Unfolding relational spaces of environmental governance: (Re-)producing sustainable forest management and certification between European core markets and northern resource peripheries
Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies No 54
Moritz Albrecht
Unfolding relational spaces of environmental governance: (Re-)producing sustainable forest management and certification between European core markets and northern resource peripheries
Publications of the University of Eastern Finland Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies No 54 Itä-Suomen yliopisto Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta Joensuu 2013
Juvenes Print - Tampereen Yliopistopaino Oy Tampere, 2013 Editor in-Chief: Prof. Kimmo Katajala Editor: Sonja Kärkkäinen Cover photos: Moritz Albrecht Sales: University of Eastern Finland Library
ISBN (bind): 978-952-61-1068-4 ISSN (bind): 1798-5749 ISSNL: 1798-5749 ISBN (PDF): 978-952-61-1069-1 ISSN (PDF): 1798-5757
Albrecht, Moritz Unfolding relational spaces of environmental governance: (Re-)producing sustainable forest management and certification between European core markets and northern resource peripheries, 84 p. University of Eastern Finland Faculty of Social Sciences and Business Studies, 2013 Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, no 54 ISBN (bind): 978-952-61-1068-4 ISSN (bind): 1798-5749 ISSN-L: 1798-5749 ISBN (PDF): 978-952-61-1069-1 ISSN (PDF): 1798-5757 Dissertation
ABSTRACT This dissertation studies transnational, environmental governance spaces exemplified by means of forest certification and its surrounding discourses from a European perspective. While forest certification and forest governance in general are often portrayed as increasingly privatized and market-driven, the study highlights the relational characteristics of governance processes. Thus, to counter simplified, hierarchical accounts of environmental governance this study develops a concept of relational space of environmental forest governance to portray governance as part of a space which is (re-)produced by heterogeneous sets of relations, knowledge networks and the positionalities and rationalities of its entities. The forest certification systems and affiliated debates concerning their ability to achieve sustainable forest management demonstrate how environmental aspects and knowledge are negotiated, (re-)produced and promoted based on the spatiality of various entities. While most of these relational processes nevertheless take place in close interaction with the supply chains, this approach highlights the importance of perceived external relations to (re-)produce governance spaces. The empirical part of the study rests on five qualitative case studies conducted along the core market–resource periphery relations of forest products between central Europe, specifically Germany, and Finland. The dissertation presents how the various positionalities of entities, such as environmental organizations, companies, political institutions and actors practicing forestry (re-)produce their rationalities, modes of knowledge production and distribution concerning forest certification. It highlights the core-periphery relations of forest governance and indicates the importance of local peculiarities, be it in the core markets or the resource peripheries, to influence governance processes. While the study focuses on environmental forest governance spaces, it provides a conceptual framework to study other modes of environmental or natural resource governance. Key words: environmental governance, relational space, sustainable forest management, Governmentality, Germany-Finland.
Albrecht, Moritz Ympäristöhallinnan relationaaliset tilat: Kestävän metsänhoidon ja sertifioinnin uusintaminen Euroopan ydinmarkkinoilta pohjoisiin resurssiperiferioihin, 84 s. Itä-Suomen yliopisto Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta, 2011 Publications of the University of Eastern Finland, Dissertations in Social Sciences and Business Studies, no 54 ISBN (nid.): 978-952-61-1068-4 ISSN (nid.): 1798-5749 ISSN-L: 1798-5749 ISBN (PDF): 978-952-61-1069-1 ISSN (PDF): 1798-5757 Väitöskirja
Abstrakti Tutkimus käsittelee ylikansallisen ympäristönhallinnan tilan ja paikan käsitteitä metsäsertifiointia ja siihen liittyviä eurooppalaisia diskursseja esimerkkeinä käyttäen. Metsäsertifiointi ja metsien hallinta kuvataan usein yksityistämiskehityksen ja markkinaistumisen kautta, mutta tämä tutkimus korostaa hallintaprosessien relaationaalista luonnetta. Yksinkertaistettujen hierarkkisten ympäristöhallinnan kuvausten sijasta tutkimus esittelee ympäristöllisen metsien hallinnan relaationaalisen tilan käsitteen. Sillä kuvataan hallintaa tilan tuottamisena, joka syntyy heterogeenisen suhdekimpun, tiedon verkostojen sekä erilaisten entiteettien positionalisuuksien ja rationaliteettien yhteisvaikutuksesta. Metsäsertifioinnin järjestelmät ja keskustelut niiden kyvystä saavuttaa kestävä metsätalous, osoittavat kuinka ympäristönäkökohtia ja –tietoa tuotetaan, uusinnetaan ja edistetään eri entiteettien välisissä spatiaalisissa suhteissa. Vaikka suurin osa näistä relationaalisista prosesseista tapahtuukin läheisessä vuorovaikutuksessa hankintaketjun kanssa, lähestymistapa korostaa ulkoisiksi koettujen suhteiden merkitystä hallintatilojen tuottamisessa ja uusintamisessa. Tutkimuksen empiirinen osio pohjautuu viiteen kvalitatiiviseen tapaustutkimukseen, joiden teemoina ovat metsätuotteiden ydinmarkkinoiden ja resurssiperiferian suhteet, joita tarkastellaan pääasiassa Keski-Euroopan, erityisesti Saksan ja Suomen välisenä vuorovaikutuksena. Väitöskirja esittelee, kuinka sellaisten entiteettien kuten ympäristöjärjestöjen, yritysten, hallintoelinten ja metsätalouden toimijoiden positionaalisuudet muokkaavat näiden sertifiointia koskevia rationaliteetteja sekä tiedon tuotannon ja levittämisen muotoja. Tutkimus korostaa metsien hallinnan ydin-periferia suhteita. Se osoittaa myös paikallisten ominaispiirteiden huomioimisen tärkeyden, oli kyse sitten ydinmarkkinoista tai resurssiperiferioista, jos halutaan vaikuttaa hallinnan prosesseihin. Vaikka tutkimus kohdentuu ympäristöllisen metsien hallinnan tilakäsitteiseen, se tarjoaa teoreettisen viitekehyksen laajemminkin ympäristö- tai luonnonvarahallinnan käytäntöjen tutkimiselle. Avainsanat: Ympäristöhallinta, relationaalinen tila, kestävä metsänhoito, hallintomentaliteetti, Saksa-Suomi
Acknowledgements As a journey of some length is coming to an end, there comes a time for reflection and to express my gratitude to the people who supported me throughout, or in parts of, this PhD odyssey. This journey has allowed me to see many interesting places and meet many interesting people; fieldwork, conferences and graduate schools have provided me with splendid opportunities to get to know the world from a variety of perspectives. While this may have increased my understanding of geography in a professional manner (you can be the judge of that!), it has certainly enriched my life through many great experiences. For this I owe many thanks. First of all, I would like to thank Jarmo Kortelainen, who as my supervisor as well as a research colleague and friend, has provided great support for my studies through the years. Apart from his guidance in research matters such as writing academic articles, constructing research frameworks or hints on relevant literature, I very much enjoyed our joint visits to conferences, our fieldwork trips and local excursions by mountain bike. Without Jarmo, this journey would have been a different, probably less enriching one. I also would like to thank Juha Kotilainen, who over the years of commenting on and supporting my work became a sort of unofficial co-supervisor. Furthermore, I wish to express my gratitude to Sally Eden and Taru Peltola for serving as the pre-examiners of this dissertation and providing me with thought-provoking comments. I want to thank Veli-Pekka Tynkkynen for agreeing to be the opponent at my public defense. I am further grateful to Roy Goldblatt, who checked the language of this summary, and all the many people, organizations and companies who were willing to participate in the research interviews for this study. Thanks also go to all my colleagues from Geography in Joensuu. Specifically I thank Paul Fryer for his continuous support since my Master’s studies, Markku Tykkyläinen for his valuable advice on PhD student matters, Timo Pakarinen for helping me whenever needed with computer, printing or other practical matters and to our HiMa secretaries. I am also grateful to my fellow PhD colleagues, some of whom have by now graduated: Olli L., Fulvio R., Timo K., Kati P., Jussi S., Matti F., Olga L., Jani L./K., and all the professors, lecturers and researchers who shared this time with me (you know who you are!). Moreover, I wish to thank Bernhard Köppen for introducing me as a foreigner to my own country regarding what is going on in geography in Germany. Warmest thanks to my parents, Barbara and Gerd, who took me with them from a young age on exciting travels all over the world and spurred my desire to see and learn more about the world, about geography. This thesis is also dedicated to my grandmother Else, who always believed in me and taught me to do the same. Danke für Alles Oma!
Finally, warmest thanks to my beloved wife Eerika, for always being there for me, and to our daughter Annikki Else, for cheering me up whenever I was in doubt of anything. Joensuu, 7 March 2013, Moritz Albrecht
Contents 1 Introduction........................................................................................ 11
1.1 Utilizing the controversy over forest certification........................................14
2 Research process............................................................................... 17
2.1 Research tasks................................................................................................... 17 2.2. Methods and data collection........................................................................... 24 2.2.1 Interviews.............................................................................................. 26
3 Conceptualizing relational spaces of environmental governance and their networks of knowledge production.......................................................... 30
3.1 Talking topologies: space, positionalities, fixes and power....................... 30 3.1.1 Core-periphery relations..................................................................... 35 3.1.2 The role of power................................................................................. 36 3.2 Environmental governance............................................................................. 37 3.3 Governmentality and knowledge networks................................................. 41
4 Unfolding relational spaces of environmental forest governance: sustainable forest management controversies in core-periphery relations................................................................................................. 46
4.1 Knowledge networks for sustainable spaces and their topologies........... 47 4.1.1 Forgotten rationalities of forestry and state institutions................ 53 4.1.2 Governmental aspects of environmental forestry spaces.............. 55 4.2 (Re-)producing positionalities for governance: transnationalization through core-periphery aspects and locally embedded relations............ 60 4.2.1 Re-scaling governance: positionalities of core-periphery relations................................................................................................. 65
5 Conclusion............................................................................................. 69
5.1 Forest certification and environmental governance................................... 69 5.2 Relational spaces of environmental, (forest) governance........................... 72
SOURces..........................................................................................................76 Articles........................................................................................................ 84
Tables Table 1 Basic comparison of FSC and PEFC ....................................................... 16 Table 2 List of interviews from the five case studies. Year of interview, number of interviewees and their work affiliations ........................................................................................................ 27
Figures Figure 1 Basic research framework of core-periphery relations for wood-based products in Europe ................................................ 19 Figure 2 Geographical and temporal framework of the case studies and the research process. Green arrows represent the direction of environmental business demands focused on in Case Study IV ............................................ 29 Figure 3 Relational aspects of knowledge networks in the transnational spaces of environmental forest governance processes ................................................................ 57
List of Abbreviations BMELV COC DIY EU FM FSC GPP NGO PEFC SFM SPP WWF
Federal German Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection Chain-of-custody Do-it-yourself (retail markets) European Union Forest management Forest Stewardship Council Green public procurement Non-governmental organization Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Sustainable forest management Sustainable public procurement World Wide Fund for Nature
1 Introduction In a society oriented towards consumption, with economic growth and development as a main guiding factor, pressure on natural resources through their increasing utilization and exploitation is constantly rising. Since many accompanying problems of these developments have been acknowledged and voiced in the discourses on global climate change, loss of biodiversity or deforestation of primary forests, calls for a more sustainable management of natural resources have emerged. Thus, new modes of natural resource governance are emerging and promoted to achieve aims of sustainable development and management. My dissertation and its five related case studies (articles I-V) tap into these debates in regard to environmental forest governance and focus on forest certification as a way to achieve sustainable forest management (SFM). Since many studies regard forest certification in itself primarily as a mode of market-driven governance (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Haufler, 2003; Cashore et al., 2004; Meidinger, 2011), this dissertation follows a relational approach to unfold governance spaces and their processes from a more inclusive perspective (Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). With this general purpose in mind, the study employs the debate over the two major, global forest certification systems from a European perspective. It, however, refrains from evaluating the question of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ governance but approaches the topic through a theoretical approach which aims to highlight the relationality, multiplicity and heterogeneity of governance processes. Thus, how are the relations that link various entities to each other able to (re-)produce such new governance spaces which aim to achieve an improved, sustainable management of natural resources? Of utmost importance for modes of sustainable resource governance is the definition of sustainable practices (cf. Hudson, 2005). The social co-construction of nature (e.g. Castree & Braun 2001) along with the contested character of knowledge must be taken into account and often result in discourses about ‘truth’ claims (cf. Lemke, 2001). Co-construction in this case is understood as the multiplicity of nature-society relations in terms of sustainable forest nature, and the (re-)production of its spaces (see also Murdoch 2001, 2006). Hence, the role of knowledge and ‘truth’ claims concerning various practices to achieve SFM lie at the heart of its governance processes. I therefore adopt Foucault’s (1991a, 1991b) concept of governmentality with its focus on rationalities, regimes of practices and governmental technologies (cf. Burchell et al., 1991; Dean, 2010). Rationalities enable the entities involved to grasp the sphere in need of governing, while regimes of practice, based on their rationalities employ certain technologies to render them practicable (Foucault, 1991c; Gordon, 1991; Miller & Rose 2008). Regimes of practice are thereby regarded as a more or less stable set of entities longing to direct governance towards certain ends. For the purpose of
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this study, in respect to environmental forest governance and SFM, forest certification systems are utilized as an illustrative example of governance technologies to achieve SFM. This focus on the (re-)production of knowledge networks and varying rationalities of entities provides an important insight into governance processes such as choosing one management/certification system over another and to promote new or defend current practices of forest management. This being a geographical analysis of governance processes the main focus, however, is on the relationality of governance spaces. Due to the fact that woodbased products are a globally traded commodity and core-periphery relations between markets and resource areas play a major role in forest governance, the relational character of spatialities shape these governance spaces and their entities. As Allen (2009, 206) points out, the concern of such topologies is “...with how the global is folded into the local...,” and so the dissertation is set under the title Unfolding Relational Spaces of Environmental Governance. The subsequent utilization of the term ‘environmental forest governance’ highlights the focus on environmental aspects of forestry, dealt with by this study in its empirical cases. Thus, since the focus is on aspects of forest certification and environmental issues related to forestry the adjective ‘environmental’ clarifies that orientation in opposition to forest governance as a whole. Hence, the study is concerned with how the integration of environmental aspects into forest governance (re-)produces the space under examination. The omission of the term ‘forest’ in the title reflects the aim of this study to provide knowledge on how processes are also applicable to other realms of environmental governance. While space is considered from a relational perspective, (re-)produced by its constant becoming through the interaction of its relations (e.g. Massey, 2005, Murdoch, 2006), governance processes must be regarded as relational as well. This leads to the main question of this dissertation: how environmental forest governance processes are performed through the (re-)production of relational space. In other words, my aim is to present these (re) production processes to support a relational space of environmental forest governance in Europe. These relations include knowledge transfer, values of place/ forestry or other sociospatial aspects as well as biophysical properties which are experienced, perceived or linked to a certain entity (cf. Sheppard, 2002; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). Aside from the temporal nature of relations, they (re-)produce the spaces to be governed, such as the debates on increasing sustainability in forest management which will be discussed below. Debates on SFM and forestry practices must take into account the transnational character of the forest trade itself, often entailing core-periphery relations (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Hayter et al., 2003; Stringer, 2006; article I). Core-periphery relations in regard to this dissertation and the evaluated relational space of environmental forest governance are the interlinkages between European core markets and Northern European resource-peripheries. Based on their high import quantities of wood-based products, countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France or the Netherlands are treated as the former, while based on the high export share of their national production capacity, countries like Finland, Sweden and parts of
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Russia are considered the latter. In addition, protest campaigns, chiefly by environmental focused non-governmental organizations (NGO), in the core markets of wood-based products, regarding unsustainable forest practices in the boreal and tropical resource peripheries are considered the initiating factor of forest certification systems in general (Cashore et al., 2004; article I, II). Thus, they are an important aspect in the relational space of environmental forest governance discussed in this dissertation and its related articles. To grasp the relationality of the entities involved within these core-periphery relations of transnational environmental forest governance I employ the concept of positionality (e.g. Sheppard, 2002; Leitner et al., 2008). Positionality, based on the heterogeneous nature of relational space, thus the aspect that every entity is embedded into a differing set of relations, reflects this specific position of entities in space (Sheppard, 2002; Leitner et al., 2008; article II). The positionalities of entities highlight relations important to the conduct of governance since they can entail enabling as well as marginalizing properties (cf. Massey, 2005). Concerning forest certification as a governmental technology, positionalities are considered to shape decision-making, promotion practices or knowledge production and distribution as they are (re-)produced by the relations of entities and at the same time (re-)produce the relational space of environmental forest governance. Hence, the discourse surrounding the two major global forest certification systems is utilized in this study to exemplify the relational characteristics of environmental governance per se, to present its hybrid, heterogeneous processes and to put forth an improved, theoretical understanding of environmental governance in general. To return to some practical aspects of this dissertation, the theoretical approach of this study as well as its related empirical data have been developed and gathered in the context of a series of five consecutive qualitative case studies along the core-periphery wood supply chains (e.g. Fig. 2, articles I-V). All case studies were part of and conducted in the research project Transnationalization of Forest Governance funded by the Academy of Finland from 2008-2011. The aim of the research project was to evaluate new modes and develop an improved, theoretical understanding of transnational forest governance processes. This underlying target also contributes to the rather theoretical approach followed by my dissertation. Furthermore, the writing up process of this summary and some of the article revisions were carried out in the follow-up research project, Developing Bioenergy Governance” 2011-2014, supported by the strategic funding of the University of Eastern Finland. Following the introduction and a short digression on forest certification the research process of this study is presented and entails a detailed description on the research tasks and methods, data collection and the empirical cases. This section also provides the reader with a short summary of each of the single case studies. However, concerning the general structure of this article-based dissertation and the summary preceding the articles, I advise the readers to first familiarize themselves with at least some of the empirical findings in the articles as they will provide an enhanced understanding and a larger pool of empirical examples which
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will at the same time facilitate the understanding of the summary. Section three then conceptualizes the theoretical vocabulary and context utilized throughout the study, beginning with the conceptualizations of space itself and its relational attributes due to its primary role in the study. The order has been chosen based on the assessed role of these concepts in regard to this study: foremost is relational space as an overarching concept; second is environmental governance in regard to the topics of the empirical cases and, finally, knowledge networks framed by governmentality. The main section of this dissertation is concerned with the un-folding of the relational spaces being examined. It merges the core concepts such as relational space, the positionalities of its actors, governmentality and aspects of knowledge production with processes in forest governance derived from the case studies. For the sake of clarity I decided to divide this section into two main parts. Firstly, with a focus on knowledge networks and their stakes in the (re-)production of relational space and, secondly, by highlighting the positionalities of the entities and their role at play in governance processes. While these topics must be regarded as mutually constitutive I regard their separate yet interlinked presentation as supporting the understanding of the debate at hand. Moving from one aspect of positionality and its relations, namely the involved knowledge networks, to the wider aspects and spatialities of positionality I see this to enable an enhanced understanding of the general processes of the (re-)production of relational space. Finally, the conclusion expresses the results of this dissertation in a twofold manner: first, in terms of the empirical findings based on forest certification in relation to the five case studies and, second, on a general, theoretical level to present the implications of the utilized framework of relational spaces of environmental forest governance and its (re-)productive processes on the evaluation of governance spaces in general. This is to further highlight such a relational approach as a methodological perspective to study environmental and natural resource governance.
1.1 Utilizing the controversy over forest certification Since forest certification and its related certification bodies as well as their supportive entities play a vital role in this study the following section will briefly introduce some issues surrounding forest certification. This also aims at providing an improved understanding on how and why certain institutions and interviewees have been chosen to be integrated within this study. With public protests looming during the 1980s and early 1990s concerning the deforestation of primary rainforests in the global South and old-growth forests in boreal, northern countries (e.g. Canada, Russian Federation), forest certification was initially developed by environmental NGOs such as Rainforest Alliance and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Another impetus for this develop-
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ment was the failure of the international community to establish binding forestry guidelines. Based on a set of common criteria and standards for forest management (FM certification) and the related chain-of-custody (COC-certification) of wood-based products forest certification seeks to provide an instrument for companies to demonstrate their adherence to SFM. In 1993 the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) was founded, with specific support from the WWF and other environmental NGOs. With a lack of direct market demand, FSC was mainly based on a “carrot and stick approach”, as described by Benjamin Cashore (2002). The FSC label being the “carrot”, and public, NGO initiated protests against companies being the “stick”. With rising criticism of these practices, specifically with regard to the perceived NGO domination of FSC, competing schemes were developed by industry and forest owners (e.g. Cashore, 2002; article II). In Canada and the United States, this process was driven by industry associations related to forestry, pulp and paper products while in Europe private forest-owner associations played a vital role (cf. Gulbrandsen, 2004; Cashore et al., 2005; article II). In Europe, this resulted in the establishment of the ‘Pan European Forest Certification’ scheme in 1999, which, in 2003, was renamed in the ‘Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification’ (PEFC) to indicate its global ambitions (article II). In addition, PEFC enjoys larger, yet less promoted industry support in comparison to FSC (articles II & IV). Due to the focus of this study on Europe, and the subsequent integration of the two earlier North American schemes into PEFC, the focus is solely on the latter. A short summary of FSC and PEFC is provided in Table 1 below. FSC and PEFC entail global criteria and guidelines which are the basis for the approval of the varying regional and national sub-standards (see FSC, 2002; PEFC, 2007; Eden & Bear, 2010). The stringency of criteria and standards, their control and audit processes, are also the basis of a continuous and recently increasing (cf. Ford & Jenkins, 2011; PEFC, 2011) controversy between the certification schemes and their supporters. While PEFC has prominently been accused by environmental NGOs for lax criteria with a lack of control (e.g. Harkki, 2004; Greenpeace, 2009; Ford & Jenkins, 2011), regional variations of FSC as well as its excessive expansion bureaucracy are criticized by its opponents. Furthermore, since forest certification is expected to foster SFM in commercial forests, FSC criteria are partially regarded as too stringent, mistaking SFM for protection (articles IV & V). Therefore, PEFC supporters regard it as more pragmatic in this regard, while still capable of providing SFM. An assessment of the ‘truth’ claims of the supporters of the systems about the contribution to SFM by the two certification schemes is not the concern of this study (see Harkki, 2004; UPM, 2005; Auld et al., 2008; Schlyter et al., 2009; Ford & Jenkins, 2011). Yet, in this regard, forest certification provides a splendid means of tapping into the networks of knowledge production and distribution regarding a central aspect of forest governance: the debate on what is considered sustainable and which tools are sufficient to approach SFM? As pointed out by Hudson (2005, 241) the delineation of sustainable spaces, in my account, spaces of environmental forest governance, is critically depend-
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ent on the definitions of what amounts to sustainability, or SFM. Thus, throughout this dissertation and throughout the case studies, the two forest certification schemes are utilized to highlight often competing knowledge networks and their regimes which define problematizations, aspects and solutions related to SFM. In addition, due to their prominent position in the public debate about illegal logging, improved, sustainable forestry and their transnational reach and visibility, through their own product labelling, they are an important part of forest governance processes. As mentioned above, I do not regard them as an independent form of forest governance, nor as non-state market-driven governance systems (cf. Cashore, 2002; Cashore et al., 2004), yet employ them as an example to demonstrate the relationalities which (re-)produce the spaces of environmental forest governance.
