paper, I propose a new heuristic model to address these lacunae, building on a conception of forests as distinct socio-ecological relationships between people, trees, and other actors that maintain and threaten the forest. The model draws on selected work in the forest transition, land change science, and critical social science literatures. It explicitly forces analysts to see forests as much more than a land cover statistic, particularly as it internalizes consideration of forest characteristics and the dif- ferential ways in which forests are produced and thought about. The new heuristic model distinguishes between four component forest transitions: transitions in quantitative forest cover (FT1); in characteristics like species composition or density (FT2); in the ecological, socio-economic, and political processes and relationships that constitute particular forests (FT3); and in forest ideologies, discourses, and stories (FT4). The four are inter- linked; the third category emerges as the linchpin. An analysis of forest transformations requires attention to diverse social and ecological processes, to power-laden official categories and classifications, and to the dis- courses and tropes by which people interpret these changes. Diverse examples are used to illustrate the model components and highlight the utility of considering the four categories of forest transitions.

Development practitioners frequently rely on community‐based natural resource management (CBNRM) as an approach to encourage equitable and sustainable environmental resource use. Based on an analysis of the case of grassland and woodland burning in highland Madagascar, this article argues that the success of CBNRM depends upon the real empowerment of local resource users and attention to legitimacy in local institutions. Two key factors — obstructive environmental ideologies ('received wisdoms') and the complex political and social arena of 'community' governance — challenge empowerment and legitimacy and can transform outcomes. In Madagascar, persistent hesitancy among leaders over the legitimate role of fire has sidetracked a new CBNRM policy called GELOSE away from one of its original purposes — community fire management — towards other applications, such as community management of forest exploitation. In addition, complications with local governance frustrate implementation efforts. As a result, a century‐long political stalemate over fire continues.

Madagascar is renowned for the loss of the forested habitat of lemurs and other species endemic to the island. Less well known is that in the highlands, a region often described as an environmental "basket-case" of fire-degraded, eroded grasslands, woody cover has been increasing for decades. Using information derived from publically available high- and medium-resolution satellites, this study characterizes tree cover dynamics in the highlands of Madagascar over the past two decades. Our results reveal heterogeneous patterns of increased tree cover on smallholder farms and village lands, spurred by a mix of endogenous and exogenous forces. The new trees play important roles in rural livelihoods, providing renewable supplies of firewood, charcoal, timber and other products and services, as well as defensible claims to land tenure in the context of a decline in the use of hillside commons for grazing. This study documents this nascent forest transition through Land Change Science techniques, and provides a prologue to political ecological analysis by setting these changes in their social and environmental context and interrogating the costs and benefits of the shift in rural livelihood strategies.

Many African countries are progressively embracing the blue economy. African islands of the western Indian Ocean, however, have been involved in it for more than twenty years through the exploitation of their 'blue gold': tuna. In this article, we use Ribot and Peluso's (2003) "theory of access" to map the different ways actors access tuna under diverse socio-economic contexts and how power relations are created through different mechanisms of access. We show that rights-based mechanisms such as fishing access agreements are highly questionable for their fairness and sustainability but bring benefits such as funding for fisheries-related infrastructures and projects. We also show that access to the resource is dependent on knowledge held by fishers, on technological advances as well as on diverse labor relations. These mechanisms significantly impact the quantity of fish that can be accessed by artisanal versus industrial market sectors, and generate narratives of unequal access to tuna. Furthermore, we take into consideration the materiality of tuna as a highly mobile resource in a space of fluid boundaries, to show how the fish can be an actant in shaping access but also how fishing practices can produce new materialities. Based on the above evidence, we propose an enhancement of the theory of access to consider the role of materiality of the resources and the sea. We conclude that to ensure that tuna fisheries continue to contribute to the blue economy of African islands, stakeholders need to balance between the diverse benefits produced by the fisheries and the uneven power relations that can arise, and to integrate the impact of a material sea and fish in this reflection. Keywords: fishers, knowledge, materiality, power relations, spatiality of the sea, technology, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles

Many African countries are progressively embracing the blue economy. African islands of the western Indian Ocean, however, have been involved in it for more than twenty years through the exploitation of their 'blue gold': tuna. In this article, we use Ribot and Peluso's (2003) "theory of access" to map the different ways actors access tuna under diverse socio-economic contexts and how power relations are created through different mechanisms of access. We show that rights-based mechanisms such as fishing access agreements are highly questionable for their fairness and sustainability but bring benefits such as funding for fisheries-related infrastructures and projects. We also show that access to the resource is dependent on knowledge held by fishers, on technological advances as well as on diverse labor relations. These mechanisms significantly impact the quantity of fish that can be accessed by artisanal versus industrial market sectors, and generate narratives of unequal access to tuna. Furthermore, we take into consideration the materiality of tuna as a highly mobile resource in a space of fluid boundaries, to show how the fish can be an actant in shaping access but also how fishing practices can produce new materialities. Based on the above evidence, we propose an enhancement of the theory of access to consider the role of materiality of the resources and the sea. We conclude that to ensure that tuna fisheries continue to contribute to the blue economy of African islands, stakeholders need to balance between the diverse benefits produced by the fisheries and the uneven power relations that can arise, and to integrate the impact of a material sea and fish in this reflection.

Howhumansperceiveandjudgenatureandrelateittotheirlifeisshaped by emotional, cognitive, cultural, and social factors. Whether a species is consid- ered native, non-native, or invasive can affect such aesthetics of nature by interact- ing with our emotions, affronting or confirming our cognitive categories, or engaging in our social, economic, and cultural worlds. Consequently, how humans perceive and judge the presence of such species, or how they judge an ecosystem or land- scape change triggered by them, is not fixed or easy to define. Here, some of the psychological, cognitive, and social dimensions that influence how humans judge non-native and invasive species and their effects on ecosystems are reviewed. It is concluded, at least in the case of non-native species, that the reduction of aesthetics to a 'service' is problematic, for it occludes the complex psychological and social processes that shape divergent perceptions of changing species distributions.

Both "political ecology" and "resilience" (or socio-ecological systems) are research approaches that explicitly claim to be inter- or even post-disciplinary. Both of these "interdisciplines" are currently dominant in academic study of society-environment interactions, engaging sizeable communities of students and scholars drawn from a range of traditional disciplines. Both approaches seeks to facilitate the kinds of boundary crossings that are crucial at the interface of nature and society, leading to new insights and knowledge, and to solving problems that are not contained within the boundaries. Yet there are inevitably pressures to "discipline" the new "interdisciplines". In the case of political ecology and resilience, each has separate intellectual traditions, with some fundamental differences in purpose, in epistemology, in explanatory tools, and in ideology – illustrating that there are multiple ways of being interdisciplinary. This chapter explores these differences and reflects on the meaning of interdisciplinarity.