Table 1: Basic comparison of FSC and PEFC (Source: FSC, 2013; PEFC, 2013) FSC
PEFC
Established
l
1993
l
1999
Int. Secretariat
l
Bonn, Germany
l
Geneva, Switzerland
Standards
l
International forest standards,
l
National forest standards are
l
10 principles & 56 criteria;
endorsed by adherence to
national standard development
PEFC Council Technical
is based on them.
Document describing criteria and standards.
Use of generic standard in countries prior to their own
l
endorsing independent
standard. l
l
Certificates/
l
l
Chain of Custody of full supply
l
Third-party assessment.
l
227 mil. hectares (32
chain.
Third-party assessment. 171 mil. hectares (80 countries) and 24789 CoC certificates
area (February 2013)
national standards.
Chain of Custody of full supply chain.
l
countries) and 9522 CoC
Largely in Europe (Russia) and North America but with larger
certificates. l
Largely in Europe and North America with tropics recently
representation in the tropics
growing
and global South. Supporters
Umbrella system, also
l
Major NGOs, especially WWF as
l
Forest owners.
a founding member
l
Governments and industry1
l
Selected companies/forest
l
Breaches of certification criteria
l
Less stringent protective
l
Less stringent control criteria
l
Favouring industry interests.
owners. Criticism
in local cases. l
Monopoly claim to SFM.
l
Neglect of private forest owner interests; NGO-dominated.
criteria. lead to more breaches.
In most cases there is no PEFC-only support but a neutral view, regarding both as equally sufficient. This view however favors PEFC (e.g. article II & III).
1
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2 Research process 2.1 Research tasks The study explores transnational forest governance spaces from a European perspective with a focus on two major themes: Firstly, the multiple relations of the actors involved, which (re-) produce and perform these spaces are critically discussed in regard to aspects of positionality and its effects on forest governance. Secondly, the role of knowledge production and its distribution through competing technologies and regimes of practice within these governance spaces is evaluated. The effects of these processes on forest governance are explored through a focus on SFM issues present in the European core-periphery relations of woodbased products. The study follows a recent debate in geography regarding a shift towards hybrid and relational forms of governance and the integration of environmental aspects into the realm of natural resource governance and economic geography, which was formerly purely dominated by economic considerations (e.g. Bulkeley, 2005; Bridge, 2008; Hayter, 2008). From a geographical perspective the study is framed by multiple influences and touches upon various fields of geographical thought. Generally, I consider this work to be placed within the post-structuralist realm of geography (e.g. Murdoch, 2006), an aspect supported by the relational view on space, place and their actors. More specifically, this research is based on three major fields in current human geography; namely relational economic geography (e.g. Bathelt & Glückler, 2003; Berndt & Boeckler, 2007), environmental economic geography (e.g. Hayter, 2008; Bridge, 2008) and environmental political geography (e.g. Bulkeley, 2005; Death, 2011). The study’s integration of the latter is due to its focus on environmental and resource governance as well as studies of governmentality (e.g. Jessop, 2007; Rutherford, 2007) while the first two are a tribute to the economic activities and actors which co-produce and influence the core-periphery relations of wood-based products. Thus, aspects of knowledge in economic geography are integrated (e.g. Vallance, 2007; Birch & Cumbers, 2010). The aim of the study itself is not so much about developing a greater theoretical understanding of relational space itself, but to develop a greater theoretical yet empirically founded account of how the integration of such a relational approach transforms the understanding and evaluation needs of environmental and resource governance processes. The main research question of the study is: How is transnational environmental forest governance, in a European context, shaped by the (re-)production of its relational space? Since relational space is a heterogeneous concept, (re-)produced by multiple relations (e.g. Massey, 2005, 1999; Murdoch, 2006), such a general aim includes several subordinate questions: (i) how does the positionality of actors
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shape their rationalities and influences forest governance? (ii) How do networks of knowledge production and promotion, related to SFM technologies, shape the actors’ rationalities and decision-making? (iii) How do governmental instruments influence transnational forest governance? Furthermore, (iv) how are the shifting rationalities between actors in the core markets and resource-peripheries integrated into transnational forest governance? Generally, the answers to these questions express an understanding on how hybrid processes of governance operate and highlight the importance of locally embedded relations in a transnational governance space. Despite the study’s focus on forest governance aspects, these questions enable the drawing of theoretical generalizations in relation to further processes of natural resource governance and exploitation, an additional purpose of this study. Furthermore, these questions aim at enhancing a methodological conceptualization on grasping and understanding governance processes from a more inclusive, relational perspective. Based on the conceptualization of forest governance as a relational space, the study explores the involved topologies. Figure 1 presents a broad picture of the space under evaluation. The core-periphery relations displayed in Figure 1 are often related to the commodity chains of their respective product or resource. Yet, far from describing supply and demand aspects of wood-based products alone, the relational space explored below consists of multiple, often perceived external relations. The term ‘perceived external relations’ in this open approach is employed in terms of certain categories, such as party politics, local values or ‘the others’, which are commonly perceived to be in or outside of the realm/issue to be governed. Externality might therefore derive from various perspectives: for instance, academic debates and their scientific accounts on forest governance or a political sphere where they might materialize through the omission of important relations; furthermore, relations may be perceived as external (or disregarded) by individuals or institutions involved in forest management and supply and therefore be ignored in terms of their rationalities on the matter. Therefore, while these relations might be perceived as external, they cannot be treated as such in a relational account of space. Due to that multiplicity, which (re-)produces governance spaces, a focus on SFM and forest certification systems has been chosen to provide a more detailed picture. Forest and resource governance is related to an increased privatization of its sphere (e.g. Lipschutz, 2004; Castree, 2008) while forest certification has been promoted as a popular means of representing market-driven or even non-state governance systems (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Haufler, 2003; Cashore et al., 2004). These aspects, largely linked to a transnationalization of forestry and closely tied to the demand (e.g. for certification) and supply characteristics of commodity chains are utilized as the starting points for this study. Furthermore, these popular accounts of processes of forest governance (see also Rametsteiner, 2002; Gulbrandsen, 2004, 2006; Klooster, 2005, 2010; Humphreys, 2006; Meidinger, 2011), based on their common neglect of external relations, and on their often one-sided FSC approach, provide a further academic niche for this dissertation. A similar gap derives from
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the few accounts on forest certification which discuss socio-spatial aspects, relations and their network characteristics (e.g. Klooster, 2005; Eden, 2009; Eden & Bear 2010). While these studies stress the heterogeneity of governance processes, they also remain confined within the internal processes of FSC, its criteria and seldom include relations external to forestry itself or even those related to PEFC.
Figure 1: Basic research framework of core-periphery relations for wood-based products in Europe.
The study concentrates on the core-periphery relations of Germany and to a lesser degree the United Kingdom, which are exemplary for the European core markets, with Finland and to a lesser degree Northwest Russia exemplifying the northern resource-peripheries. Aspects concerning forest certification systems as representations, or henceforth technologies, of SFM, are utilized as a leading topic
19
throughout the study. Nevertheless, compared to many previous studies, forest certification systems are not regarded as forest governance in their own right; the controversies and existing rationalities of actors concerning their utilization and performances are, however, utilized to highlight the relational processes of transnational forest governance. The dissertation consists of five associated articles presenting the empirical cases in detail and contributing to the research questions under examination. I
Albrecht, M. (2010). Sustainable Forest Management through Forest Certification in Russia’s Barents Region: Processes in the Relational Space of Forest Certification. In: Fryer, P., Brown-Leonardi, C., & Soppela, P. (Eds.). Encountering the Changing Barents: Research Challenges and Opportunities; Arctic Centre Reports 54, pp.24-34. Rovaniemi: Arctic-Centre.
II
Albrecht, M. (2010). Company positionality and its effects on transnational forest governance: Two companies and their approaches to forest certification. Geographische Zeitschrift, 98(2), 116-132.
III
Albrecht, M. (2012). Public Procurement and Forest Governance: A German Case Study of Governmental Influences on Market-Driven Governance Systems. Social Sciences 1(1), 4-23.
IV Albrecht, M. (unpublished). Environmental customer demands: market relations, knowledge networks and their effects on (forest) governance and practices. Submitted manuscript for Geografiska Annaler B (under review). V
Albrecht, M. (2012). Perceiving sustainable forest spaces: governance aspects of private and company owned forests in North-Karelia, Finland. Fennia 190(1), 3-18.
The first article is an introduction to forest certification as an instrument for sustainable forest management. Based on three cases of FSC-certified forestry companies and cooperatives it discusses the role of certification as a tool to foster SFM in the Barents region of Russia, and introduces the role of relational space in regard to certification and its core-periphery relations. While implementation aspects of FSC certification in the respective areas are described, relational aspects are largely treated in a rather narrow, FSC focused aspect. Therefore, article I, while nevertheless presenting the relational approach, differs from the following articles which include a wider scope on the relational spaces of forest governance. The general findings can be described threefold. First, the article stresses the variations between outcomes for SFM among various certified entities. Thus, it critically warns of regarding on-ground results through certification from a
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universal, general perspective as often proposed by its supporters. Second, the study establishes a picture that ties the success, or its lack, of a certification system, in this case FSC, to its relations with the Western core markets, yet highlights additional relations such as state influence or varying aspects related to the companies in the resource peripheries. Finally, while a general improvement of forest management through certification is acknowledged, the paper demonstrates the contested character of this governance space by presenting some relational competitive aspects concerning FSC and PEFC certification. Article II is based on a more developed conceptualization of relational space and evaluates two German companies in the printing and publishing industries and the do-it-yourself (DIY)/retail sector regarding their approaches to forest certification. It thus accesses a set of important entities which are representative of the core markets and strongly intertwined in transnational wood-based product flows. The focus of the article is on the positionality of these companies within their supply chains, as well as within their socio-political environment, and evaluates how these aspects shape their rationalities and decision-making towards forest certification. Article II therefore introduces the concept of rationalities to the conceptual framework as being (re-)produced by the positionality of entities in relational space. Rationalities are further linked to aspects of trust, for instance, to a certification system and linked to the “relational reflexivity” (Murdoch & Miele, 2004, 158; Murdoch 2006) of consumers and business customers of wood-based products. The findings indicate how varying relations which (re-)produce the positionalities of the companies and their sectors create rationalities which generate a differing approach to certification. Focal points are thus the heterogeneity of relations in regard to the supply chains, product characteristics and cooperative networks related to the different companies and their sectors. For instance, the different relations of products such as magazine papers and DIY wood products are evaluated and presented as an aspect of the varying positionality of the companies involved, which leads them to follow varying approaches concerning forest certification. While the study was carried out in the core markets, it nonetheless points out the role of core-periphery relations and the role of resource areas, be it through protest campaigns or based on the company supply networks. Article II is the first step in moving logically from actors in the core markets towards resource-peripheries and the intent is to present relational governance processes of this realm. With forest governance frequently described as moving towards non-state governance (cf. Cashore et al., 2004), article III evaluates state influence on marketdriven governance systems such as certification by means of the public procurement directive in Germany. Based upon a relational framework, unfolding the heterogeneity of political institutions, state influence is evaluated by means of governmentality (e.g. Foucault, 1991b; Dean, 2010). Thus, the integration of the two certification systems, as technologies to provide SFM, into German state legislation is evaluated based on the (re-)production and distribution of knowledge and rationalities surrounding these processes. The effects of these processes on
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EU policy are treated as a related issue in article III. By merging the concept of governmentality with a relational approach to space article III counters common criticism of this concept such as state centrism or closeness (cf. Murdoch, 2006; Rutherford, 2007). In regard to transnational forest governance and SFM the importance of externally (re-)produced knowledge in shaping rationalities is highlighted. Thus, while most entities rely on external ‘expertise’ promoted by the set of relations they are entangled in, their rationalities are at the same time influenced by aspects, often falsely perceived as external to the processes of forest governance themselves. Therefore, rationalities shaped in regard to the positionalities of actors stress the importance of integrating local peculiarities when evaluating transnational processes such as forest governance or all EU procurement legislation. The utilized case of Germany presents the heterogeneity of the political realm and, by rendering the governance space under scrutiny open to change, allows the integration and evaluation of shifting rationalities which (re-)produce such a space. Thus, it stresses the role of the political in perceived market-driven processes and indicates the importance of focusing on locally embedded yet transnational relations and their impacts on knowledge networks in the formation of governance processes. A focus on knowledge networks is related to article IV, which discusses environmental customer demands and knowledge networks. Four major Finnish transnational forest industry corporations were studied to demonstrate the (re-) production of knowledge and its networks related to SFM and certification as an SFM technology. Article IV highlights the importance of knowledge networks in regard to the core–periphery relations and includes an in-depth perspective on the aspects of relational space and the rationalities of studied entities as influences of hybrid governance processes. It portrays how the positionality of business customers shapes the environmental demands of the customers of the Finnish corporations while these positionalities also affect the way in which the corporations must promote their knowledge on SFM to affect varying customers. Focusing on paper products and customer demands from Germany and the UK, article IV also integrates the role of NGOs as an opposition camp into this discourse on SFM practices. While knowledge about SFM is highlighted, article IV also indicates that within the performed knowledge networks, actual on-ground performance and criteria may become secondary due to the positionality of business customers. This is also due to the fact that environmental performance in the resource peripheries seldom have a direct impact for the business customer or the consumer. The other side of the coin is that compared to economic knowledge such as technological innovation, knowledge related to environmental performance must be actively promoted and therefore requires new approaches to knowledge management by the corporations. Thus, compared to most recent literature on corporate knowledge (e.g. Maskell et al., 2006; Vallance, 2007; Birch & Cumbers, 2010), article IV examines these newly emerging networks to promote knowledge on environmental practices as an important aspect of environmental economic governance. Commonly, in both articles III and IV, the means of repre-
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sentation (‘truth’ claims) in regard to the resource areas, and the importance of external, yet relational knowledge is stressed for the development of governance processes. Article V demonstrates the last step of moving from the peripheries (article I) to the core markets (articles II & III) and the entities linking them economically (article IV), returning to the resource peripheries (see also Fig 2). Contrary to representations of the resource peripheries in the core markets, through for instance protest campaigns by NGOs, it evaluates the perception of SFM by actors practicing forestry and NGOs in North Karelia, Finland, and the Finnish forestry sector in general. Based on their view of certification and SFM practices, this localized case shows how the actors in the resource peripheries, due to their locally embedded relations and resulting positionalities, can act as a counterweight to transnational market influences. Thus, it shows that resource peripheries, when viewed from a relational perspective, are an important part of transnational governance processes. Generally, Finnish forestry is presented twofold in terms of SFM. On the one hand, the current system of forest laws and PEFC are deemed sufficient by most actors forestry practicing to guarantee SFM in commercial forests. In contrast, Finnish NGOs disagree with such opinions and foster the need for FSC to improve Finnish forestry. While FSC is favoured by Finnish environmental NGOs, in comparison to most international NGOs, it is not seen as the solution to all problems in Finnish forestry. Article V further presents the importance of how the positionality of actors shapes the definition of their sustainable spaces; hence, what they deem necessary to achieve SFM. Furthermore, findings suggest that forest holdings in company ownership are currently more prone to be guided by direct market relations (e.g. customer demand for FSC) than private holdings owned by individuals. This also holds in regard to the stronger local embedded relationalities compared to the transnational positionalities of corporations (e.g. articles II & IV). In addition to certification, article V examines the local debate about even- versus uneven-aged forestry and thus highlights a further example of the multiplicity of relations needing to be integrated into the evaluation of governance spaces. Due to the positionalities of entities in Finnish forestry this discourse, unrelated to core market aspects, is deemed an important and growing aspect of forest governance in Finland and beyond. As these five case studies initially portray a rather specific place and scale bound picture, the underlying relational approach enables their interlinkage and demonstrates their performance as a relational space of environmental forest governance. Consequently, I elaborate on these relations, and utilize these single case studies to present and develop an improved theoretical conceptualization of transnational governance spaces.
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2.2 Methods and data collection Based on the general research question and its underlying theoretical framework mentioned above, the study relies on a series of qualitative case studies. Aspects of transnational forest governance and forest certification have been frequently studied from the general perspective (e.g. Cashore et al., 2004; Lipschutz & Rowe, 2005; Humphreys, 2006; Auld et. al., 2008; Meidinger, 2011). While such general accounts provide an important contribution to forest governance literature, they fail to acknowledge the existing local relations which influence transnational processes. These, in contrast, are accessible through in-depth case studies focusing on the comprehension of complex social phenomena (Yin, 2003). This qualitative, intensive approach employed in local case studies (e.g. Hayter & Soyez, 1996; Kortelainen & Kotilainen, 2006; Albrecht, 2010) consists of empirical data largely gathered through face-to-face, semi-structured interviews (e.g. Hoggart et al., 2002; Cloke et al., 2004; Dunn, 2005). Interviews are regarded as the most suitable way of acquiring information about the perceptions of the actors involved in processes or programs of governance while interactively allowing the respondents to provide meanings and experiences of their lived environments (Hoggart et al., 2002; Cloke et al., 2004; Dunn, 2005; Silverman, 2006). Experiences, however, as stressed by Sayer (1992), are not neutral accounts of reality or value-free expressions but are embedded into pre-conceptualized views on the surrounding environment or the object at stake (see also Mansvelt & Berg, 2005), for instance, environmental aspects of forest governance. Since, such pre-conceptualizations or, in terms employed within this study, rationalities are (re-)produced by the actors’ positionality in space (Sheppard, 2002), the approach of in-depth local case studies aims to unfold the multiple relations which affect governance processes. While using interview data providing the bulk of empirical data sources, secondary sources are nevertheless employed within the study for several purposes. First, secondary data, specifically academic publications, provide the basis for article I. Second, as recommended by Yin (2003) in his account on qualitative case study methodology, secondary data as documents or academic literature enhance the credibility of a study as they enable cross-checking and broadening the data gathered throughout interviews (cf. Silverman, 2006). Third, this study consequently focuses on knowledge networks and means of governmentality; secondary sources such as institutional, corporate or NGO position papers and reports; and legislative documents or management guidelines provide further insight on how the rationalities of various entities are promoted and act to support competing regimes of practice (Kitchin & Tate, 2000; Cloke et al., 2004; Dean, 2010). Therefore, such integration provides important information concerning the aim of this research and bundled with the interview data these multiple sources permit a triangulation of the research material to increase credibility and rigor (Yin, 2003). Data collection requires careful reflexivity on its sources of origin; that is to say on the variety of rationalities which might influence the inclusion or exclusion of certain information provided, based on the respective aims of the
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source or actor (Hoggart et al., 2002; Cloke et al., 2004). Thus, as Sayer (1992, 45) stresses, one must avoid a view of ‘naïve objectivism’. These aspects come into play further in respect to the temporal validity of the gathered data. Framed by a relational approach on space (e.g. Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006), the constant (re-)production of the aspects simultaneously (re-)produces or changes actors’ rationalities. Such fluidity must be accounted for when evaluating governance processes in relation to actors’ perceptions and is visible throughout the various case studies. Empirical qualitative data may be analyzed by numerous methods (e.g. Crang, 1997; Kitchin & Tate, 2000; Cloke et al., 2004; Hay et al., 2005). While enumerating or modelling aims to quantify data sets, a rather open, strongly qualitative approach has been followed for this study. Interviews have been digitally recorded and subsequently transcribed. As recording may be a possible threshold for interviewees to reveal certain information or refrain from making certain statements, it was nonetheless regarded as the most suited method for the research project undertaken. It enabled interviews in an interactive, partially conversational style which could be difficult to achieve if the interviewer had to concentrate on taking notes during the interview (Kitchin & Tate, 2000; Cloke et al., 2004). During the research process only two respondents rejected the use of a recording device: a forestry specialist from the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) and a member of FSC’s policy standard unit in Bonn. Based on the experience gathered throughout the interviews I regard the shortfalls of recording as negligible since respondents appeared to provide open, critical and partially self-critical statements. While in some cases the sentence “…the following is off the record…” was uttered, respondents were willing to provide them as recorded data, but did not demand citing or affiliating this information with them, their organization or their name. Generally, most respondents opposed the direct use of their names and preferred the use of titles like ‘company environmental officer’ or ‘NGO forestry expert’. Additionally, the contested character of the public debate concerning the different forest certification schemes played its part in developing a tense atmosphere, where many interviewees requested that their interview data be used discretely. Owing to these aspects, relatively few direct citations are presented throughout the articles while most information from the interviews is used in context. Non-quantitative entitation was used to facilitate the data analysis from the interview transcripts (cf. Cloke et al., 2004, 219). Based on the interview contents and underlying research question of a case study, various entities or codes, for instance “NGO campaigns” or “Forest management problems Finland,” were deployed and respective interview sections assigned to them (see also Crang, 1997; Dunn, 2005). Therefore, an open though somewhat fuzzy framework of analysis was developed. The idea that interview sections can be attributed to several entities indicates that this approach neither ranks specific datasets nor restricts information to only one fixed category, an aspect commonly criticized to create a research bias and foster dualisms (Harvey, 1996; Cloke et al., 2004). Consequently,
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it merely creates a topical collection of interview data enabling easier and faster access during the analysis of the empirical material. Nevertheless, the study includes aspects of a Foucauldian discourse analysis (cf. Waitt, 2005), in particular when the role of knowledge production, regimes of practice and governmentality is discussed (e.g. Huxley, 2007). However, it extends such analyses beyond specific discourses to integrate apparently external aspects as well as biophysical components in order to respond to the topologies of space under evaluation. Aside from the positive aspects mentioned, criticism exists concerning qualitative case study methods. The impossibility of using their data to generalize due to the low numbers of respondents and the peculiarities of its cases is highlighted (Sayer, 1992; Yin, 2003). While this clearly accounts for statistical generalization, the generalization of qualitative data in terms of general causal relationships is seen to be problematic (Sayer, 1992). Furthermore, generalization in terms of general causal relationships is rejected by the open and heterogeneous character of the research framework attributed to the spaces under evaluation (e.g. Philo, 2000; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). Aside from these limitations, the ability of multiple case studies to draw generalizations based on a theoretical level (Yin, 2003) and in terms of their descriptive properties (Sayer, 1992) provides a strong basis for the purpose of this research project.
2.2.1 Interviews
Throughout the four and half years of conducting this study, empirical data have been collected from numerous actors along the wood supply chains and entities related to transnational forest governance. While the details on the material utilized in the respective case studies can be derived from the articles (articles II-V), a short summary of the empirical data will be provided below. Between November 2008 and March 2011, 39 intensive, semi-structured interviews were conducted with actors in five countries, mostly Finnish and German actors. Six of the interviews were conducted by phone while the remaining interviews were face-to-face accounts. The organizations interviewed during the research process are listed in Table 2. Interviews lasted between 45 minutes and more than two hours. Most interviews were conducted in English (20), German (16) and Finnish (3). Finnish-language interviews were conducted with the help of a translator and involve the case study in North Karelia (article V). While most interviews consisted of the interviewer and one interviewee, four were group interviews, including up to four persons. In addition to the intensive, semi-structured interviews various short, topical interviews with actors involved in forestry and forest certification have been integrated into the study. Especially in the North Karelian case (article V), three short interviews were conducted with forest and logging personnel during visits to logging sites. In addition, one short topical interview took place at the PEFC international office in Geneva with the head of the technical unit in 2009. Based on the information acquired through these interviews they are included in the interview list of Table 2.
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Table 2. List of interviews from the five case studies. Year of interview, number of interviewees and their work affiliations. Organization/Grouping (interviewee location)
Year(s)
Person(s)
WWF Germany (Germany)
2008, 2009
2
FSC International (Bonn, Germany)
2008
3
PEFC, Germany (Stuttgart, Germany)
2008
2
PEFC International, (Geneva, Switzerland)
2009
2
FSC Germany (Freiburg, Germany)
2009
1
WWF Finland (Frankfurt, Germany)
2010
1
Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (Helsinki/Joensuu
2010
2
2011
1
Verband Deutscher Papierfabriken e.V. (VDP) (Bonn, Germany)
2008
1
Hornbach AG (Bornheim, Germany)
2009
1
Hubert Burda Media (Offenburg, Germany)
2009
1
Axel Springer AG (Berlin, Germany)
2009
1
Stora Enso Oy (Vienna, Austria)
2009
1
Metsäliitto Group (Espoo, Finland)
2009
2
Myllykoski Oy (Helsinki, Finland & Augsburg, Germany)
2009, 2010
2
UPM-Kymmene (Valkeakoski, Finland & London, UK)
2009, 2010
2
Anaika Wood Ltd Oy (Lieksa, Finland)
2011
1
Koneurakointi S. Kuittinen Oy (Nurmes, Finland)
2011
3
Karel Wood Oy (Eno, Finland)
2011
1
Tornator Oy (Joensuu, Finland)
2011
3
Finnish Forest Industry Federation (FFIF) (Helsinki, Finland)
2011
1
2008
1
German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) (Frankfurt, Germany)
2009
1
Gemeinde und Städtebund Rheinland-Pfalz (Mainz, Germany)
2009
1
Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) (Bonn,
2009
1
2009, 2010
1
Forestry Centre North-Karelia (Joensuu, Finland)
2011
1
FMA/FOU North-Karelia (Joensuu, Finland)
2011
2
Forest Development Centre Tapio (Vantaa, Finland)
2011
1
NGOs/certification bodies
Finland) Nature League, (Helsinki, Finland) Companies/Industry Associations
State/Public Institutions/Forestry Institutes Federal German Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV) (Bonn, Germany)
Germany) Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (vTI) (Hamburg, Germany)
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The geographical and temporal framework of the conducted interviews followed the underlying research questions of understanding the transnational spaces of environmental forest governance. Since article I is based largely on secondary sources, fieldwork progressed along an indirect path from the European core markets, respectively the case studies in Germany, to the northern forest resource peripheries which are portrayed by the Finnish cases (Fig. 2). The chosen path, from core to periphery, of the empirical data collection owes much of its direction to the prevalent claims in many academic accounts of forest certification as a market-driven form of governance (e.g Cashore, 2002; Haufler, 2003; Cashore et al., 2004; Meidinger, 2011). As many of these academic accounts were consulted in the initial phase of the research, the decision to start interviews in the core markets seemed most appropriate. The interview partners were then chosen in relation to their presumed expertise on the topic and in relation to their affiliation with the involved organizations based on literature and personal accounts from prior interviews (cf. Cloke et al., 2004). Limitations of access, as cited by Dunn (2005, 90), appeared solely in the case of Greenpeace International and Finland; both were reluctant to respond to multiple demands for participation. Hence, the empirical data employed for the five articles and this thesis is seen to cover the issues discussed in a sufficient manner as they address a multiplicity of heterogeneous actors and organizations from the economic, social and political sphere. It respects the relational approach and permits a highlighting of the topologies and modes of knowledge transfer and production of the entities included in several important case
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Case study IV
Case study I
Case study V
Case study III
Case study II
Figure 2. Geographical and temporal framework of the case studies and the research process. Green arrows represent the direction of environmental business demands focused on in case study IV.
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3 Conceptualizing relational spaces of environmental governance and their networks of knowledge production 3.1 Talking topologies: space, positionalities, fixes and power “Topology has little interest in the measurable spans of the globe or metrics which give physical shape to our environment; rather it is concerned with how the global is folded into the local...” (Allen, 2009, 206)
The term relational space and relational approach have been frequently mentioned above, yet without a deeper evaluation of the underlying conceptualizations and aspects attributed to it in this study. First of all, the term relational space requires some elaboration. The integration of a relational view of space has sharply increased in various areas of the geographical debate in the last two decades (e.g. Harvey, 1996; Massey, 1999, 2005; Crang & Thrift, 2000; Sheppard, 2002; Bathelt & Glückler, 2003; Murdoch, 2006; Berndt & Boeckler, 2007). In geographical as well as in sociological approaches a relational view has been frequently represented not as a replacement of former conceptualizations of space, such as absolute space with its Euclidean characteristics, or relative space, but as an improved, overarching concept (e.g. Harvey, 1996; Murdoch ,1998, 2006; Law, 2002; Jones, 2009). It also does this in terms of a shift from a topographical view of space to a view dominated by topologies (Murdoch, 2006; Allen, 2009). Since there is a large body of literature available treating these other conceptualizations of space as well as the shifts among them (e.g. Lefebvre, 1991; Murdoch, 1998; Law & Mol, 2001; Jones, 2009), I restrict the focus in the following to conceptualizing the relational approach on space employed by this study. Furthermore, I refrain from delving deeper into the multiplicity of strands attributed to a relational approach on space and their vocabularies, such as ‘phase space’ (Jones, 2009), ‘fluid space’,
30
‘fire space’ (Law & Mol, 2001; Law, 2002) or ‘movement-space’ (Thrift, 2004, 2008), to name just a few prominent examples. Following Jonathan Murdoch (2006, 12), topology “…refers (…) to relations and interactions between relations. It therefore enables geographers to go below the surface to study processes of spatial emergence…” A concept borrowed from mathematics, topology therefore illustrates the relationality and spatiality of the (re-)production of spaces. As relations are the focus of attention, the role of actors as fixed nodes within the power constellations of governance processes is rejected. Thus, regarding spaces from a topological perspective highlights some further aspects of relational space; its relative openness and its multiplicity (Doel, 2000; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). The concept of openness frees relational thinking of space from the bounded, container-like treatment present in absolute accounts of space. It enables spaces to be changing and fluid, in other words open to new constellations. Thus, it also elevates space from the structuralist perspective of underlying, deep structures which guide its processes (Murdoch, 2006, 9-11). This openness of relational space creates a space which according to Massey (2005, 59) “…is always unfinished and always becoming…” This ‘process of becoming’ (Murdoch, 2006, 22), is treated and evaluated as the (re-)production of relational spaces within this study and its affiliated articles. The term ‘(re-)production’ is engaged in order to express these fluid and dynamic characteristics of relational space (Murdoch 2006). The prefix ‘(re-)’, in relation to produce/the production of space as employed throughout the study is largely to stress and highlight two main aspects. First, it derives from an understanding, pointed out by Murdoch (2006, 21-22), that even apparently stabilized momentums in relational space “… must be continually remade…” thus requiring constant re-production; and second, new configurations in space appear or are produced through the constant (re-)production of space itself (Doel, 2000; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). Thus, the utilized form in brackets should stress this simultaneous process of the production and re-production of relational space. The open character of space enables its multiplicity and (re-)produces the heterogeneity of relational space. To support my argument, as well as the argument concerning other proponents of a relational approach (e.g. Murdoch, 2006; Massey, 1999, 2005), the term ‘relations’ will briefly be elaborated below. Interestingly, despite the vast array of literature on relational space, accounts of the attributes of relations or what amounts to a relation despite its often socio, or socio-spatial character seems rather limited (cf. Harvey, 1996; Crang & Thrift, 2000; Murdoch, 2006; Jessop et al., 2008). Yet, some statements about the possible characteristics of relations are described in the works of Massey (2005) and Sheppard (2002). While stressing the multiplicity of relations, in her book for space Doreen Massey (2005) mentions a wide variety of what relations might include. For instance, the interconnectivity ‘…between movements, between a plurality of trajectories…’ (Massey, 2005, 76), ‘practices of engagement’ in a playing field which can consist of “…physical force, of political (dis)alignment [or] of imagination…” (Massey, 2005, 100). Similarly, Sheppard (2002, 318-320), in his account of
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positionality in space-time, highlights relations related to knowledge or ‘space transcending’ technologies as shaping and being shaped by space. Aside from the often cited socio-spatial relations, both accounts highlight the importance of biophysical processes; an aspect frequently lacking in other studies (Sheppard, 2002; Massey, 2005). How then is this defining relations presented in the context of this study? If drawn from the accounts presented above, in addition to certain case studies (e.g. Morgan & Murdoch, 2000; Law & Mol, 2001; Murdoch, 2004, 2006; Leitner et al., 2008), and based on the governmentality approach presented following the next chapter (e.g. Crampton & Elden, 2007; Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010), a vast array of relations emerges. This multiplicity has been criticized using the term ‘ungraspability’ (Jameson, 1991 in Massey, 2005, 100) from an all-encompassing research perspective. However, since generalizations in terms of a final, fixed description of objects or processes are rejected initially by a relational approach, such multiplicity, rather than watering down the approach, opens up a large variety of relations for integration. For the study at hand, thus, in regard to processes of environmental forest governance, this means that the relations are largely treated to exist within the following spheres. Knowledge networks consisting of knowledge production, distribution and exchange are important relations which are tightly knit to their technological solutions such as internet, publications or personal exchange as well as access to them. Furthermore, they consist of values and identities of individuals, groups or entities (e.g. Massey, 2005); supply chain characteristics, such as supply and demand issues, product peculiarities (including biophysical aspects such as forests itself) or economic factors; political aspects such as laws, regulations or agendas. This non-exclusive list of possible relations involved in the (re-)production of governance spaces should provide the reader with a clearer view of what is included when the influence of relations is discussed below. In providing some empirical examples from the case studies, important relations could, for instance, be varying forest-owner attitudes about SFM (article II, III, V), political views of certain groups (article III), magazine consistency and contents (article II) or competing ‘truth’ claims about SFM (articles III & IV). Due to the openness and multiplicity of space, such relations do not act on their own but are interlinked with each other, nor do they necessarily possess long-lasting or fixed premises. With attributes such as openness and multiplicity, relational space is neither all-inclusive nor necessary ungraspable (Harvey, 1996; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). Murdoch (2006, 20) stresses the consensual and contested character of relational space while Massey (2005) notes the possible marginalizing effects which the dominant set of relations can produce. The openness and constant ‘becoming’ attributes of relational space are also among its most criticized, in relation to aspects of power and its neglect of spatialities such as place, scale or territory (Jessop et al., 2008; Jones, 2009). Thus, how is it possible in such an open process to (re-)produce and attribute meaning to such spatialities, and how can certain entities retain their dominant position? To answer these questions and counter
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some of the criticism I will employ two additional concepts in my approach to relational space, namely; ‘positionality’ and ‘spatio-temporal fixes’. This specific focus should not be understood as a general prioritization of certain spatialities, as prominently criticized in several recent accounts (Sheppard, 2002; Leitner et al., 2008; Jessop et al., 2008; Jones, 2009). Yet within my research framework, research topic and based on the research questions posed in this study, these issues are perceived to be of major importance in (re-)producing the space under examination, as well as being co-constitutive in the (re-)production of additional spatialities or vice versa (e.g. Sheppard, 2002; Massey, 1999). In an early account of a relational theory of space and place, David Harvey (1996, 261-274) describes the term ‘permanence’ as a momentum of stabilized relations in space-time. While such ‘permanences’ might appear static, and undergo a naturalizing process they are nevertheless of temporal character (Harvey, 1996; Murdoch, 2006). Instead of the term permanences I henceforth refer to this process as ‘spatio-temporal fixes’, in a similar vein as introduced by Jessop’s (2006) critical review of Harvey’s work on the matter. The choice to employ the terminology of spatio-temporal fixes instead of Harvey’s (1996) permanences stems from my regarding it as more suitable from a post-structural perspective and also to avoid misconceptions about the possible political leanings of this work. Moreover, while such ‘fixes’ are partially (re-)produced to solve a certain problematization through spatial adjustments, such as that noted by Harvey (2001) in his essay on ‘the spatial fix’, the spatio-temporal fix referred to below may exist without direct intention or initial connection to the realm it interacts with. Thus, while similar to the notion of permanences, spatio-temporal fixes are regarded as a set of relations which, by means of the properties of their relations, enables their continual, yet restricted (re-)production. Contrary to Jessop (2006; also Jessop et al., 2008), this process is not regarded as producing modes of structural coherence but one identified by openness and multiplicity. The reason for this is that spatio-temporal fixes can be maintained throughout changing relations as well as being based on varying/multiple trajectories and entities. In the following context, which is also apparent throughout the articles, spatio-temporal fixes are also strongly connected to knowledge networks and regimes of practice in relation to governmentality and the production of ‘truth’ claims, an aspect to be further elaborated in the next section. Thus, in terms of relational environmental forest governance spaces the concept largely refers to the contested fixation of certain ‘truth’ claims in forestry in relation to their spatio-temporal environments. In regard to the influence of such spatio-temporal fixes on relational space Murdoch (2006, 20) consequently notes that: …relational space is a ‘power-filled’ space in which some alignments come to dominate, at least for a period of time, while others come to be dominated. So while multiple sets of relations may well co-exist, there is likely to be some competition between these relations over the composition of particular spaces and places.
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Spatio-temporal fixes are thus perceived as stabilized momentums in relational space, and often require efforts to maintain a dominant position within such a space. It should be remembered that due to the multiplicity of space and relations a spatio-temporal fix might posses a dominant role in a certain space while being marginalized in yet another. In regard to the subject at hand, the changing roles of the two forest certification system within various spatio-temporal contexts are a good example of such fixes. For instance, FSC maintained a monopoly on SFM certification and its related knowledge throughout the 1990s and was, until challenged by PEFC, more or less the only tool for SFM. With the emergence of PEFC, FSC, while remaining dominant in some sectors (e.g. book publishing, tropical wood), became partially marginalized in the forestry sector of most European countries. Considered from a broader perspective, the debate over forest certification takes place within the more naturalized spatio-temporal fix of global climate change and its relations to global deforestation. Both are contested conceptualizations, which accounts for most spatio-temporal fixes. The (re-)production of spatialities as well as spatio-temporal fixes is regarded as strongly influenced by positionality (Sheppard, 2002; Leitner et al., 2008). Initially, the concept of positionality was introduced by feminist geographers in relation to research methodology and self-reflexivity on the part of the researcher (cf. Haraway, 1991; Rose, 1997; Cook, 2005). However, in the following context positionality is understood in accordance with the work of Eric Sheppard (2002), as a concept of position in space-time. For Sheppard (2002, 318) “…positionality is a relational construct; (and) the conditions of possibility for an agent depend on her or his position with respect to others…” Similar to spatio-temporal fixes, the specific positionality of entities is subject to constant (re-)production, which might enable them to maintain the set of relations they perform or shift their properties (Sheppard, 2002). The positionalities of entities, be it individuals, institutions, companies or a plot of forested land, are a major aspect shaping relational space and its processes while at the same time being shaped by the space they inhabit. Pointed out in Leitner et al. (2008, 163), positionality highlights the heterogeneity of entities since their multiple relations (re-)produce varying images, identities and experiences which shape their perceptions and understanding of their world and guide their conduct; or, in the case of non-human(-led) entities, positionality in turn points to the way these entities might be acted upon. A forester or forest contractor, for example, his/her positionality, in addition to the biophysical aspects of his/her locality, is (re-)produced by a multitude of relations (articles III & V). For example, individual values about forestry and SFM are in turn influenced by the available information/knowledge, which might further be co-shaped by the access to information technology, personal language skills or institutional characteristics. This simplified example shows how individuals and entities are entangled in various, changing relations which (re-)produce their positionalities and guide their decision-making, that is to say governance processes in general. Positionality is also seen as strongly entangled with power relations and power inequalities (Sheppard, 2002; Leitner et al., 2008). Thus, certain positionalities
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can render entities in a more favourable position concerning certain processes in space. This aspect of positionality is also important in terms of the rationalities of entities, their knowledge distribution and the production of ‘truth’ claims discussed in the governmentality section below. Nevertheless, the notion of positionality as described above demonstrates the dilemma if spatialities such as scale, place or territory are treated as fixed beings or even as more or less unified processes. Contrary to such more structured accounts, as pointed out by Massey in regard to the internal heterogeneity of places (Massey, 2005), or the ‘re-scaling’ notion of Bulkeley (2005), a focus on positionalities enables us to evaluate significant aspects of how governance processes are shaped by the relations of their entities. Again, this is not to replace these other spatialities with the concept of positionality (cf. Sheppard, 2002), yet it stresses the performing role which positionality inhabits in the (re-)production of these other spatialities.
3.1.1 Core-periphery relations
Natural resources, wood-based products being no exception, are an often globally traded commodity and thus their governance spaces are consequently transnational. This means that relational aspects related to positionalities, rationalities and knowledge networks must be regarded in such a transnational, if not global, context. An important spatial concept in this regard is the issue of core-periphery relations. Since Finland can hardly be considered a peripheral state, core-periphery relations are therefore treated less in the sense of ‘world system’ theory as introduced by Wallerstein (1979), but have a spatial focus in respect to marketresource relations (Hayter & Soyez, 1996; Hayter et al., 2003; Stringer, 2006; article I & V). Core-periphery relations in the sphere of natural resource governance can be levelled in many cases with core-market, resource-periphery relations. In this constellation the role of core markets and their entities must be described as the focus of most economic geographical accounts (Hayter et al., 2003). The consequent negligence of resource peripheries and the need to reveal their stake in the processes of a globalized economy are highlighted by Hayter et al. (2003). It is further noted that the integration of aspects present in the resource peripheries provide new insights, highlight multiplicity and show power-asymmetries between resource peripheries and core markets (Hayter et al., 2003). These relational aspects, also highlighted in accounts on space per se (Massey, 2005), play a vivid role in processes of forest certification and governance. The notion that forest certification derived from protest within the core markets to highlight mismanagement in various resource peripheries (cf. Soyez, 2002; Cashore, 2002; Cashore et al., 2004), the relations and their constant (re-)production between these two spheres lies at the heart of their governance processes. While these relations between core and periphery can relate to a “relational reflexivity” (Murdoch & Miele, 2004; Murdoch, 2006) of consumers, to the products they purchase, or NGO boycotts or mediation attempts regarding management conflicts, we must be aware of their contested character in the resource peripher-
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ies themselves (Hayter et al., 2003; Sarkki, 2011). These aspects are often glossed over in accounts on forest certification through the camouflage of globalized unified standards (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Cashore et al., 2004; Klooster, 2005, 2010; Stringer, 2006) and consequently also ignore various bio-physical peculiarities of the resource areas (e.g. article V). Nevertheless, Hayter et al. (2003), while highlighting the difference and uniqueness of resource peripheries compared to the core areas, also misses the particular link between them and consequently creates a clear separation. Thus, for the sake of clarity, where does this lead us in respect to this research project? While aspects and the multiplicity of resource peripheries (in terms of the positionality of its entities) must be accounted for, the evaluation of natural resource governance processes cannot be accomplished without integrating them into the wider space of core-periphery relations in general. Such relations are, therefore, not merely tied to, for instance, the commodity or value chains of wood-based products alone, but entail a far wider array of relations to be included. Additionally, core-periphery relations as described within this study are not restricted to transnational relations but can also be focused within a national context. Core-periphery relations have further implications on the role of power in relational space and also in regard to positionality. Thus, before moving on to aspects of governance, governmentality and knowledge networks the role of power requires a short elaboration.
3.1.2 The role of power
While the role of power in this study and its related articles is not the main focal point, it nonetheless requires some attention. This is due to the fact that many of the relations studied within this framework enable power to be exercised within governance processes. Following recent trends in human geography, power is regarded as a relational process rather than a property or attributes which actors or entities can obtain (Agnew, 1999; Sheppard, 2002; Allen, 2003, 2004, 2009). In contrast to such a bounded understanding of power and space, Allen (2009) argues for a topological stance on power, a view which is shared by this study. He argues that power is not exercised over space (in a topographical sense) but performed by the interrelations of entities within a topological space (Allen, 2009, 207). A topological approach on power can also be joined with, and add increased understanding to, the concept of hybrid forms of environmental governance which will be described in the section below (cf. Bulkeley, 2005). From the perspective of this study, treating power in a subsequent topological manner such as space itself enables us, to cite Allen (2009, 207), to understand how “…the mediated exercises of power involved draw attention to the spatial and temporal arrangements that account for why the presence of a close and powerful body cannot be assumed to simply deliver authority and control or why a distant authority has the ability to manipulate the outcomes of a dispersed set of interests.” Questions such as these must lie at the heart of studies on governance spaces where the notions of ‘authority’ and ‘powerful body’ in the singular must be extended to spaces and their relations; consequently, power from a topological perspective must be
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plural. Furthermore, the stabilization of topological power constellations is tied to spatio-temporal fixes in space, which allow for dominant but also shifting assemblages (cf. Allen, 2009). In addition to this topological perspective on power I draw upon notions of power introduced by the work of Michel Foucault (e.g. 1991a, 1991b; Gordon, 1991; Lindgren, 2000). While his account of power can be criticized for its ‘micro’ scale characteristics and lack of spatial focus (Allen, 2003; Rutherford, 2007), the power/ knowledge nexus provided by Foucault and the bulk of related literature (e.g. Lindgren, 2000; Lemke, 2001; Baldwin, 2003; Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010) provide additional means of evaluating the internal workings of governance processes. Similar to the topological perspective, power in that regard is relational, while power relations are theoretically open, as is relational space itself. Hence, power relations are intertwined with knowledge production and its circulation throughout governance networks (Lindgren, 2000, 302; Baldwin, 2003, 419), and knowledge relations, in regard to how ‘truth’ is produced in order to steer governance processes, are considered a major aspect of power relations.
3.2 Environmental governance The aim of the study is to unfold relationalities of environmental forest governance. Governance itself can be considered a contested and rather fluid concept. Starting from the initial debate on spheres of governing and moving from government to governance (e.g. Rhodes, 1996; Jessop, 1998; Hubbard et al., 2002), today’s usage of the term governance incorporates manifold approaches. Hence, the way it is conceptualized within this study requires further description. Discourses on natural resource exploitation and their environmental aspects are at the heart of this study, and governance is strongly henceforth conceptualized from an environmental perspective (e.g. Bulkeley, 2005; McCarthy, 2005a; Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005; Kortelainen, 2010). Governance is therefore largely seen to challenge a more centralized, structured and often hierarchical form of governing attributed to government by nation states or global political agencies. These heterarchic properties (Jonas & While, 2005; Jessop, 1998) enable governance processes to integrate a heterogeneous array of actors, situated within networks of multi-scalar reach. Contrarily, frequently utilized conceptualizations such as ‘multi-level’ governance (e.g. Bache & Flinders, 2004; Sarkki, 2011) or ‘global-environmental’ governance (e.g. Lipschutz, 1996; Paterson et al., 2003) largely approach governance from a hierarchical perspective. As pointed out by Bulkeley (2005), such accounts often treat governance as existing at the global level with its impacts trickling down to solve local problems (e.g. Paterson et al., 2003, Cashore et al., 2004). Another strain of governance, particularly in regard to economic geography and trade, are the approaches of global value chain-, global commodity chain-, and global production network governance (e.g. Gereffi et al., 2005; Stringer, 2006;
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Gibbon & Ponte, 2008; Hughes et al., 2008). Developed as a “…tool for understanding the dynamics of economic globalization and international trade…” (Gibbon & Ponte 2008, 365-366), such approaches struggle to overcome the hierarchical fixes of governance. Moreover, aside from an increased inclusion of external actors, my point of view is that these approaches too often fall victim to dualistic thinking about internal and external actors in the governance process. Therefore, the structured, often fixed properties of the scalar hierarchies, leaving little room for alternative governance processes, are regarded critically and are in need of expansion (Bulkeley, 2005; Kortelainen, 2010). In governance processes, institutionalized agencies and state organs are complemented, for instance, by local or transnational NGOs, economic and social and non-human actors (Bridge & Perreault, 2009; Hubbard et al., 2002). Hence, governance is not a replacement for government through institutionalized means (e.g. Rhodes, 1996; Jessop, 1998) but the latter is part of the former. Heterarchic understandings of governance are also displayed by the affix of ‘meta’-governance (e.g. Jessop, 1998; Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005). Jessop (1998, 42) describes metagovernance as the “organization of self-organization” or as critically reviewed by Jonas and While (2005, 77) “government of governance”. In his conceptualization of meta-governance, Jessop (1998, 42) describes it as a kind of steering process, mainly by state institutions, to guide the self-organization or governance of private and public actors. While governance is seen as a pluralistic and heterarchical process, with the state losing its direct sovereign authority, state institutions throughout their negotiating role remain the most important actor (Jessop, 1998, 43). Notwithstanding the remaining role of state institutions in governance processes (Kooiman et al., 2008; article III), compared to strongly nonstate market-driven governance approaches (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Cashore et al., 2004), the prioritization of the state’s role is seen as critical. However, the concept of meta-governance has further been employed without any central focus on state institutions (e.g. Kooiman, 2003; Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005; Kortelainen, 2010). Kooiman and Bavinck (2005, 19-20) see meta-governance as one of three orders of governance: namely, first-order, second-order and meta-governance. I refrain from discussing these orders in detail yet I see the need to explain them briefly below. According to Kooiman and Bavinck (2005, 19), first-order governance processes take place around the sites of implementation, that is to say where problems are defined and solved by the day to day interactions of the actors present. First-order governance is chiefly embedded in institutional, settings of second-order governance processes where governors and to-be-governed actors meet and where problems and solutions are subject to negotiation and regulation. Finally, these happenings within the two orders are evaluated and (re-)produced by meta-governance processes. Evaluation or input throughout meta-governance processes, as stressed by Kooiman and Bavinck (2005, 20), are framed by the actors’ rationality deriving from verifiable facts. Thus, for Kooiman and Bavinck (2005) meta-governance is solely one part of a wider governance network combining these different orders (see also Kooiman et al., 2008; Kortelainen, 2010).
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Kooiman and Bavinck (2005, 21-22) go on to differentiate between three modes of governance: ‘hierarchical-’, ‘self-’ and ‘co-governance’. Self-governance describes governing activities independent of state actors, for instance, through de-regulation or privatization, while co-governance refers to a joint governing effort based on a common discourse which lacks a defined leading entity (Kooiman & Bavinck 2005, 21-22). Since co-governance is regarded as the most inclusive mode, as is the case with the three orders of governance, all three modes are seen to act in concert in most cases. In respect to forest and environmental management from a periphery perspective in Finland, a similar complex account based on a more hybrid conceptualization of governance is introduced by Sarkki (2011). Akin to Kooiman and Bavinck (2005), he introduces governance systems consistent with interacting levels and various actor assemblages to drive governance performance (cf. Sarkki, 2011). These approaches to the various orders and modes of governance help us to understand the complexity of governance processes to some degree, yet fall short of addressing the relationality, and specifically, the spatiality of the spaces to be governed. While they stresses certain socio-temporal aspects which influence and guide the actors involved and their shifting characteristics (Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005; Kooiman et al., 2008; Sarkki, 2011), the differentiation presented by orders, levels and modes of governance makes it prone, from a geographical perspective, to what Agnew (1999) calls the “territorial trap” (see also Bulkeley, 2005). Thus, they treat spatialities, such as state territoriality, as constant, unified entities (Agnew, 1999). Governance processes are therefore presented as occurring on different, more or less bound scales, an aspect contrary to the topological approach followed in this study. Still, as pointed out by Bulkeley (2005, 888), such a topological approach should not aim to dissolve scale in relation to governance processes but evaluate scalar relational characteristics. As scales are considered to be socially constructed, McCarthy (2005a) stresses the inseparability of this performance from the production of socionatures in general. Similarly, he adds that due to their intertwined processes, relations across scales are hardly separable from relations within a scale (McCarthy, 2005a, 738). Thus, grasping the complexity of governance networks from a geographical perspective, and avoiding the ‘territorial trap’, requires a relational governance approach based on heterogeneous networks and their spaces, distinctive from the more fixed, hybrid governance conception introduced, for instance, by Sarkki (2011), despite its helpful and valuable contribution to governance literature. A valuable approach to hybrid governance systems is offered by Bulkeley (2005). She utilizes the term ‘re-scaling’ of governance networks to evaluate newly emerging governance constructs and institutions. In these processes a multiplicity of relational networks, cross-cutting, dissolving and (re-)producing scalar governance assemblages (re-)produce current and new spaces of governance. Scalar assemblages are consequently not tied to territoriality but to their spatiality in a wider sense in the same way as governance spaces and their entities (Bulkeley, 2005). While such a conceptualization of governance enables us to evaluate gov-
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ernance spaces from a relational and spatial perspective, it does not free such an attempt from taking into account territorial-bound and nested institutions and scales, since the formulations about the governance attempts of most entities and their spatial reach are based upon this. Generally, relations and the (re-)produced spaces between entities, whether human or non-human actors, are treated as the linchpin of the term hybrid governance approach followed below. The term ‘hybrid’ as employed in this study is paired in many ways with the ideas of Whatmore (2002), such as the need for a topological approach and the aim of bringing life into fixed accounts on spatiality and society-nature relations. However, with the restricted focus on the material aspects of the forest itself in this study (e.g. article V), compared to Whatmore’s (2002) account, the term hybridity further refers to the relational character and multiplicity of the institution, individuals and material beings involved in forest governance (e.g. Bingham & Thrift, 2000; Bulkeley, 2005; McCarthy, 2005b, Murdoch, 2006). Thus, the spatiality of governance is highlighted through the evaluation of positionality and the (re-)production of spatio-temporal fixes which create such hybrid, new scalar governance assemblages as those noted by Bulkeley (2005). Another important aspect within such governance spaces to be discussed later is the deployment of knowledge and information to steer governance processes (e.g. Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005; Mol, 2006; Miller & Rose, 2008). Knowledge (re-)production and distribution concerning forestry are also an aspect which enables the integration of the forest itself in respect to society aside from its material performance, and supports the hybrid approach of this study (e.g. Castree & Braun 2001).Such aspects of knowledge (re-)production and deployment in regard to governing processes are at the centre of the concept of governmentality (e.g. Foucault, 1991a, 1991b; Gordon, 1991; Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010). Based on the writings and lectures of Michel Foucault (Foucault, 1991a, 1991b, 2008), the governmentality approach has found wide distribution in geographical literature and is employed within this study’s relational framework to evaluate the knowledge-related processes of the governance spaces under examination. Thus said, I see the need to elaborate briefly on the varying terminology regarding the term ‘government’ within governmentality literature and to clarify my usage of the term in regard to governance. There appears to be a terminological phobia concerning the term ‘governance’ within the governmentality literature (cf. Burchell et al., 1991; Crampton & Elden, 2007; Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010), which is visible in its lack of presence. On the one hand, this might relate to the fact that at the time of Foucault’s writing the term was not yet integrated into the social theoretical debate. On the other hand, it can be explained by the idea that the term government often seems equated with governance in literature on governmentality, which is visible by various definitions of the term (e.g. Gordon, 1991; Dean, 2010). While I acknowledge similarities within both approaches, I see governance, in the hybrid form conceptualized above and employed within this study, as the more encompassing term with governmentality, and its governing
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forms included in it rather than a replacement. Consequently, and to avoid misconceptions in regard to the terminology utilized, my use of the term government refers to governance literature as presented above through institutionalized means (e.g. Rhodes, 1996; Jessop, 1998), not in relation to the literature of governmentality presented in the next section. Since governmentality is regarded as one aspect of governance processes, albeit a core aspect, its processes, such as rationalities and regimes of practices, are employed in relation to their influence on governance, unlike the situation with most literature of governmentality, which describes it in relation to its own understanding of government (e.g. Dean, 2010).
3.3 Governmentality and knowledge networks Throughout this study, and its affiliated case studies, the importance of knowledge networks to perform environmental governance, and governance per se, is highlighted. Knowledge networks are further related to modes of empowerment and to constituting power relations. To analyze the (re-)production and distribution of knowledge, and to unfold their underlying power relations, I employ the concept of “governmentality” based originally on two series of lectures by Michel Foucault (e.g. Foucault 1991a, 1991b, 2007, 2008). This concept of governmentality has since been the basis of a large body of works analyzing and developing Foucault’s initial ideas (e.g. Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008; Burchell et al., 1991; Lemke, 2001; Murdoch, 2006; Crampton & Elden, 2007; Rutherford, 2007; Dean, 2010;). While these references by no means provide an exclusive list of general literature on governmentality, my use of the term and the concept is largely based on these accounts. To begin with, despite his focus on the political domain in his governmentality lectures (Foucault, 1991a, 1991b), Foucault comprehends the term government to entail a broader meaning then merely sovereign or regulatory power enforced by the state apparatuses (Gordon, 1991; Lemke, 2001) but as Dean (2010, 18) describes: Government is any more or less calculated and rational activity, undertaken by a multiplicity of authorities and agencies, employing a variety of techniques and forms of knowledge, that seeks to shape conduct by working through the desires, aspirations, interests and beliefs of various actors, for definite but shifting ends and with a diverse set of relatively unpredictable consequences, effects and outcomes.
Following this broad description, governmentality, or ‘mentalities’ of government (cf. Miller & Rose 1990) is concerned with varying forms of knowledge, their (re-)production and distribution. Related to thoughts about governing others and oneself (e.g. Gordon, 1991), governmentality enables the governing of perceived autonomous entities, possibly in distant locations (Miller & Rose 1990, 2008). Governmental rationalities and their technologies play a vivid role in these processes and the evaluation of governance processes, as explained below.
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In studies of governmentality, the term rationality or more commonly rationalities, based on the multiplicity highlighted by Foucault (1991a), differs from the intrinsic notion of rational behaviour as the right thing to do, in contrast to irrational behaviour as a totalizing opposite (Foucault 1991c, 79). Nonetheless, while more or less based on certain calculations of entities as noted by Dean (2010), rationalities are regarded as multiple approaches to representing and knowing a phenomenon, thus rendering a domain of government thinkable (Gordon, 1991; Miller & Rose, 2008). As Foucault (1991c, 79) himself describes governmentality as: “…how men govern (themselves and others) by the production of truth…”, rationalities are comprised of thoughts considering by whom, for whom, how, and what is governed (Gordon, 1991). The role of the term ‘truth’ and questions on what is governed specifically require further elucidation. ‘Truth’ in that regard should by no means be regarded as neutral, intrinsic knowledge but rather as claims by their producing regimes of practice (e.g. Lemke, 2001; Dean, 2010). Regimes of practice entail certain shared rationalities, governmental technologies and modes of knowledge production. These “postulates of thought” or truth (Huxley, 2007, 783-4) are an important aspect of the (re-)production of rationalities and vice versa. While being embedded in material and institutional settings, Dean (2010, 32) associate regimes of practice as being constituted by the minds of the actors involved, and they are henceforth regarded as more or less stable networks of entities entailing specific goals and practices to achieve them. Since rationalities shape the knowledge of actors and thus influence their conduct (Okereke et al., 2009; Dean, 2010), regimes of practice, often tied to certain sets of knowledge production and ‘truth’ claims, aim to colonize spaces of governance with their claims, that is to say also influence or steer governance processes through the (re-)production of knowledge networks. It should be pointed out that while knowledge networks might seek to establish a structured system of knowledge production and distribution through their regimes of practice, the term as employed in this study involves such networking processes not as a process of structuration but as space as well, as one of constant (re-)production. The rationalities on what is governed are primarily tied to problematizations perceived in the domain to be governed (e.g. Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010). For instance, a current method for governing a specific domain is called into question and is considered to require novel or different approaches. A similar focus on “problem and solution” is also found in literature on transnational environmental governance (e.g. Kooiman & Bavinck, 2005). Such problematizations, for instance, global warming, are neither universal nor pre-given to their integration into various rationalities (Miller & Rose, 2008), but emerge and are (re-)produced due to the positionalities of entities in the spaces to be governed. Problematizations of government are commonly tied to regimes of practice (Dean, 2010). Yet, based on Foucault’s account of aspects of governing the self (e.g. Foucault, 1991c), regimes of practice, while shaping the conduct of governed entities, are at the same time (re-)produced by individuals, their rationalities and problematizations. These processes do not solely occur within such groups, institutions or communities
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(e.g. forestry) themselves, but also include actors external to them. In that regard, rationalities, as treated throughout the case studies (articles II-V), are expressed to integrate rationalities residing on the individual level, compared to more common, empirical accounts treating them largely in relation to programs of government by states or institutions (e.g. Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008; Murdoch, 1995, 2004; Baldwin, 2003; Merlingen, 2003; Death, 2011). However, while rationalities render governance domains thinkable, on the individual level, within a regime of practice or for the governed entities, governmental technologies are required to render these thoughts actionable (Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008). Governmental technologies, also termed technologies of government (Miller & Rose, 2008) or political technologies (e.g. Baldwin, 2003; article III), themselves based on the usage of the term bio-politics or politics as noted by Foucault (1991a, 2008; Gordon, 1991; Lemke, 2001), aim to translate perceived domains of governing, so-called rationalities, into practice by routinized means (Foucault, 1991c; Miller & Rose, 1990, 2008). Such technologies are an instrument for governing a domain including actors and institutions of implementation. Governmental technologies can include technical standards, procedures, vocabularies or control mechanisms based on certain rationalities aimed at managing a governed space (Huxley, 2007; Miller & Rose, 2008). Thus, technologies can be considered a tool of governance utilized or promoted by a regime of practice to facilitate the solution of a problematization based on their rationalities. In terms of environmental forest governance as the main subject of this study, the two forest certification schemes are deployed as technologies to overcome the problematization of unsustainable forest management. With their underlying standards, monitoring methods, and calculative practices they display good examples of how governmental technologies and their regimes of practice operate (e.g. Baldwin, 2003). However, it must be pointed out that overarching technologies, such as forest certification schemes, are influenced, supported and consist of numerous other technologies, facilitating or hindering their development. Nevertheless, it is important to note that rationalities, as well as their related technologies, should by no means be equated with final modes of implementation or their materialization in reality. Yet, they allow us to study the regimes of knowledge and truth productions that are concerned with governing a specific domain, and thereby enable to examine the related knowledge networks (re-)producing transnational governance spaces. In regard to the relation between knowledge and power, this specifically is why the concept of governmentality is employed and where it adds value to this study. Despite the limited interest shown by Foucault himself (e.g. Darier 1999), the environment as a domain of subjectification by means of governmentality is part of an extensive and growing body of literature (e.g. Murdoch, 1995, 2004; Luke, 1995; Baldwin, 2003; Agrawal, 2005; Rutherford, 2007; Rydin, 2007; Gibbon & Ponte, 2008; Death, 2011). For instance, Timothy Luke (1995, 1999) and Arun Agrawal (2005) employ the term of environmentality for that purpose. Foucault’s (e.g. 2008, 1991a) governmentality targets the population, but the environment must be integrated into the analysis of governance processes as it frames human
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existence with biophysical aspects (Luke, 1995). Thus, the bio-power/knowledge nexus of Foucault becomes an eco-knowledge/geo power process (Luke, 1995; Baldwin, 2003; Rutherford, 2007). In this regard, the environment, or eco-knowledge, is tied to the rationalities and problematizations of governance (e.g. article III). While this approach is helpful in integrating the environment into studies of governmentality, and the term eco-knowledge is employed in article III, I refrain from using it later in this study. Owing to the multiplicity of rationalities, and in regard to the multiple positionalities of actors in this study as well, I perceive the use of a prefix such as eco to ignore this multiplicity involving the way in which rationalities are constituted and (re-)produced. With the discourse on sustainability largely embedded into discussions on its ecological aspects, eco-knowledge alone is merely one aspect to steer the conduct of entities. While employing governmentality as one concept in this study, some of its critics must be mentioned and addressed as well. These critics also cater to the need to broaden the concept in order to utilize it within the framework concept of relational space of environmental forest governance. Rutherford (2007) points out several aspects and I will briefly discuss three. First, the danger of treating governing programs as completed pieces; second, the common lack of considering differences; and, third, often state-centred approach to studies of governmentality. By seeing space as constantly being (re-)produced and shaped by a multiplicity of relations (Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006), governing programs from this perspective are permanently shifting as well. This occurs despite certain apparently fixed power constellations (Lindgren, 2000) or spatio-temporal fixes (Jessop, 2006, 2007) in this sphere. In a similar way this accounts for the second criticism; the positionality of the entities are co-produced by their rationalities and vice versa, while consent and contestation are examined in the evaluation of knowledge and governance networks. Finally, I regard the utilized framework as far from being state-centred, as even in article III, with its focus on state procurement regulations, state institutions are regarded as merely one among a multiplicity of involved entities in the hybrid governance processes. Hence, utilizing the concept of governmentality is regarded a valuable concept when approached with caution and a relational conception of space. It then allows an evaluation of how rationalities, regimes of practice and their knowledge networks shape transnational forest and environmental governance. Thus, in this study, aspects of governmentality, excluding the procurement directive focus of article III, are mainly employed in regard to the rationalities of entities and the knowledge networks they are entangled with, rather than to overarching, centralized programs of government. The concept is later, and in the articles, employed to unfold the multiplicity of rationalities which lie aground the varying regimes of practices and their governmental technologies. They demonstrate the influence of varying, opposing ‘truth’ claims, by which their distribution through knowledge networks shape transnational governance processes. The heterogeneity of positionalities, rationalities, the multiplicity of regimes of practice and the varying technologies deployed for materialization, and (transna-
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tional) governance processes therefore demand a relational concept of the spaces to be governed. This chapter has conceptualized the theoretical framework and the terms utilized in this study and sought to provide the reader with a deeper understanding in order to follow my argumentation in the next section. There, the theoretical framework will be put into practice, and with the help of the five case studies some central aspects of the relational space of environmental forest governance will be presented.
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4 Unfolding relational spaces of environmental forest governance: sustainable forest management controversies in core-periphery relations As a follow-up to the conceptualization section of this study, and in preparation for drawing intelligible conclusions from this research project, the following sections aim to present some of the facets which link the five case studies to provide a more encompassing picture. Therefore, it does not duplicate the empirical findings from the different case studies to create a general account of governance processes, but utilizes features of these different cases to highlight the heterogeneities and complexities present in transnational environmental governance spaces. In connection to the dissertations title, this seeks to ‘unfold’ the (re-)production of these relational spaces and present some key aspects in regard to their core-periphery and other relations. The term ‘unfolding’ of relational spaces can be treated from two perspectives. First, in regard to the aim of this dissertation and its associated articles to demonstrate the topologies of governance spaces and, second, from the standpoint of relational space being “…always unfinished and always becoming… (Massey, 2005, 59)”, it thus unfolds itself in its processes of (re-)production. While this dissertation presents only a minor part of the latter perspective, in terms of its impact on spaces of environmental forest governance, I seek to provide a convincing account of the former to enhance the understanding of the latter. Unfolding from the perspective of this study must not be mistaken with uncovering accounts of ‘good’ or ‘bad‘ governance or failures of governance (cf. Jessop, 1998; Cashore et al., 2004; Sarkki, 2011) since it evaluates processes instead of judging eventual outcomes. In this respect the study follows a rather Foucauldian approach, since, like Foucault, the question of defining himself as to what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ was of little interest since these terms are context-dependent (Darier, 1999).
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This discussion section will delve into two core aspects that are considered to be of major importance in the processes of environmental governance: positionality and knowledge networks. Considered in the light of earlier parts of this dissertation, which highlighted their interconnectivity and entwinement, it might appear to be an odd choice to separate these two aspects in a section aiming to merge the overall theory with the empirical body of research. However, I decided to treat these two aspects in separate sections, though they are connected through their theoretical conceptions, since I consider this choice to enhance a more profound understanding of the relationalities at hand. Further on, when the sections overlap in much of their underlying theoretical and empirical aspects, it provides better opportunities to highlight the relational processes which connect these two spheres. This contextualization should make clear that despite presenting these processes as separate to some degree, does not mean that any of these processes should be understood to be performed on its own. In contrast, the two following sections, by explaining these important processes, aim to prepare the ground for a conclusive view and presentation of the relational space of environmental forest governance per se.
4.1 Knowledge networks for sustainable spaces and their topologies “Seeking to delineate sustainable circuits and spaces depends critically upon how ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ are defined” (Hudson, 2005, 241)
Following this statement by Hudson, one of the first questions which must be addressed in regard to knowledge networks, their regimes of practice and their shifting rationalities is matters of ‘problematizations’ of governance and their stated solutions (e.g. Dean, 2010). As has been indicated in the first two chapters of this dissertation the basic problematizations of transnational forest governance are often viewed as being situated in the need to improve forest management towards SFM and provide an international, regulative framework to achieve SFM. This should bring about a halt to global forest loss, environmental degradation as well as climate change, and provide social justice for indigenous, forest-dwelling people. While this problematization represents the attitude which has been publicly promoted by the certification systems and many of their supporters, especially NGOs, it only provides an impoverished idea of the problematizations which (re-) produce environmental forest governance spaces. Not only does such singularity ignore the relations of problematizations external to forestry, that are influential for its actors, but it further ignores the multiple nature of this problematization in itself within forest governance space; for example, the variety of multiple and shifting rationalities which (re-)produce regimes of practice and seek to steer the conduct of entities (Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010). Since the attempt to present
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a more or less inclusive account of these specific problematizations themselves is critical owing to the multiple, relational approach of this dissertation, it is nonetheless important to bear these aspects in mind when evaluating the processes of knowledge networks and their regimes of practice. The reminder of the dissertation will in partial present aspects of varying problematizations concerning SFM, forest governance and certification and highlight the relational influences on their (re-)production. It mainly does this in terms of the varying rationalities which (re-)produce the problematizations of entities and their entanglement through regimes of practice into various, yet connected transnational knowledge networks. To approach this sphere of the relational space under examination, a variation of knowledge networks, maintained and (re-)produced by several regimes of practice and widely based on the case studies (specifically article III, IV, V) will be presented. While comparing their trajectories, rationalities and the relations as well as their spatio-temporal properties this section aims to merge these networks to present a true, though not all-inclusive, relational enactment of knowledge networks in the core-periphery relations of forest governance. Similar to the case study framework, this will be performed in a shift from the markets towards the actors in the resource peripheries. This apparent one-way direction should not imply that the knowledge networks themselves have properties fixed to a certain scale, which is certainly not the case, but follows the empirical research framework and the entities interviewed in that regard. Thus it presents the networks from the actors’ accounts that are situated in a certain locality (e.g. core market, national political level). Forest certification arises from discontent with past and recent forest management practice, a process which, largely related to core-periphery relations (e.g. Hayter & Soyez, 1996, article I), can be seen as the initial knowledge network laying the groundwork for most of those described later on (e.g. knowledge networks in articles III, IV, V). One of the first important aspects of this emerging knowledge network was the awareness it created within European core markets such as Germany and the UK towards the resource peripheries and the various supply chain characteristics of wood-based products. By promoting knowledge, or certain ‘truth’ claims about forestry in these resource peripheries, NGOs such as WWF and Greenpeace became very successful in creating what Murdoch and Miele (2004), in relation to food products, called the “relational reflexivity” of consumers. Protest campaigns showing large clear cuts, ‘homeless’ animals prone to extinction, and the loss of livelihood of many indigenous forest-dwelling people provided visuals which performed as powerful relations to shape the rationalities of the observer, her/himself detached from the actual happenings in most cases. By opening a Pandora’s box of coreperiphery relations in transnational forest governance, an issue similar to that described as “roughing up the surfaces” by Crang (1996, 51) for transnational food supply chains, NGO campaigns opened up a new, contested playing field requiring new regimes of practice, rationalities and technologies. Since FSC certification initially provided the only technology to remedy the problems put forth, its regimes of practice, consisting largely of NGOs, found
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themselves in an almost monopolistic role to disseminate their ‘truth’ claims and rationalities on the questions of environmental forest governance. Following Gordon (1991), we can ask who governs and for whom, how and what is governed to achieve SFM. With the establishment of PEFC and other competing regimes and claims (also against FSC) about SFM and forest governance, this perceived though never clearly existing monopoly vanished, it is interesting to observe that in respect to knowledge networks directly linked to the consumers in the core markets this regime remains dominant. However, due to the role of NGOs in civil society and publicity campaigns, compared to the role of corporations or forestry associations in that sphere, this might be not so surprising. In addition, as pointed out by Dawkins (2004), corporations lack the credibility of NGOs when publicly promoting environmental or social achievements (see also Eden & Bear, 2010; article II). Nevertheless, even within their most powerful realm of protest and market campaigns, the regimes of practice supporting FSC are contested, as the example of forester protests supporting PEFC in the German retail markets demonstrated (e.g. article IV). Providing a good example of positionality in governance spaces, this example will be discussed in more detail in the next section. The weakness of PEFC and its supporting regimes of practice in such market campaigns in contrast to its global success also demonstrate the rather partial role of consumer-oriented spheres and their knowledge networks, which focus largely on lay persons, in transnational forest governance. Hence, understanding governance processes must include knowledge networks among entities involved professionally with forestry, forest trade or politics. Emerging knowledge networks related to NGO protest campaigns performed green markets within the European core areas (e.g. Kortelainen, 2008). Hence, based on the increasing relational reflexivity (Murdoch & Miele, 2004) of consumers and business customers in these areas, supply actors had to situate themselves within this newly emerging space. In a similar vein, such a change has been described as a move from “…mute to reflective power…” by Tynkkynen (2010, 253) in terms of public integration into the planning discourses in St. Petersburg, Russia. While such a move has not necessarily forced the planning institutions to follow the public demands, it forced them to react and define their ‘truth’ claims (Tynkkynen, 2010). Thus, returning to forest governance, especially transnational corporations, who were in the main line of fire of the NGO campaigns (articles I, II, IV), had to either succumb to the regimes of practice fostering FSC and promoted by most NGOs or promote their own regimes of practice in regard to solving some of the commonly shared problems of transnational forestry, and their own ‘truth’. It should be noted from the outset that to my understanding not a single transnational corporation has fully succumbed to the initial NGO regimes, but certain publicly promoted aspects have been integrated into their own regimes. An illustration of this is the European retail and DIY sector with its often proFSC public agenda, as demonstrated by Hornbach AG in article II. Nevertheless, to remedy critical rationalities, (re-)produced through the relational reflexivities (Murdoch & Miele, 2004) stemming from knowledge-based NGO campaigns,
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and to establish their own regimes of practice, forest- and wood-based industries had to establish knowledge networks which enable them to promote their ‘truth’ claims in shaping the rationalities of customers and consumers (cf. Lemke, 2001; Dean, 2010). These business-focused knowledge networks are discussed in depth in article IV. In terms of forest certification systems article IV mentions two major regimes of practice. These regimes of practice are distinct since one follows a critical approach based on monopoly claims for FSC and the other a pragmatic approach which demands a mutual recognition of PEFC and FSC as accepted technologies to provide SFM. The utilized terminology of ‘critical’ and ‘pragmatic’ stems from the fact that they were the terms attributed to the two certification systems and their supporting regimes by several of the interviewees (see article IV). Due to the relational approach of this study I refer to these specific regimes in the plural, since they do not possess fixed properties aside from their relation to a certain spatio-temporal fix, nor do the rationalities of the involved entities entirely match each other. Nevertheless, they promote and utilize similar technologies to achieve a shared problematization. The critical regimes of practice entail a continuation of the knowledge networks surrounding the NGO market campaigns and protests, and draw largely upon similar rationalities deeming most recent forest practices as insufficient to achieve SFM. However, while the initiation of public protest campaigns may be suitable as a governmental technology to raise public awareness among consumers, these critical regimes of practice employ further technologies specifically tailored to address actors in a business environment such as the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN) or various databases (article IV). An example of such a database is the WWF Paper Score Card, an online database which ranks the environmental footprint of paper products (e.g. article IV). Additionally, while publicly organized protest against forest management, often following similar schemata, are regarded as technologies by NGOs to maintain the threat of market campaigns against certain companies, these latter technologies provide the means for the critical regimes of practice to integrate companies into their knowledge networks, (co-)produce their rationalities and influence governance processes (e.g. GFTN members, see article IV). As bluntly stated by one interviewee about environmental NGOs and their ability to initiate protest campaigns, “… if there is no scandal, then they can create a scandal […] and environmental groups manage to attach a scandal to any company…” (Interview I, translated from German by the author). This enables NGOs to promote their ‘truth’ claims about forestry and technologies to provide SFM specifically to market-based companies and business customers; this is, however, less the case with transnational forest industries linked to resource peripheries, an aspect related to the positionality of the entities. Core-market-based companies are the business customers of these transnational forestry industries, and as such are also the core locus of their pragmatic regimes of practice. Contrary to the critical regimes, these pragmatic regimes mainly lack executive governmental technologies and knowledge networks such
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as market campaigns to threaten the companies into compliance. In contrast, pragmatic regimes must (re-)produce and promote ‘truth’ claims about technologies of SFM, mainly PEFC, to establish them as sufficient technologies in the rationalities of their customers, that is, to sell their PEFC-certified products and establish this label as accepted technology alongside FSC. It is sufficient in that regard to have the capability to prevent NGO campaigns or negative public reputation (articles II & IV). Thus, promoters of the pragmatic regimes have to (re-) produce a kind of ‘system trust’ (Bachmann, 2001) of their technologies in the rationalities of business customers (article II & IV). The influence of knowledge, or ‘truth’ claims in these business-based knowledge networks concerning what is sufficient to achieve SFM is thus not solely based upon certification criteria, environmental data of forestry or economic supply chain issues, but involves a large array of often-perceived external relations. While most of these perceived external relations are involved in the positionality of entities and treated in the following section, external relations tied to the (re-)production of knowledge networks and their regimes of practice differ in one major aspect: varying relations of these regimes presented above to core markets, respectively resource areas. While the critical regimes of practice contain stronger linkages to the core markets through NGO campaigning (e.g. Cashore et al., 2004; Kortelainen, 2008; article I), the relations of the pragmatic regimes appear denser in regard to resource areas, respectively forestry itself. In Europe this is not only the case with resource peripheries, but is similar to the forest sectors in the core markets themselves, as PEFC dominance in Germany or France suggests (e.g. article III). Thus, the respective knowledge networks (re-)produced by the various regimes of practice are linked to quite different entities and highlight the transnational character of relational governance processes. While the critical regime is performed largely through lay persons in the core markets, the pragmatic regime has recently been stronger, and is tied to forestry practitioners in Europe. It must be stressed that I do not refer to how the knowledge on forestry practices is gained and (re-)produced, since both regimes utilize highly educated forest professionals and academics, but the critical approach seems to entail more fertile ground, with entities not concerned with its direct implementation. A glimpse at the core markets of wood products indicates that consumers and business customers are linked to a heterogeneous variety of knowledge networks which (re-)produce their rationalities on issues such as forest certification or forest management. While for business customers rationalities are strongly based on economic considerations, consumer preferences (as stated in biased polls) are often driven by rationalities based on personal values, knowledge of forestry or perceived moral obligations often embedded through the socio-cultural context of the actors. Rationalities about one or another forest governance system are therefore never solely (re-)produced by knowledge concerning the performance of the system itself but also on knowledge which (re-)produces the pre-conceptualization of the issues at stake, such as the need for environmental protection, personal support for a NGO or, for instance, a dislike for the Green Party (article
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III). The importance of knowledge external to forestry practices in shaping rationalities about forest certification and further governmental technologies to achieve SFM acquires increased importance based on the dislocation of most entities from the forest areas/peripheries and forestry itself (article IV). Most business customers and consumers of wood products in the core markets, aside from their reliance on external knowledge on SFM practices, be it from NGOs, companies or institutions, have a limited understanding of and concern for the implementation and peculiarities of certain criteria or performance standards. Consequently, offered various ‘truth’ claims by different regimes of practice, entities base their decisions not only on some criteria or achievements, but to their rationalities which are (re-) produced by multiple knowledge relations (articles III & IV). Since rationalities of entities (re-)produce their problematizations of the realm to be governed (Miller & Rose, 2008; Dean, 2010), this in turn impacts on the knowledge and ‘truth’ claims provided by the respective regimes of practice. Therefore, the problematizations of entities dislocated from forestry and the resource peripheries themselves, such as most consumers and business customers in the core markets, differ for obvious reasons since their rationalities involving technologies for SFM seldom take practical aspects of implementation into account. Additionally, in regard to the core-periphery dislocation of consumers and resources it was stated that “…the more distant and less the personal knowledge, the more people believe what others tell them about it…” (Interview II, translated from German by the author). On the other hand, while problematizations (re-)produced by entities directly linked to forestry are based more on such practical aspects, they often ignore the rationalities of core-market entities as important aspects of forest governance, despite the fact that these entities are the main consumers of their products. However, in regard to the business environment of customer demands, as evaluated in article IV, of utmost importance is establishing the respective ‘truth’ claims of the regimes about what is sufficient for SFM or the ‘real’ SFM label versus ‘green-wash’ label to the customers of these products. Such claims must contain more or less sufficient acknowledgeable ‘facts’ to render the respective systems trustworthy in the eyes of the customer and consumer. Thus, the respective technologies promoted by these regimes cannot consist only of hot air, even though this is an aspect often claimed by NGOs in regard to PEFC (articles III, IV, V). The critical regimes are well acquainted to utilize the rationalities of entities in the core markets and (re-)produce these rationalities based on the NGO problematizations. Knowledge can therefore focus on high standards and strict criteria while other technologies are discredited or rendered untrustworthy by technologies such as databases, visual examples or reports, as mentioned above. In contrast, the pragmatic regimes of practice include the rationalities of forest practitioners in the resource areas, and as such represent an important share of the entities of the regimes, and must be balanced by the rationalities of entities in the core markets (articles IV & V). These varying rationalities and their relationality shape the processes on how the different regimes (re-)produce their knowledge networks and promote their ‘truth’ claims to entities in the core markets. Still, as
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most of these features are also related to the positionality of entities, I will return to this in the next section and focus initially on the rationalities of forestry and the frequently ignored role of states in increasingly privatized governance spaces.
4.1.1 Forgotten rationalities of forestry and state institutions
An important feature of transnational forest governance spaces in relation to knowledge networks is the common socio-spatial dislocation between entities in the core and the peripheries. Knowledge and ‘truth’ claims on forestry practices, certification criteria and actual processes occurring in the forests, are (re-) produced by a multiplicity of entities and promoted by the same. However, while regimes of practice must convince entities in the core of their ‘truth’ claims and shape their rationalities accordingly, SFM remains a postulate of thoughts, as mentioned by Huxley (2007, 783-4), as these entities do not require physical efforts to achieve the same. Rationalities of entities in forestry, on the other hand, are (re-)produced through largely differing knowledge networks, heavily based on their own experiences in the field and their socio-cultural work environment of institutions (articles III & V). Again, the quote from Hudson (2005, 241) about the importance of delineating sustainable spaces is an important point of departure in that regard. The governmental rationalities of entities directly involved in forestry, thus their problematizations of SFM, are more tightly linked to their personal livelihoods, which they see affected by possible changes in SFM criteria. As demonstrated in article V, the frequent perception that various new SFM criteria have been integrated into forestry and a certain attitude that the entire practical burden is to be borne without gaining (financial) reward must be regarded as an important part of the rationalities of sustainability in forestry. Aside from its focus on indigenous people, for instance Sami reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland (e.g. Sarkki, 2011), the critical regime of practice often fails to account for these aspects within their knowledge networks. In addition to governmental relations deriving from their own activities and perceptions, entities active in forestry are further subject to governmental programs by institutional actors such as forest associations. In respect to the case of Finland, article V describes in detail how the current, monopolized setting of forestry-related institutions with their knowledge networks are enabled to (re-) produce the rationalities of entities through governmental means. In this case, the current legislative framework provides a monopoly for the institutional settings of regional forest centres and forest-owner unions in terms of forest management and planning of private forests. Having said this, I would like to stress that while institutional settings have a finite impact on governance processes, I view this as flawed to conceptualize certain institutional conditions, such as a strong national forest owner association in a certain country, with specific outcomes on the possibilities of certain governmental technologies as proposed, for instance, by Cashore et al. (2004, 2007) in their various national case studies. In the forests as much as in the markets or throughout the supply chains the two major regimes of practice remain at the core of knowledge networks concern-
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ing forest certification and the means of SFM. However, with the move into the realm of forestry the rationalities of entities move from lay, external knowledge on forestry towards professional, often internal knowledge. Here I mean internal in the sense of within the knowledge networks consisting of entities in forestry. Thus, the rationalities of foresters and companies working in the forests, such as contractors, are also (re-)produced by regimes of practice pre-dating the discourse on certification and SFM. Regimes of practice such as the monopoly-like institutional forestry framework in Finland (article V) or the German foresters, who see themselves as the inventors of sustainability based on historical aspects of forest management in respect to the invention of sustained yield forestry (article III), are spatio-temporal fixes which are positioned as more naturalized in the sense described by Harvey (1996) and Murdoch (2006). These strongly locally embedded regimes of practice and their rationalities impact strongly on the technologies deemed as appropriate for SFM and forest management per se (e.g. articles III & V). Thus, it must be stressed that aside from the criteria of certification itself, an aspect often described as possible to implement (article V), the rationalities of forest practitioners are not only based upon such criteria, to say nothing about the desire of consumers for ‘green’ products in the core markets, but on a heterogeneous array of knowledge (re-)produced by a variety of regimes of practice based on rationalities which cut across multiple spheres. In the Finnish and North Karelian case (article V), it even appears that the discourse on certification schemes is far from being perceived in the same way by most actors. This is due to the fact that certification, first, plays only a partial role in the minds of all actors and, second, that it is generally not deemed necessary from a forester perspective in order to achieve better results (cf. article V). I will henceforth refrain from further elucidation of the empirical results of article V in regard to forestry institutions, perspectives of companies and workers, and their knowledge networks. However, these aspects indicate the importance of knowledge networks and their regimes of practice in the peripheries and forests since they (re-)produce the rationalities which directly guide implementation in comparison to the rationalities of market actors such as consumers and business customers or their preferences. Therefore, since criteria and standards are only as strong as their implementation, rationalities which guide the conduct of actors and entities in the forest resource peripheries cannot be ignored in accounts of environmental forest governance. These findings are further supported by accounts of varying implementation practices within the same certification systems (CEPI, 2004; Ozinga, 2004; Auld et al., 2008; article I). The role of forestry institutions and agencies further provides a link to the influence of state actors, often regarded as external to privatized governance processes such as certification (e.g. Haufler, 2003; Cashore et al., 2004). Due to the fact that in most European, if not all, countries in general, forest resources are to some degree managed or controlled by state-funded institutions (e.g. articles I, III, V), these entities remain important in the (re-)production of knowledge on SFM. While state institutions utilize the forestry knowledge networks and regimes of practice as described above and in
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article V, they further (re-)produce rationalities in their role as a major consumer and business customer. An important governmental program to shape rationalities and governance processes in regard to SFM and forest certification is green public procurement (GPP) or sustainable public procurement (SPP) by nation states or EU bodies (article III). In public procurement, by setting more or less binding purchase standards for state agencies, state institutions become entangled in the regimes of practice and their technologies to achieve SFM. For the critical and the pragmatic regimes of practice, GPP/SPP policies are a playing field of utmost importance since they are governmental technologies, similar to protest campaigns which can perform markets for certain products (cf. Kortelainen, 2008). With the pragmatic approach as the currently dominant regime of practice in the EU and most of its member states which possess their own GPP/SPP legislation, it nonetheless highlights the temporality, multiple relations and influence of state institutions in the (re-)production of governance processes. As noted in article III, knowledge and rationalities (re-)produced within the discourses of such legislation is based on a multiplicity of sources such as party politics, competing materials or economic data. This not only highlights actual state influences in governance processes by means of (re-)producing governmental rationalities but also demonstrates that such rationalities, as much as the regimes of practice they promote, are (re-)produced by a heterogeneous array of knowledge relations (e.g. Foucault, 1991a, 1991b, 1991c; Gordon, 1991; article III). Most of these knowledge relations are external to the direct criteria of the certification systems which are chosen from within the process to determine GPP/SPP policy (cf. article III). For instance, the political preferences of the majority of farmers and foresters or the perception of local economics, as has been the case in Germany, are influential relations (articles II & III). However, all the various features of knowledge networks presented above do not perform on their own but in concert with (re-) producing their part of the relational space of environmental forest governance. The last part of this section combines the different knowledge networks presented above and in the articles (II-V) by highlighting the major relations and links between them, and by demonstrating a visualization of the relationality of these networks.
4.1.2 Governmental aspects of environmental forestry spaces
Regimes of practice must cater to different entities and consider the relationality of their rationalities to promote their technologies. Failure to do so may result in conflict and contestation of the technologies promoted. Figure 3 shows the relational knowledge space of the various knowledge networks presented above and throughout the articles, and offers a large, yet non-exclusive array of relations at stake within these processes. The processes and relationalities of knowledge networks, knowledge production and distribution provide an in-depth picture of the role of knowledge in environmental governance spaces. While this is not a tool or framework for calculating specific outcomes of governance, it shows how the
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rationalities of the involved entities are subject to formulation by such complex and transnational governance processes. It provides a clearer, more profound picture of how networks of knowledge production and distribution are constituted and how various regimes of practice, linked to a multiplicity of focal areas, are interrelated with one another. Furthermore, it displays the multiplicity of relations from a transnational perspective which must be considered when evaluating governance. Since rationalities shape the action of entities and their conduct in governance processes (e.g. Okereke et al., 2009; Dean, 2010), the relations which constitute their (re-)production are of utmost importance to unfold the influences of transnational knowledge networks in governance spaces. While Figure 3 is a schematic depiction of the relationality of knowledge networks in environmental forest governance, it requires some further elucidation. Therefore, the blue boxes, representing the various knowledge networks described above, cannot be regarded as enclosed systems. Due to the open character of spaces (Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006), these knowledge networks interact and are, aside from their internal relations, (re-)produced by their relations with a multiplicity of further knowledge networks linked to environmental forest governance. Moreover, these knowledge networks and their regimes of practice are (co)produced by an array of further relations and spatio-temporal fixes stemming from issues which are not only related to forestry. These aspects are demonstrated by the arrows on the left, which provide an overview on the most influential relations evaluated by this study in the different scalar settings of core-periphery relations of transnational forest governance processes. Nevertheless, the open, relational character of space, knowledge and power (Foucault, 1991a, 1991b, 1991c; Murdoch, 2006; Allen, 2009), aspects of contestation and even marginalization must be taken into account (Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006). The utilization of the evaluated knowledge networks consisting of various regimes of practice by entities in the struggle to promote their ‘truth’ claims (e.g. Dean, 2010) is often guided by attempts to exclude opposing entities and their rationalities as well as institutional structures which might preclude the direct participation of certain entities for (cf. Murdoch, 2006). The consensual and contested character of space as described by Murdoch (2006) is visual throughout the case studies (articles I-V). Articles III-V are specifically concerned with governmental aspects of knowledge and rationalities, thus related to Gordon’s (1991) notions of questions of by whom, for whom, how, and what is governed. Following research questions ii and iii of this thesis, on the influence of knowledge networks and rationalities on transnational forest governance, some examples will be highlighted on the basis of Figure 3. This provides an illustrative account of the role of knowledge in transnational governance processes, its multiplicity as well as possible restrictions, and will conclude this chapter.
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Figure 3: Relational aspects of knowledge networks in the transnational spaces of environmental forest governance processes.
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‘Truth’ claims by regimes of practice demonstrate the role of knowledge and rationalities in regard to power topologies in space (cf. Allen, 2009; Dean, 2010). Therefore, how do the presented knowledge networks with their various regimes of practice and rationalities interact? The problematization, based on the perceived need for SFM, lays primarily within the forests themselves or certain forest conflicts in the past and present. While, initially, the relational reflexivity (Murdoch & Miele, 2004) of customers and consumers was (re-)produced by NGO market campaigns (e.g. Cashore et al., 2004; article I), the knowledge provided to feed the rationalities stemming from such a reflexivity are more heterogeneous, transnational and influenced by various regimes than might first seem the case. Furthermore, it must be noted that local or national forestry discourses (e.g. article V) in particular long pre-date regimes of practice based on market campaigns, while the latter are often influenced by the rationalities of the former. In respect to the debates on SFM, it can be said that business-related regimes, specifically the pragmatic approach (article IV) and the procurement debates to a certain degree, derive from or respond to these ‘older’ knowledge regimes. In a similar manner as the procurement debates, this accounts for further political programs utilizing forest certification as means of proof, for example, FLEGT (EC, 2012), or sustainability aspects of wooden biomass production for bioenergy (e.g. RED, 2009; Kortelainen & Albrecht, 2013). Within all these apparently specific knowledge networks, regimes of practice compete to establish their ‘truth’ claims as dominant, or so to speak naturalize them as a spatio-temporal fix (cf. Harvey, 1996; Murdoch, 2006). They draw on multiple nodes of knowledge (re-)production, which shape their rationalities, be it other SFM-related knowledge networks or only indirectly related aspects (e.g. left arrows of Fig. 3). Such responsiveness to other knowledge networks, their regimes of practice and rationalities, of involved entities highlights the inseparability of these networks in terms of the (re-)production of transnational knowledge and governance spaces per se, for instance, aspects of Finnish forestry (e.g. article V; see also Sarkki, 2011; Kortelainen & Albrecht, 2013). Opposing regimes of practice and their technologies (FSC, PEFC), based on a variety of scientifically based ‘truth’ claims, therefore promote their rationalities throughout the supply chain to satisfy the relational reflexivity (Murdoch & Miele, 2004) of business customers, political decision-makers and consumers. The central nodes within these core-periphery relations of transnational knowledge spaces are transnational forestry industries and NGOs (e.g. articles I & IV). They have become a kind of mediators of SFM rationalities due to the detachment from most market actors in regard to forest resource areas (article V) and their role as information providers. A valuable example of this was the description concerning the sales office personnel of a large forestry company: “They hear the story from the forest end and they hear the customers. It’s actually them we rely on to pass on the messages” (Interview III). These regimes of practice promote their ‘truth’ claims not separately, but in relation to the claims of other regimes (e.g. Tynkkynen, 2010) and must therefore consider other rationalities such as varying consumer values
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in different markets (article IV), political rationalities or national legislation (article III) or locally embedded regimes of practice by institutions, association or NGOs (articles II & V). Still, this is not a one-way street, finalized by the decision of market actors to agree on a pragmatic or critical approach (article IV), but also related to the implementation level, where rationalities of forestry practices are (re-)produced by further regimes of practice and again influence the ‘truth’ claims and rationalities by entities along the supply chains. Thus, since rationalities guide the conduct of entities (Foucault, 1991c; Okereke et al., 2009), the various regimes of practice and affiliated knowledge networks which influence their (re)production influence governance and must be treated in a relational manner to understand its processes. Furthermore, in regard to the influence of knowledge networks and rationalities of transnational forest governance, exclusionary aspects must also be taken into account (Massey, 2005). The often-contested character of SFM technologies, such as PEFC or FSC, entails many attempts by their supporting regimes of practice to marginalize the ‘opponents’ by employing their ‘truth’ claims concerning SFM. This also takes place by utilizing certain relations stemming from the transnational character of the core-resource dislocation and varying the more localized peculiarities of the consumer or customer realms. Therefore, aspects of positionality, described in detail in the next section, enable certain regimes to strongly dominate knowledge networks in specific realms. Examples are the green consumer market dominance of FSC through protest campaigns or the monopoly-structured pro-PEFC networks in Finland (e.g. articles I, IV, V). However, viewed from the transnational perspective, the heterogeneity of the space to govern in most cases provides a second point of entry for spatially marginalized knowledge. One example of this is the integration of PEFC into all currently existing EU member procurement legislation (article III) after many initial attempts to choose an FSC-only approach (cf. CPET, 2012). This example demonstrates the capability of regimes excluded through publicly promoted knowledge networks such as market campaigns to integrate their rationalities and ‘truth’ claims through different relations. Naturally, the same works in reverse, where FSC supporting regimes of practice can penetrate seemingly shielded spatialities or localities with their rationalities and knowledge networks. Based on the research articles, this section provided an extended discussion of the role of knowledge networks and governmental instruments on transnational forest governance. While approaching the issue from a more theoretical perspective, the empirical findings presented are described in greater detail in the articles themselves. Still, this section remains a partial demonstration of how knowledge networks, their regimes of practice and rationalities influence and play their role in transnational governance spaces. This partialness is a result of the important role of some aspects of positionality, as mentioned above, and will be discussed in the following section. Concentrating on aspects of positionality, I hope to resolve a number of open issues related to the influence of and processes of knowledge networks in governance spaces. The next section will delve deeper into aspects of spatialities, localities and highlight the emerging topologies at work.
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4.2 (Re-)producing positionalities for governance: transnationalization through core-periphery aspects and locally embedded relations Knowledge networks and the (re-)production of rationalities and ‘truth’ claims have been discussed as constituting a prominent part of relational governance processes. However, to approach the topic of environmental resource governance through a geographical lens, and to pay tribute to the framing concept of relational space, we need to take a closer look at the spatialities at work. An integration of spatiality into knowledge-based accounts of environmental governance processes is, for instance, promoted by Luke (2009), who still fails in his account to avoid the ‘territorial trap’ (cf. Agnew, 1999) and to portray spatialities as heterogeneous, hybrid assemblages. Understanding the governance processes of knowledge networks, the circulation of knowledge and its consequent (re-)production (cf. Ash & Cohendet, 2005) not only requires the integration of local socio-economic aspects (e.g. Berndt & Boeckler, 2007; Hughes et al., 2008), but also the need to account for the relational heterogeneity of single territorial realms such as the local or national. Positionality, in the sense of Sheppard (2002), enables the integration of such heterogeneities (Leitner et al., 2008). Aspects of positionality also enable an understanding of environmental resource governance processes, or in this case specifically environmental forest governance, which move beyond market-driven (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Haufler, 2003) or commodity chain-based (e.g. Klooster, 2005, 2010; Hughes et al., 2008) accounts. As previously mentioned, market-driven aspects of governance processes are strongly linked to protest campaigns and specific knowledge networks performed within the green core markets, specifically from a European perspective. Such protest campaign-related knowledge networks, as much as the knowledge networks promoted by opposing regimes of practice, are strongly shaped by the positionality of entities. Thus, positionality performs as a key spatiality in governance processes while its evaluation renders more structured forms such as non-state market-driven (Cashore, 2002), value/commodity chain (e.g. Gereffi et al., 2005; Gibon & Ponte, 2008; Hughes et al., 2008), or multi-level governance as too normative accounts. While this is highlighted throughout the theoretical foundation of this study, the complexity and multiplicity of the relations mentioned and found in the empirical studies further stress this finding. Thus, in the following, aspects of positionality are discussed as (re-)producing the topologies of the environmental forest governance spaces under examination. In respect to the underlying research questions of this study, above all, the influences of positionalities on the rationalities and knowledge networks of groups or individuals should be discussed. One of the most comprehensible influences of positionality is the access to knowledge itself. This can be a result of technical relations or the socio-spatial relations of the respective entity or individual. Technical aspects of positionality are, for example, varying access
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to the internet, specific scientific or other publications such as NGO reports or local and international discourses on forestry, to name only a few. In addition, these are in turn affected by a large variety of socio-spatial relations including the location of protest campaigns, language skills to access various information, commonality of the language spoken at the source of the forestry conflict/ resource area or the embeddedness of entities in specific regimes of practice, such as those presented above, which promote specific knowledge sources. Furthermore, rationalities are influenced by biophysical aspects of positionality such as the type of forest the entities are mainly involved with. For instance, the biophysical aspects of boreal forests in Finland have actors within them, (re-) producing their rationalities largely in relation to those same Finnish forests, and show less concern for tropical forests or Central European broadleaf forests, among other things. The positionality of transnational forestry industries as well as NGOs, on the other hand, are mainly (re-)produced by the wider inclusion of various biophysical forest-related aspects resulting from their relations with a variety of resource areas and peripheries. These relations influence not only the possibility of access to certain knowledge and information but also the concern or willingness of entities to include that knowledge and information into their rationalities about SFM. Aside from their role of influencing access to knowledge, socio-spatial aspects of an entity’s positionality must be regarded as the main denominator (cf. Sheppard, 2002) of governance processes. This is, of course, in concert with certain biophysical and technical aspects, as described in the articles (e.g. articles II, IV, V). However, while biophysical and technical features such as fibre structure in relation to different wood products or transport distances are rather obvious and partially normative influences on forest governance (e.g. articles II & IV), I view the complex and heterogeneous aspects of relational space as largely involved in its socio-spatial aspects of positionality. Thus, there will be a specific emphasis on it in this section. Following Leitner et al. (2008, 163), that positionalities shape the perceptions of entities, thus their understanding of the world and consequently guide their conduct, the important role the positionalities of various entities play in transnational environmental forest governance should become obvious. Furthermore, market relations, or market-driven processes, must be understood under these premises as but one aspect of positionality and consequently forest governance. In the following I seek to clarify the role of positionality in (re)producing the relational space of environmental forest governance based on a variety of empirical examples drawn from the case studies. This will further merge aspects of positionalities mentioned in the single articles to portray a more encompassing picture. To provide a better understanding of these heterogeneous processes, similar to the previous section on knowledge networks, aspects of positionality will be indicated by a move from the markets towards the resource peripheries. This should also highlight the partially contested nature of core-periphery relations and further highlight the transnational character in terms of forest governance.
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Supply chain relations in regard to positionality are described in depth in articles II, IV and V and to some degree in respect to political organizations in article III. While these accounts seek to depict positionality from a certain case study perspective, for instance the German printing/publishing and retail companies, in the following I will present them in a broader manner with a stronger focus on specific relations, often falsely perceived as external to governance processes. To begin with, consumer markets, entities and individuals in these markets are tied to a multiple, heterogeneous set of relations as are their spaces (re)produced off (Massey, 2005). For the end-consumer, as well as for business customers, industrial producers or forestry professionals, positionality aspects related to knowledge and rationalities, as described above, apply. Yet, the integration of aspects of SFM or environmental protectionist perceptions into their rationalities is based in most cases on a positionality quite detached from the forests. Thus, putting value on SFM or a certification scheme has few impacts on their own being and livelihood. This is supported by the low actual end-consumer demand mentioned throughout the research interviews, and the fact that even by putting value on SFM, the willingness to pay for it remains limited. Hence, while the initial rationalities to announce support for certification, in most cases FSC due to its NGO back up, is affected by the end-consumer’s positionality, such as education, profession, experience with local or foreign forestry (e.g. from holiday or tvdocumentaries/ reports) or political leanings (cf. article III), it has a rather limited effect in most cases on her or his own positionality. Thus, in many cases, the role of positionality in respect to end-consumers remains important for governance processes as a postulate of thought as mentioned by Huxley (2007). In spite of this, as shown by the large array of non-state market-driven literature on forest certification and governance (cf. Cashore, 2002; Haufler, 2003; Cashore et al., 2004), these postulates of thought have an influence on governance processes. Still, since their positionality and rationality is prone to change, it is critical to equate their influence with modes of ‘good governance’ (e.g. Cashore et al., 2004) but, on the other hand, it is important to integrate their positionalities and rationalities into an understanding of the positionality and rationalities of the business sector. A good example of such shifting rationalities due to the positionalities of entities are the forester and forest-owner protests in opposition to the German retail and DIY market chain of OBI in 2002 (Teggelbekkers, 2003, article IV). There, the effects of a FSC-only policy by OBI headquarters was contrasted with its effects on the positionality of the native forest sector with its strong relations to the positionality of local-end consumers, be it through local economic aspects or as a source of recreation. The planned exclusion of these forests due to their PEFC certification had OBI franchisees question their headquarters decision and resulted in a silent acceptance of German PEFC wood (Teggelbekkers, 2003); this was subsequently followed by retail companies throughout Germany and Europe (articles II & IV). In this protest campaign, forest owners managed to highlight the eventual direct influences on the positionalities of end-consumers from a locally embedded perspective and thus successfully contested OBI’s regime of practice based primarily
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on the postulates of thoughts of a general, pro-FSC end-consumer, advertised by several NGOs. This example vividly demonstrates how aspects of positionality, thus social-spatial relations such as impact on local economy, employment or positive attitude towards place (e.g. the values people attribute to their forest), can contest the otherwise more public knowledge networks of market campaigns and NGO protest in spite of their assumed higher credibility in comparison to claims by economic actors, which include farmers or foresters (e.g. Dawkins, 2004). Thus, as indicated by Sheppard (2002, 318), the possibility of entities depend on their relations in respect to others. This example also demonstrates how local and transnational processes interact. In this case the local forest-owner protests and the NGO pro-FSC agenda based largely on forestry shortcomings in distant resource peripheries interact and thereby (re-)produce hybrid governance spaces. For entrepreneurial entities such as business customers of wood products, printing and publishing companies or paper, pulp and cardboard producers, the positionalities of and relation to end-consumers are an important influence which (re-)produces their positionalities. Nevertheless, this is also the case in respect to the positionalities and relations of entities within the resource areas as well as to supply chain external relations. The knowledge networks of articles II, III and IV are a vivid display of how positionalities influence governance processes by affecting the distribution of knowledge to shape rationalities and regimes of practice concerning SFM. The origin of the resource, the supply chain characteristics pre- and post-conversion as well as the local embeddedness of the production facilities in further socio-spatial relations shape the access to knowledge, its integration into varying rationalities and the support for certain regimes of practice (cf. articles II, III, IV). While aspects of these relations may adopt a naturalizing stance (e.g. Harvey, 1996; Murdoch, 2006), in the form of a spatio-temporal fix, these relations are continuously (re-)produced and prone to changes. Thus, the positionalities and rationalities of entities guiding the governance conduct of other entities are prone to change as well. Examples of this from the case studies include the shifting rationalities of the German paper industries from initial rejection of certification to support of PEFC and mutual recognition (article II), and the various shifts of business customer demands to the transnational forest companies, which consequently changed the positionalities and rationalities of those companies as well (article IV). This consensual and contested character of governance spaces (cf. Murdoch, 2006) must further integrate features not only external to SFM criteria, but also perceived as external to wood supply chains or wood product markets in general. Political agendas and leanings (e.g. article III), personal values based on individual rationalities, or bio-physical events such as cold winters and frozen harbours (e.g. article II) are but a few examples which affect positionalities and influence the (re-)production of rationalities. Specifically, individual rationalities and political agendas are influenced by numerous socio-spatial relations external to forestry or wood market economics based on the positionality of entities. This shows another interlinkage of the contested character of ‘truth’ claims and the entities’ positional-
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ity and resulting rationalities in terms of deciding in favour of one technology for SFM or another. Thus, for regimes of practice of environmental forest governance to be successful, their ‘truth’ claims and utilized technologies must be compatible with the positionality of the entities they seek to enrol. While positionalities in all their heterogeneity are challenging to fully integrate, the inability to achieve this, at least partially, into governance processes is prone to be contested in the realm of implementation or consumption. This view supports and enhances Murdoch’s (2004) findings that implementation of central policies, or in this case forest governance processes, are influenced by localized rationalities. Implementation in regard to environmental forest governance and SFM takes place in the forest resource areas and peripheries. Furthermore, market campaigns are based on various evaluation results of forest management practices in the resource peripheries. Knowledge and ‘truth’ claims (re)produced by different regimes of practice are strongly related to the positionalities of the entities entailed in these regimes. This is extremely relevant in terms of the access to knowledge as described above and, specifically, the forestry industry in regard to their core-periphery relations such as their resource areas, target markets and supply chain characteristics (e.g. articles II & IV). While the resulting knowledge networks and their regimes of practice promote their ’truth’ claims and technologies towards market actors, an understanding of relational governance spaces must include the positionality of the implementing entities in the forest. Integrating the positionalities of entities involved in core-periphery relations also provides further insight into how positionality influences forest governance and how shifting rationalities among these related entities are integrated by the various regimes of practice. The positionalities of organizations or individuals which implement forest practices are the key aspect in producing their knowledge networks, as indicated in detail in the previous section and in article V. Important relations which (re-) produces these differing positionalities are private compared to corporate ownership structures. This difference alone entails a multiplicity of relations which influence the (re-)production of the positionalities in governance space. Not only are forest resources owned by companies more prone to public campaigning (article V), they also can in most cases draw on relations such as intensive planning methods and advanced technical processes in their management compared to most privately owned forests. While the latter aspects might appear at first sight negative towards their positionality in regard to SFM, it enables a faster integration of certification criteria, and thus adjustment to one or another regime of practice. For instance, in respect to company holdings it was stated that “…every corner of their lands are charted and they know where these key habitats are…” (Interview IV); thus, they must be considered as being in a favourable positionality to integrate certain criteria if those criteria suit their rationalities. Private holdings, for instance in Finland, currently lack most of the positionality aspects that could render them more receptive to the rationalities of the critical regimes of practice and protests in the core markets (cf. article V).
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Positionalities of entities in forestry often appear to be rather naturalized spatio-temporal fixes in a relational space; for instance, the attitudes of German forest owners in regard to their being the inventors of SFM (article III) or the role of clearcutting as forest management practice in Finnish forestry (article V). Still, in respect to hybrid governance processes other than spatialities, the temporality of such fixes in terms of the positionality of the entities must be considered. Illustrative of this in Finnish forestry are the changes from selective logging practices to clearcutting, which began in the 1950s (Siiskonen, 2007), and the current debate over altering the strongly regulated forest management system to integrate unevenaged forestry (article V). This constant (re)production and becoming of relational space (cf. Massey, 2005) is strongly guided by the shifting positionalities of the involved entities. Therefore, the positionalities of entities in the forest are not only (re-)produced by locally embedded relations but also in regard to their relation to the markets via transnational forestry companies and to a changing local as well as transnational societal space in general. Examples of this include the changing role of forestry in the economy of the state, region or individual forest owner, increasing access to a wider array of information or a growing concern with environmental global degradation. While the same accounts for entities within the markets (e.g. consumers and business customers) and producers, the positionality of forestdwelling entities to accept certain technologies for SFM is more strongly related through practical experience and technicalities in terms of implementation than by sheer postulates of thought (e.g. Huxley, 2007), as is the case for most market entities. In contrast, the practical experiences and resulting regimes of practice are (re-)produced through relations of these entities to specific spatio-temporal fixes in terms of forestry and forest management; An example of this is the monopolistic structure of Finnish private forest management by forest centres and their recent reliance on clear-cutting (article V). Most of the previous examples indicate the importance of knowledge networks as an aspect (re)producing positionalities and thereby shaping the conduct of entities in governance processes. The relational processes which are found in positionality and governance processes dissolve traditional notions of scale as utilized in many accounts of governance and lead, in regard to the core-periphery relations surrounding the topic, to the re-scaling of governance processes mentioned by Bulkeley (2005). Thus, how do such processes (re-)produce these governance spaces and enable a re-scaling of core-periphery relations?
4.2.1 Re-scaling governance: positionalities of core-periphery relations
One aim of this study and its relational approach is to overcome the more structured and fixed-scale notions of governance such as top-down, bottom-up, multilevel or market-driven governance (e.g. Cashore, 2002; Bache & Flinders, 2004; Paterson et al., 2003). This is done by demonstrating the becoming and (re-) production of governance spaces as a relational, transnational process not by separate scales or levels but through hybrid assemblage (cf. Bulkeley, 2005). The positionalities of entities, due to their heterogeneous character, equal to processes
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(re-)producing space itself (cf. Sheppard, 2002; Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006), are therefore a key aspect in unfolding relational space per se. Regimes of practice, their rationalities and knowledge networks are one main aspect of these positionalities, as has been shown above. Relational governance spaces, in this case, aspects of environmental forest governance by means of certification, undergo a constant re-scaling process based on the varying positionalities of the involved entities. Such involvement is not restricted to entities within the supply or commodity chains of wood products, organizations or institutions related to forestry but include a far broader array of relations which (re-)produce the positionalities of these entities. Thus, before drawing conclusions based on this study and its affiliated cases, I would like to briefly illustrate this re-scaling of governance processes in terms of the core-periphery relations of environmental forest governance. In this way I further aim to highlight the transnational character of governance processes which I might not have been able to fully crystalize in the case studies (articles I-V). For purposes of simplification I will utilize a rather simple example of a supply chain consisting of resource periphery (forest entities) – forest industry – business customer – consumer derived from the empirical data of the case studies. Obviously, external actors in supply chains such a NGOs and political institutions are integrated. Similar examples are found in articles II and IV. Most entities in these spheres can be attributed to a certain scale or a level in terms of their situatedness or direct activities such as local, transnational or even global. Nevertheless, while such a more or less fixed scalar thinking might represent the ideas of the organizations themselves about their responsibilities, it fails to explain relational governance processes. Thus, it fails to integrate the interlinked (re)production of positionalities leading to the re-scaling of governance processes, as described by Bulkeley (2005). Similar to the relational knowledge networks discussed above and exemplified in Figure 3, the positionalities of entities in forest governance are (re)produced. With the two certification systems as technologies of governance, supported by their respective regimes of practice, the positionalities involved in a simple sales talk between a transnational forestry company and a business customer provide a suitable way of illustrating and evaluating these above-mentioned aspects. On the one hand is the positionality of a business customer, linked mainly to a certain consumer market and concerned with its own specific wood-based products such as packaging cardboard, glossy magazine papers or sawn wood and, on the other, the transnational forestry industry company providing the basic material it has either purchased from various forest owners or sourced from its own forests. Such sales talks are an important aspect of environmental governance through forest certification since demands are voiced, negotiations on alternatives take place and decisions on accepting and demanding one or the other certification system are made (e.g. article IV). Thus, through the decisions one or the other regime of practice and its technologies is supported, which influences forest governance. Consequently, owing to the multiplicity of position-
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alities involved even a single sales talk cannot be framed as a process deriving from or taking place on different fixed scales, but as part of a relational, hybrid (re-)production of governance space. Re-scaling in this respect appears more as a vertical though heterogeneous and fluid process than that commonly used to refer to horizontal levels. The main aspects of the positionalities of business customers are (re-)produced through the direct relations with their markets and consumer demands. Quality, sustainability or content are but some of these demands, which in turn are (re-) produced through the relations of the entities in these realms (e.g. article II). For German market entities these include the high visibility of NGO campaigns backed by a comparatively strong green political agenda, as well as a well-perceived, traditional forest sector with considerably high international environmental standards supported by more conservative political powers (e.g. article II & III). Compared to entities in other countries or areas, these relations, thus the positionalities of business customers, for instance in the UK or the Netherlands, differ. To name only one main difference, both countries lack their own strong forest sector and rely heavily on wood imports, with the Netherlands, due to its role as a trade and transit nation, specifically tied to tropical wood. Yet the positionalities of the entities in the core markets are (re-)produced neither independently nor uniformly in relation to their territorial scale. NGO protests, hence customer rationalities which are influenced by these campaigns, are framed by events in different forest peripheries. Thus, they integrate the rationalities, although often one-sided and partial (e.g. Sarkki, 2011; article V), and peculiarities of these peripheries into their positionality. Furthermore, different sectors and even single entities within a market have differing positionalities (article II). The comparison of retail companies and magazine publishers/printers in article II is a good example of this. Therefore, the various aspects of their products are an important influence on their relations with customers and towards the certification debate itself. While a specific content ties consumers to a certain magazine, its environmental properties are perceived to be less important than competitive aspects when compared to other magazines. In contrast, in respect to garden furniture or sawn wood, a wider choice, provided by several companies exists and thus the critical approach through FSC is deemed an additional quality. These positionalities are further influenced by the source of origin and the rationalities on this realm in the home market. For instance, aside from rather similar management practices, in terms of wood products Sweden and Finland are promoted rather differently from the German, NGO-led debate about boreal forestry. To return to the business customers in regard to sales talks, their positionalities as illustrated above, also shape the integration and utilization of various knowledge networks. Accesses to certain sustainable forestry/product databases, buyer organizations such as GFTN or reliance on knowledge from transnational forestry companies, are relations which (re-)produce their rationalities and thus guide their conduct and influence forest governance processes. A case similar to that of the business customer exists for the other party involved in such a sales talk, the transnational forestry company; it is embedded in
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multiple, heterogeneous relations which (re)produce its positionalities. In most cases, these companies must be concerned with entities in several core and peripheral locations, and with their positionalities. Thus, while the market can be integrated in terms of the positionality of the opponents in the sales talks, the positionalities of various entities in the forest peripheries, be it forest owners, institutions or contractors, must be integrated by the forestry companies. For instance, the transnational companies should maintain good relations with their local suppliers as well as with the political sphere (national politics) in their resource areas. Again, it is likely that the positionalities of forest entities are only partially or unilaterally considered, which is among the reasons for conflicts and NGO campaigns in the first place. When addressing demands of business customers the positionalities of the transnational forestry companies shift as they encounter the positionalities of a business partner, which most probably differ from those of a previous partner. This may even be the case with sequential communication with the same business customer, due to the constant (re-)production of space (Massey, 2005; Murdoch, 2006) taking place in general under the changing positionalities of both sides. This can be a result of changing positionalities in the peripheries; an example of this could be the final acceptance of the Finnish FSC standard or the political debate on even versus uneven aged forest management; or to changing positionalities in the core, such as new protest campaigns or changed procurement regulations. In all respects, due to the relational character of space, a change of positionality, even though it might be linked to a certain realm or a perceived fixed scale, (re-)produces the positionalities of other involved entities, mostly their rationalities and their conduct. Thus, a re-scaling of governance processes takes place not merely as an exception but more as a normal, constant process which shapes the becoming of a relational space of environmental forest governance. As part of the transnational relations of wood trade and supply such re-scaling appears more as a vertical process since these hybrid governance assemblages are (re-)produced throughout the core-periphery relations of knowledge production, distribution and decisionmaking. Thus, fixed or single scale thinking hinders the comprehension of coreperiphery processes in respect to how the positionalities of entities influence rationalities and how knowledge networks, regimes of practice and technologies of SFM are utilized and (re-)produce governance processes and their spaces. The last section of this dissertation will draw conclusions in two parts on the aspects discussed above and present the findings of this research. The first conclusion is linked to the empirical findings of the various case studies; that is to say the governance processes of forest certification as a technology for SFM through a relational lens. Second, the implications of these case studies to develop and put forth a theoretical understanding of a relational space in environmental (forest) governance as proposed by this dissertation will be presented. Together, these aspects further support the possibilities of the theoretical generalization of this study and its methodological framework as applicable to the study of other realms of natural resource governance such as mining, fisheries or agriculture.
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5 Conclusion I have decided to limit this concluding section to the most general findings, since many thoughts have already been presented throughout the articles and in the previous section. Throughout the study the forest certification systems have been presented as an important part of environmental forest governance. At the same time, the study has highlighted the fact that forest governance systems such as certification, should neither be regarded as a separate mode of governance nor as simplified accounts such as non-state market-driven forest governance, when approached by a relational perspective. While these are only the most obvious conclusions of this study, the last pages will illustrate the role of certification as a tool for environmental governance and the theoretical approach to relational space of environmental forest governance.
5.1 Forest certification and environmental governance Forest certification systems promote themselves and are promoted by their supporting entities to provide a rather unified means for SFM. While these claims are frequently voiced through a global or at least transnational perspective, it has become obvious throughout the case studies that when looking at localized cases these unified claims are blurred by local peculiarities and the varying positionality of entities. Still, along with the forest certification system a multiplicity of regimes of practices emerge which call for the domination of their technology, be it FSC or PEFC, as the naturalized mode of SFM. Forest certification labels are market instruments which seek to simplify the inspection of sustainable products. This aspect is one of the critical aspects in relation to forest governance in general. Since market actors are mainly confronted with these unified, global SFM claims, this market/consumer-driven aspect, which is important to the forest certification systems, ignores the producers’ positionalities that are mostly located in the forest peripheries. Some supporters of one certification system might stress the varying implementation of the opposing system just to highlight the common approach of theirs. While this provides relatively clear lines of debate in the markets, this approach represents neither forest management nor forest governance. The question then arises as to what part forest certification can play in the game of environmental forest governance spaces in addition to setting global criteria and standards to be implemented in various modes and precision depending on the positionalities of their entities. Therefore, it becomes obvious throughout the different cases (articles II-V) that in terms of environmental forest governance
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the issue is not so much about better or worse forest management through certification but the sufficiency of a system to provide SFM, based on the rationalities of the entities involved or their deemed importance. This perceived sufficiency of one or the other system to provide SFM must fit the market positionalities and rationalities of the entities largely as a postulate of thought (e.g. Huxley, 2007), while in the resource peripheries, or forests in general, it must suit the rationalities and positionalities of the involved entities more in terms of practical aspects of forestry. It therefore requires a relational reflexivity not merely from the perspective of consumers or business customers (e.g. Murdoch & Miele, 2004) but from the rationalities of the entities of multiple sites within a transnational governance space. However, it remains important to stress that even though a technology fits most, or the majority, of the involved entities’ rationalities, this should not necessary be equated with good governance. The forest is an important entity in the relational space of forest governance, as can be seen from numerous accounts, statistics or forestry reports and their disputed findings; it remains relatively difficult for human entities to integrate the good governance of the forests’ rationalities and conceptualize what is good SFM and what not, aside from their own positionality. Moreover, the forest and its modes of SFM under discourse are always a partially, socially constructed entity with definitions of SFM as heterogeneous as the rationalities and positionalities they derive from. Consequently, whether a certification system is perceived as a valuable technology for SFM depends largely on the current rationalities and resulting definition of SFM for the dominant regime of practice. While some of these rationalities on the provision of SFM by certification systems stem from direct forest practices, statistics or ecological surveys, themselves socially constructed, the findings of the study demonstrated the strength of the effects of relations external to these forest-related aspects in the decision-making of entities and their conduct. This also supports the transnational character highlighted by this study as forest governance cannot be understood by focusing separately on the market, resource or supply chain. Hence, studies on governance must evaluate the heterogeneous relations which also span and (re-)produce their spaces in terms of the integration of less obvious realms of influence. To my understanding such aspects reduce the possibility of ‘globalized’ certification systems to credibly provide a commonly improved forestry. Sadly, this seems to be the case with most transnational attempts in forestry or natural resource governance. To avoid being called a hypocrite due to the statements I have made above, certification has been found to play an important role in environmental forest governance. This not so much due to its disputed on-ground effects, but the relational networks of knowledge (re-)production and distribution which surround their discourse. Similar to the shift from mute to reflective power (Tynkkynen, 2010), these discourses strongly (re-)produce the relations between core and periphery and integrate environmental aspects of forestry into day-to-day wood-based product trading and governance. Yet, compared to other accounts of forest certification (Cashore et al., 2004; Meidinger, 2011), the findings of this study cast doubts on claims that
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certification promotes a democratization of forest governance processes. This is aside from the transnational and largely open space of forest governance itself, due to the fact that both certification systems, through their internal structures, marginalize certain entities (articles II-V), especially in their struggle for hegemony as technology for SFM. There is, however, another, more positive side to the coin, which is based exactly on that openness presented throughout the study. The wood-based product trade and, subsequently, forest governance is a transnational process. In addition to the positionalities of the national chapters of the certification systems, the certification systems as private entities involve relations which enable them to respond in a more flexible way than international politics to pressing issues of environmental governance. By (re-)producing new relations and internationally linked regimes of practice in the governance space under examination they are able to influence the direction of wider governance processes and also become part of the political process (e.g. article III). Nevertheless, the success of a single certification system in terms of gaining acceptance or mere survival has been found to be based not only on aspects such as consumer demand, strict criteria or industry support, but on how the rationalities of their regimes of practice suit the positionalities and rationalities of the affected entities and vice versa. The case studies affiliated with this research provide numerous examples of this. Furthermore, the localized empirical evidence of the case studies tied to the relational framework stress the transnationality of these processes. This occurs not as an overarching concept or on a scalar level as global-governance, but from the perspective that local peculiarities and relations must be integrated through their transnational context and positionality. This accounts for the certification schemes as well as for governance processes in general. All processes of governance, such as the workings of forest certification systems, are (re-)produced by their spatialities and resulting rationalities. Therefore, the study indicates that a narrow focus on criteria, standards or biased consumer polls is critical to evaluate how forest certification systems interact and function in a transnational governance space. As mentioned by Lefebvre (in: Luke, 2009, 32), environmental governance loses sight of ‘the lived’ in many green statist cases. This is also the case in many accounts of certification and environmental forest governance, an aspect I hope to have remedied to some degree with this account, specifically throughout the case studies (articles I-V). This maybe not occur by means of straightforward discourse analyses characterised by an abundance of ‘live’ quotations from the interviewees (e.g. Tynkkynen, 2010), but by pointing out and visualizing the fluid and relational (re-)production of the positionalities of groups, organizations or individuals based on their own and the ‘others’ accounts. Thus, the ‘lived’, the relational aspects which (re-)produce the constant becoming of governance spaces (Massey, 2005), have been highlighted by means of forest certification as they are at the heart of hybrid environmental forest governance processes. The last part of this dissertation concludes with a final theorization of the main concept of this study: the relational space of environmental forest governance and its possibilities for generalization and value as a methodological approach to study governance.
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5.2 Relational spaces of environmental, (forest) governance The concepts of relational space in general and their links to aspects of governmentality as utilized by this study have been described in detail in chapter 3 and by the theoretical sections of the various articles. Furthermore, the empirical aspects I consider illustrative of such a relational space are depicted in the case studies (articles I-V) and to some degree in the summary part of this dissertation. Therefore, the remaining few paragraphs focus on the theoretical implication of my conception of relational spaces of environmental forest governance for studies on environmental governance in general and, for instance, governance concerned with natural resources. Above all, environmental forest governance as a relational space, thus the processes which manage, negotiate and integrate environmental aspects into forestry and its related trade flows, should not be misunderstood to provide normative results on the outcomes of forest governance or management. By rejecting the study of governance processes along certain fixed spatial axes, such as top-down, multi-level or supply chain, it proves a valuable tool in providing research on complex transnational governance processes. The relational, spatial perspective, with its focus on knowledge (re-)production and distribution by a changing, heterogeneous set of entities to achieve certain ends, enables this approach to reach beyond the mere surface of governance processes (e.g. Murdoch, 2006). All entities involved in one way or another with (forest) governance (re-)produce their rationalities based on their positionalities, thus due to their relations with other entities, be they human or non-human. While rationalities guide the conduct of entities (e.g. Gordon, 1991; Foucault, 2007; Dean 2010), hence (re-)produce governance spaces, the study of such relations enables the understanding of the governance processes at hand. The conceptualization of the relational space of environmental forest governance provides a framework to delve into these transnational relations, including more or less any actor or relation deemed appropriate. However, what is deemed appropriate for integration is largely based on which relations are regarded as playing a role by the entities themselves throughout their gathered perceptions and rationalities. This is the case not solely in regard to the direct topic under evaluation (e.g. sustainable forestry) or the entities belonging to perceived institutional or non-institutional power structures (e.g. NGOs, Politics, companies), but it enables the integration of relations which are deemed external from the perspective of most accounts of environmental or forest governance. The perceived external relations, specifically in terms of the positionality of the entities, also have an important stake in respect to the problematizations of entities related to governance and SFM. While Vallance (2007) rightfully points out, for instance, that supply chain governance knowledge must be compatible with the knowledge of the market actors, thus their rationalities and resulting problematizations, the same must contrasting be recognized in terms of actors
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in the peripheries or elsewhere if conflicts are to be avoided (article IV). These often forgotten (cf. Hayter et al., 2003), yet tremendously important heterogeneous core-periphery relations of transnational governance processes are major aspects which affect the (re-)production of governance spaces. The underlying problematizations must therefore be regarded from a transnational multiplicity to grasp governance as a relational space. Therefore they cannot be separated or treated singularly, for instance, as generalized market perceptions of bad forest practices in some resource periphery. If governance is regarded as a relational space, as conceptualized by this study, it enables the researcher to access the heterogeneous character of knowledge production and distribution. This does not merely derive from a specific scale, but is integrated into the multiplicity of regimes of practice with their interacting knowledge networks which span the core-periphery relations and in this case (re-)produce the ‘truth’ claims on certification and SFM. Consequently, these various regimes, through their knowledge production, maintenance and distribution, contribute to the re-scaling of governance assemblages of the core-periphery relations and their involved entities. The dislocation of most market entities from the resource peripheries further illustrates the necessity of evaluating such varying rationalities and their relations in order to gain a broader understanding of the governance processes. In terms of environmental forest governance the current discourse between the critical and the pragmatic regimes of practice can thus be regarded as a re-scaling of governance into more vertical, yet strongly heterogeneous, assemblages of knowledge networks and technologies. The term vertical here stands not for a hierarchical concept, but for the transnational character of core-periphery relations which is omnipresent, even though in a partially unconscious way (e.g. article V), in the debate on environmental forest governance. Additionally, this re-scaling process, as indicated by the discourse between respective regimes above must be noted in its (re-)produced multiplicity and not to create singular new fixed scales. Thus, even though such re-scaling processes might aim to institutionalize governance assemblages from the perspective of their regimes of practice (Bulkeley, 2005), the findings of this study indicate that due to the open character of the governance space under examination, such attempts are unlikely to be achieved in a transnational space. As presented by the example of the sales talk, this constant re-scaling of environmental governance spaces based on shifting rationalities and positionalities must be integrated into hybrid accounts of environmental governance. The relational perspective therefore allows a more profound understanding of which relations have contributed to the development of various problematizations and the resulting support for certain governmental technologies. While this accounts for governmental technologies of forest governance, it does so in other realms of governance. As should have become obvious throughout this summary and the affiliated articles, relations provide this approach with its cutting edge to evaluate hybrid governance spaces. The sheer depth of what relations can include provides such analyses with a vast array of possibilities concerning which processes can and
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should be implement. In addition, the temporality of relations and the treatment of events and regimes merely as spatio-temporal fixes represent governance spaces for what they are - a constant act of becoming (cf. Massey, 2005). Thus, the various relations presented in this research, be they sales talks, procurement legislations, values of place/forestry or biophysical events in their various spatio-temporal settings, are constantly re-scaling the modes of environmental (forest) governance and have been presented in a novel way to understand and specifically evaluate hybrid governance spaces. Massey (2005) points out the challenging, yet rewarding character of relationality and in this study I have sought to highlight the great strength which relational approaches possess specifically for the evaluation of natural resource governance. While the concept of relational space of governance sometimes appears to lose itself in details, I allow myself to draw on a common figure of speech: ‘the devil is in the details’. Thus, as presented throughout the case studies, the smallest details may also matter and can influence governance spaces and their processes while reliance solely on organizational or institutional forms of environmental governance remains prone to simplification and often naive generalization. Finally, in regard to power topologies, in terms of whose or what positionality allows an entity or regime of practice to drive governance processes in a certain direction, the concept provides a rather clear focal point. The (re-)production of a spatio-temporal fix perceived as natural, for instance, by means of establishing one’s governmental technology as a widely accepted tool for SFM and to cater to a transnational accepted problematization, provides the means for the regimes of practice in these relational governance spaces to steer governance. However, the ability to (re-)produce such a quasi-naturalized spatio-temporal fix, whether in environmental forest governance or governance of another realm, remains related to the positionalities of the entities involved, demonstrated by the contested and consensual discourses surrounding various spatio-temporal fixes and ‘truth’ claims. Hence, as positionalities are parts of open, relational spaces of governance, the constant becoming of these spaces simultaneously (re-)produces the entities’ positionalities, rationalities and thus the conduct of actors and regimes of practice alike. Hence, to study environmental or other modes of governance based on a conceptualization such as the relational space of environmental forest governance enables us to demonstrate such power-generating topologies as well as processes of marginalization. Following Allen (2009), this enables us to understand why some governance arrangements are able to guide processes while others fail to do so. Finally, while this approach is less applicable to generate estimates about the outcomes of governance processes, or in terms of good environmental governance, the actual sustainability or suitability of the employed technologies, it provides an understanding and helps to unfold how governance processes and their hybrid assemblages become (re-)produced in a relational space and is therefore able to generate alternatives for development. Additionally, governance in a relational space as regarded in this study always functions, since it is a continuous
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process despite its outcomes, conflicts or perceived bad/good results. I therefore regard a conceptual framework of relational spaces of (environmental) governance as a valuable and novel tool to unfold processes of hybrid governance and provide a broader understanding on how environmental aspects are negotiated and integrated into a formerly purely economic environment. While in this study this framework has been utilized primarily for environmental forest governance, its relational characteristics enable it to be employed for the evaluation of numerous spaces of natural resource governance.
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Interviews Interview I Interview II Interview III Interview IV
Official at forest certification organization, 27 October 2008. Official at transnational forestry corporation A (by phone), 19 October 2009. Official at transnational forestry corporation B, 12 November 2009. Manager of Finnish forestry contracting company, 15 January 2011.
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Articles This thesis consists of the summary and the following articles, which are referred to in the text by Roman numeral (I-V).
I
Albrecht, M. (2010). Sustainable Forest Management through Forest Certification in Russia’s Barents Region: Processes in the Relational Space of Forest Certification. In: Fryer, P., Brown-Leonardi, C., & Soppela, P.
(Eds.). Encountering the Changing Barents: Research Challenges and Opportunities; Arctic Centre Reports 54, pp. 24-34. Rovaniemi: Arctic-Centre. Reprinted with kind permission by Arctic-Centre, University of Lapland.
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Albrecht, M. (2010). Company positionality and its effects on transnational forest governance: Two companies and their approaches to forest certification. Geographische Zeitschrift, 98(2), 116-132. Reprinted with kind
permission by Franz Steiner Verlag.
III Albrecht, M. (2012). Public Procurement and Forest Governance: A German Case Study of Governmental
Influences on Market-Driven Governance Systems. Social Sciences 1(1), 4-23.
IV Albrecht, M. (unpublished). Environmental customer demands: market relations, knowledge networks and their
effects on (forest) governance and practices. Submitted manuscript for Geografiska Annaler B (under review).
V
Albrecht, M. (2012). Perceiving sustainable forest spaces: governance aspects of private and company owned
forests in North-Karelia, Finland. Fennia 190(1), 3-18.
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2. Sustainable Forest Management through Forest Certification in Russia’s Barents Region: Processes in the Relational Space of Forest Certification15 Moritz Albrecht Department of Geographical and Historical Studies University of Eastern Finland Joensuu, Finland
2.1. Introduction With more than 80% of Europe’s forest cover, Russia is the biggest exporter of round wood in the world, whereas Europe and East Asia are the main importers of these resources (FAO 2007: 90). Northwest Russia and especially the Barents Region of Russia play a major role in exports to the West (Karvinen et al. 2006: 82). Thus, Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) is important to safeguard this natural resource. However, since the 1990s Russian forestry has been better known for illegal logging activities and the destruction of pristine old-grown forests, whereby Western companies participate in cut and run practices (Greenpeace 2006; Hirschberger 2008). Due to a lack of international binding agreements in forestry and the ineffectiveness of Russian legislation and bureaucracy leading to mismanagement, environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) are favouring voluntary certification schemes to address these problems (Gulbrandsen 2004: 75). Thus, by organising boycotts in the mid-1990s and continuously 15 This report is part of the Project, “Transnationalization of Forest Governance” funded by the Academy of Finland and carried out at the Department of Geography, University of Joensuu (Eastern Finland).
publishing reports about illegal and environmentally degrading forestry activities or the socio-economic failures of Western companies, the big transnational environmental NGOs achieved market influence with which they have tried to establish certification schemes to accomplish improvements in SFM (Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006; Kortelainen 2008). In this article I describe the recent state and future possibilities of SFM through certification by the Forest Stewardship Council16 (FSC) in Russia and its reliance on the relational space of forest certification. Thereby SFM is referred to as a ‘dynamic and evolving’ forest management concept to maintain and increase the value of forests in environmental, social and economical aspects for future generations as stated in the United Nations’ Non-Legally Binding Instrument on all Types of Forests (UN General Assembly 2007: 3). Although the main focus will be on the Russian Barents Region, generic details and results will be presented as well. Following a theoretical section discussing the relational space of forest certification, a brief history of forest certification in Russia is presented in turn, followed by three examples of FSC certified forest companies in the Russian Barents Region.
2.2. Theoretical Framework: Relational Space of Forest Certification Forest certification labels are often regarded as a form of non-state market-driven governance as described by Cashore (2002; Cashore et al. 2004). Within non-state market-driven governance, Cashore suggests green markets are a new source of governing authority (2002: 504; see also Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006; Haufler 2003). In the Russian case, 16
FSC is a voluntary forest certification scheme, supported by various international NGOs. See: www.fsc.org 24
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due to the lack of domestic green markets, such markets are Western export regions. Hence the reason for certification is mostly applicable to exporting companies or foreign-based companies, which fear loss of reputation or boycotts organised by NGOs reminiscent of events in the mid-1990s (Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006: 92; Kortelainen 2008: 1302). This explains the large share of certified forests and forest companies especially in the Russian Barents Region, due to the large proportion of exports going to Western markets and the higher local involvement of foreign-based companies (Välkky et al. 2008: 42). However, these green markets are based on business to business demand within the supply chain for certified wood products, while the green purchasing end-consumer has to be regarded more as a product by NGO campaigns than of purchasing reality (Kortelainen 2008). Through these supply and demand networks, local places in the Russian resource peripheries become entangled in a relational space of forest certification, which is co-produced through market relations. These market relations interconnect actors and their aims as well as values and thereby guide the processes entangled in forest certification in certain directions. This type of relational space of market relations is described by Massey (2005) as in permanent construction, including a multiplicity of changing power relations. Even though such spaces are described as open, Murdoch (2006: 20) describes them as consensual and contested. Since relations, values and their resulting processes are built on consensus-based definitions by certain groups, alternative knowledge might be excluded from these processes. Hence, these processes construct spaces while being created through the interactions of different actors (Murdoch 2006: 22). Additionally, as pointed out by Harvey (1996: 261), these processes rely on defining attributes, which change over space and time, thus denying a permanence of relational space. Nevertheless, Murdoch (2006: 19)
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describes the possibilities of constituted, temporary permanence within relational space. At present, one of these permanences is, as stated by Kortelainen (2008: 14), that the possibilities of certification in Russia increase in nodes connected through governance networks with the central European green markets and therefore are bound to the relational spaces of forestry with these markets. This accounts for certification in the Barents Region and influences the possibilities of an increased SFM through FSC certification. Another aspect to point out is that even though certification systems and especially the FSC are described largely in a neo-liberal approach as nonstate market driven governance systems, state policy is still playing an important role in the relational space of forest certification. This might occur through changes in regulations or, as further described by Castree (2008: 142), through specific political flanking mechanisms, applied by the state to support non-state actors to fulfil traditionally state provided services. Considering Russia’s recent history of political development in environmental protection issues (e.g. Oldfield 2006), one can suggest that environmental and social sustainability are not considered a high priority. Hence, the concept of relational space, because of its focus on shaping processes through interactions, is suitable to describe the possibilities or problems of SFM through forest certification on top of the descriptive aspects of onground measures achieved by Forest Management (FM) certificates17. The next two sections will focus on these on-ground effects by FSC and FM certification, following the approval of a FSC certificate.
17 Forest management certificates are performance based certificates of forestry management practices. 25
2.3. Forest Certification in the Russian Federation Forest certification evolved as an issue for Russian forestry industries by the end of the 1990s, triggered by NGO protests and activities demanding consumer boycotts to protect old-growth forests in the Republic of Karelia and Murmansk Oblast, or province (Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006; Tysiachniouk 2006; BCC 2008). Thus, large logging companies longed to obtain a credibility tool to guarantee environmentally sound products for their Western consumers, whereas NGOs regard FSC certification as favourable to avoid wood products from illegal or old-grown forests (Kotlobay et al. 2003: 49). Since 1998 the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Russian Forest Club18 have been promoting FSC certification in Russia. However, the first FSC certificates were granted in 2000 and 2001 to two logging companies in Nizhnii Novgorod and Arkhangelsk Oblasts without WWF support based on internal requests by their Western co-owners from the UK and Germany (Tysiachniouk 2006: 274; Kotlobay et al. 2003: 50). Since the first certified areas were established as mentioned above, Russia has experienced a massive increase in FSC certification by area through FM certificates and, even though less substantially, through Chain of Custody (hereafter referred to as CoC) certificates19 of wood processing or trading companies since 2004. By December 2008, the amount of FSC certified forestlands had risen from about 2 million hectares in 2004 to 20.3 million 18 The Forest Club of Russia consists of NGOs, including the Socio-Ecological Union, Biodiversity Conservation Centre, Druzhinas for Nature Conservation Movement, Greenpeace Russia, Taiga Rescue Network, the Save Pechora Committee and other individuals. See, www.forest.ru (2008). 19 The Chain of Custody certificate concerns supply chain issues as procurement.
hectares with 70 CoC certificates (FSC Russia 2008). As a result, the share of Russian FSC certified forests represent about 20% of the global area of FSC certified forestlands. Since certification is regarded as increasing the quality of forest management in regards to environmental and socio-economic issues, this rapid increase seems to indicate some success for SFM in Russia. However, while slight decreases of certified areas due to suspended certificates occurred since April 2008, CoC certificates are constantly increasing (FSC Russia 2008). In addition to FSC certification two national schemes have been developed since 2000, largely through industry and state support. In 2006, these systems, the National System of Voluntary Forest Management Certification in Russia and the Russian National Forest Certification Council signed a cooperative agreement to establish a common national standard approved under the international Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification20 (PEFC) system to achieve an internationally recognised label (Karpachevskiy 2006). Supported by Russian politicians and described as favourable by officials from FSC and PEFC (FSC 2008a, PEFC 2008), the national PEFC standard was endorsed in March 2009. However, until now only some PEFC test plots have been established in co-operation with a Finnish forestry company, leaving FSC certification as the only fully operational system in Russia to study companies or landholders who have certified their logging or production facilities with an international label.
20
See, www.pefc.org
26
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2.4. FSC Certified Forests in Russia’s Barents Region: Achievements and Problems Due to the large share of forestry in the regional gross domestic products of the Republic of Komi (24%), Arkhangelsk Oblast (39%) and the Republic of Karelia (45%), forestry has to be seen as one of the main contributors to their economies (figures from 2003; Karvinen et al. 2006: 61). Additionally, these three regions are the main exporters in the Barents Region and amongst the four largest pulp producing regions in Russia. About 50% of pulp production was exported in 2004. The regional economic contribution of forestry for Murmansk Oblast as well as for the Nenets Autonomous Okrug21 are insignificant; thus, while still important on the local level for communities and private use (Välkky et al. 2008: 37), these latter regions are not discussed further in this paper. FSC certificates are promoted as a tool for SFM providing logging, processing or trading companies with a credible label to prove proper management practices, especially in regard to exporting companies and their end customers in the green markets of the EU, mainly Germany, the Netherlands and the UK (Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006: 89; FAO 2007: 94). On account of this point and the economic facts mentioned above, it is obvious why the Barents Region of Russia has to be considered an important region involved in the introduction of forest certification to Russia. By December 2008, 10.9 million hectares were certified under the FSC through FM certificates in the Barents Region. Arkhangelsk constitutes the most (4.7 million ha.), followed by the Republics of Karelia (3.5 million 21 The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (District) is part of Arkhangelsk Oblast at the federal level and has limited regional autonomy. As such, it is included in most statistics of Arkhangelsk Oblast (Välkky et al. 2008: 37).
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ha.) and Komi (2.7 million ha.). Additionally, 36 FSC/ CoC certificates have been granted, with the Republic of Komi in first place with 20 CoC certificates. This can also be related to the republic’s location as further away from the EU border and the smaller share of round wood exports (FSC Russia 2008). Thus, processing facilities for FSC products are more available in the Komi Republic. Notwithstanding the positive numbers, the onground effects of certification are difficult to determine through statistics and these shares of regional economies. As FSC certificated areas are subject to annual controls by certification bodies accredited by the Accreditation Service International22, compliance with the FSC principles should be guaranteed. Nevertheless, due to the lack of a fully Russian FSC standard in the past, different certification bodies have used different standards or non-approved draft versions of standards, which may have resulted in different interpretations from case to case. This creates problems in the credibility of FSC certification as, according to Hirschberger (2005: 9), social issues might be neglected. However, these problems should be addressed by the new standard approved in November 2008, which applies to all certified areas though incorporating a transition period of one year to correct necessary changes (FSC 2008b). A further problem concerning the certification bodies is related to their credibility. As these companies are competing on free markets, customers are attracted by lower prices; thus, according to an FSC official (FSC 2008a), this could threaten the quality of the audits and open up possibilities of unreported failures. Nevertheless, Accreditation Service International controls the certification bodies annually, trying to guarantee good control. In Russia, ownership of land by the 22 ASI is an FSC owned Accreditation Company that offers services to FSC and other certification schemes (ASI 2008). 27
government is another problem, as according to FSC principles, states are excluded from the management process. Thus, the state represents a main stakeholder as landowner; it is accompanied by the Russian bureaucracy and its pitfalls. FSC officials raised this point in an attempt to moderate the influence of state authorities in general to the detriment of NGO interests (FSC 2008c). Yet, the capability to still operate independently within such a surrounding, driven by Western market demand, was deemed a strength of the FSC system. 2.4.1. Examples of FSC Certification To better understand the standards and control mechanisms used, the following three cases are presented as an overview of on-ground effects of FSC/ FM certification. 2.4.1.1. The Priluzie Model Forest The best known case for FSC certification in the Russian Barents Region, the Priluzie Model Forest (PMF), is situated in the Republic of Komi (See Map). Covering 749,409 hectares, the area is inhabited by 27,000 people, the majority (63%) being ethnic Komi, while Russians comprise most of the remaining population (32%) (Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006: 11). The Priluzie Model Forest was established in 1999 and guided towards certification by the WWF between 2000 and 2002. Since achieving FSC certification in 2003, the PMF is currently co-ordinated by the NGO Silver Taiga while being funded by the Swiss agency for Development and Co-operation (Axelsson et al. 2007; Silver Taiga 2008a). The process for certification was strongly based on governmental agencies and the Priluzie Leskhoz23; however, public participation was encouraged as well. Public hearings 23 Forest Management Company established during soviet regime, formerly state owned.
carried out during the certification process were even integrated into the forest legislation of the Republic of Komi. Additionally, training facilities for SFM were established as a form of co-operation with other companies with CoC certification for better market access, connecting the Model Forest to Western markets (Silver Taiga 2008b; Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006: 12). The local community in Priluzie was integrated into the process through the public hearings mentioned above, while the WWF and Silver Taiga provided information materials to schools, libraries and media. Furthermore, a Public Forest Council was established fostering more public participation (Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006: 13; Silver Taiga 2008b). Even though old-grown forests gained increased protection, forest practices themselves appeared to have changed only slightly, which according to Tysiachniouk and Reisman (2004: 168) is related to the separation of leasing contracts between the Leskhoz and logging companies, even though CoC certificates were obtained by the main logging companies. Strong criticism was put forward by the NGO FSC-Watch, which accused the Priluzie Model Forest institutions of disregarding indigenous rights by not separating indigenous people from ordinary citizens, as well as acting on behalf of Mondi Group, a global FSC certified forestry and wood processing company (FSC-Watch 2007). Concerned by this disregard for their interests, local Komi started to protest to defend indigenous rights, demanding that participation in the process be established (FSC-Watch 2007). However, according to Russian legislation, ethnic groups entailing more than 50,000 people are not considered as having indigenous status, which is the case with the Komi population. Therefore, the non-separate treatment of Komi is perfectly in line with Russian legislation; nevertheless, FSC normally relies on the UN definition for indigenous groups, which includes the Komi (FSC 2008c). 28
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2.4.1.2. Dvinskoy Forest Enterprise
2.4.1.3. Maloshuikales
A different example of FSC certification in the Russian Barents Region is the Dvinskoy forest Enterprise, owned by the German company Holz Dammers Moers, situated in Arkhangelsk Oblast, which was amongst the first FSC certified companies in 2000 (HDM 2008). The company controls 1,104,000 hectares in the region, whereby only 131,925 hectares were certified and used to provide FSC certified exports of sawn wood to Germany through a CoC certificated sawmill in Dvinskoy settlement (HDM 2008; FSC Russia 2008). The case of Dvinskoy and Holz Dammers Moers has to be regarded as a negative example of FSC certification as the certificate had already been suspended in 2002, but was regained in 2003 due to a few improvements concerning workers rights and logging practices (Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006: 7). According to Tysiachniouk and Meidinger (2006: 7), FSC certification brought almost no improvements in public participation or public information, contradicting what is stated on the company’s homepage (HDM 2008). However, the certificate has been retained (FSC Russia 2008). The WWF recognised these failures but stated that because of the certification process at least important parts of old-growth forests in the region could be spared from logging in agreement with Holz Dammers Moers (Hirschberger 2005: 13). On the other hand, Greenpeace discovered logging practices in this logging moratorium area, which were confirmed by the accreditation body Smartwood in a 2006 audit (Smartwood 2006: 12). Still, the certificate remained valid after requiring the company to comply with corrective actions (Smartwood 2006: 22). Nevertheless, in March 2008 the certificate was suspended once again, which suggests that improvements in SFM have to be achieved to maintain the FSC-label and that control mechanisms have to be in place and functioning (FSC Russia 2008).
The third example, Maloshuikales, situated close to the White Sea in Arkhangelsk Oblast and managing 336,445 hectares of FSC certified forestland, is a remote settlement solely accessible by train (FSC Russia 2008). The similarly-named forest enterprise gained certification as a preventive measure to meet future customer demands. Due to its advanced technical modernisation and remote access, which decreased the possibility of illegal logging, certification was easily achieved. A moratorium on so-called ‘High Value Conservation Forests’ and improved on-time payment was implemented to achieve certification (Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006: 8–9). Interestingly, even though motivated by the company, public participation did not evolve, which according to Tysiachniouk and Meidinger (2006: 9) was due to the perception of employees of still regarding the company in terms of a Soviet enterprise. Therefore, social services provided today thanks to FSC certification were regarded as being a basic responsibility of the company anyway. Following the expiration of its own certificate after the first five years in 2008, Maloshuykales chose to join the group certification of PLO Onegales Group facilitating a continuous certification processes (GFA Certification 2008). 2.4.2. FSC Certification in Practice in Russia These examples illustrate the problems of describing the on-ground effects of FSC certification for SFM in the Russian Barents Region and in Russia in general, because of the large differences in outcomes described above. However, some common effects can be described for Russia as a whole, which display the importance and popularity of FSC in the Russian Barents Region as a tool for an approach to gain SFM. First, impacts can be seen in the increasing protection of High Value Conservation Forests, oldgrowth forests and habitat structures of endangered species, as well as soil and water protection due to 29
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improved management practices. Thereby, the reduction of illegal logging is very important in the Russian case as stated by Hirschberger (2005: 10). Second, as described by Hirschberger (2005) and Tysiachniouk and Meidinger (2006), FSC certification improves the conditions for workers in terms of safety, workers rights and participation in the decision-making process in many cases, as it fosters an increase in public participation. Third, information about SFM increases and provides a better basis of public and business stakeholders’ knowledge in Russia and the Barents Region, setting the foundations to properly establish SFM in the future, by presenting possibilities and advantages. Thus, the increased quality of forest management and environmental protection due to FSC/ FM certification towards SFM practices is observed in the above mentioned studies. However, in the concluding section I will discuss FSC certification as an approach to SFM in regard to its reliability on the relational space of forest certification. Thus, drawing on my theoretical framework, I will point out the influences, obstacles and possibilities for FSC certification in Russia in relation to upcoming and ongoing processes.
2.5. Discussion: So what about the possibilities of an increase in SFM? I begin by tying the success in recent times of FSC in Russia to different processes influencing the relational space of forest certification. As stated by Murdoch (2006), specific definitions or relations might be contested within relational space by restricting groups or ideas from participation. In the case of forest certification in Russia, the initial exclusion of PEFC certification internationally provided FSC with an advantageous position to increase its presence by being the only certificate within the relational space of forest certification in the country until March 2009. This situation
enabled FSC to strongly increase certified areas, thus providing a larger basis for the emergence of its positive on-ground effects mentioned above, due to the fact that companies longed to obtain a credibility tool as a defence against NGO campaigns (Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006: 95). However, taking into account Harvey’s (1996: 261) statement denying a fixed relational space, the approval of a Russian PEFC standard in 2009 is going to change the defining attributes of forest certification in Russia. On account of the green markets as a source of governing authority as mentioned by Cashore (2002: 504) within the non-state market driven approach and due to a demand largely characterised as business to business, both systems can provide green market access. Additionally, PEFC is partially described as the more flexible, thus easier to implement system of the two (BMELV 2008), while critics regard this flexibility as resulting from weaker standards (FSC 2008a, 2008c). Despite their verification, these claims will have influence on the success of FSC, especially when NGO campaigns are decreasing in strength and effect as mentioned by officials of PEFC and WWF (PEFC 2008, WWF 2008). Other issues affecting the permanent construction of relational spaces as described by Massey (2005) and thus changing the possibilities for approaching SFM through FSC certification in Russia are the announced round wood export tariffs by the Russian Government. Agreed upon by the government in February 2007, these export custom tariffs were set to increase export duties on unprocessed round wood, implementing a final tariff of €50/m3 and therefore making exports unprofitable (FFIF 2008). Even though postponed due to the financial crisis, these tariffs are most probably going to halt all round wood exports from Russia. Concerning the Russian Barents Region and its round wood exports to Finland, this stoppage might have the effect that Finnish CoC certificates will lose their rationale due 30
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to non-existent FSC/ FM certificate requirements from Finland, cutting off an important link to the green Western markets. Especially in the Republic of Karelia and Arkhangelsk Oblast due to a lack of FSC/ CoC certificates compared to FSC/ FM certified areas, motivation to maintain the higher standards of FSC certification with reduced possibilities to utilise the label might drop. However, few concerns were expressed by FSC and WWF officials when presented with this problem (WWF 2008; FSC 2008a). Nevertheless, as mentioned by Castree (2008), this example shows that even though described as loosing influence within the neo-liberal approaches the state can retain strong power either through re-regulation, as in the custom tariffs, or through political flanking mechanisms, as in direct support for the PEFC system. Thus, the participatory approach of FSC reducing the state to be only one amongst many stakeholders in decision making might be seen as an obstacle to political support or to a supporting flanking mechanism in Russia. On the other hand, the broad exclusion of the state adds to the credibility of the system deemed as most important for voluntary certification schemes. Furthermore, it guarantees NGO support and therefore creates a marketing advantage in the green Western markets. However, the sufficiency of this for broad industrial acceptance and success is questionable, especially with PEFC on the edge of entering the Russian certification market, with its assumed higher state support and an equal acceptance by wood trading or processing companies in Western markets. By shifting from the relations and processes motivating companies to become certified towards the effects emerging after certification is achieved, the relational space of forest certification continues to play a major role. Thus, certification outcomes are shaped by the relations between consumers, companies as well as NGOs and politicians inside or outside the resource peripheries. As stated by
Tysiachniouk (2006) and Kortelainen (2008), increasing ties of forest companies to Western markets and export shares are also increasing sustainable management in various cases, while supporting increased economic foundation. Additionally, as mentioned by Tysiachniouk and Meidinger (2006), higher involvement of NGOs in guiding the certification processes leads to higher local community involvement than that from certification motivated by the companies themselves as is displayed in the rather negative case of HDM or in Maloshuykales. Hence, direct on-ground effects are strongly influenced by market ties and different stakeholder involvement. Thus, on account of a lower level of NGO involvement within PEFC, FSC is presented as advanced in increasing SFM on participatory issues, which links the importance of processes within the relational space concerning the different systems and the actual effect on SFM. However, it cannot be ignored that PEFC most probably will have positive effects on SFM in Russia as well. In general it has to be noted that FSC certification has an overall positive effect on SFM in Russia, especially in the Barents Region when companies decide to participate. Even though the shortcomings are numerous and most management practices cannot be considered fully sustainable, significant improvements of management practices and social standards prior to certification are recognised by numerous studies (e.g. Hirschberger 2005; Tysiachniouk 2006; Tysiachniouk and Meidinger 2006). This was additionally pointed out by a representative of the certification body GFA Certification (2008). The problem concerning a missing national standard and differing auditing practices, as well as the lack of full stakeholder inclusiveness which, according to Gulbrandsen (2004: 83), might have watered down the full effects of certification in Russia, can be partially addressed by the new approved standard. Nevertheless, possible 31
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problems with certification bodies and their credibility remain even though NGOs maintain an external control network on certificate holders and their certification bodies, while being an important internal node of the relational space of forest certification (FSC 2008c). Additionally, cases such as HDM show that certificates can get suspended due to non-compliance. On account of company preferences, varying auditing costs may pose an obstacle to small-scale forestry companies with limited budgets and international ties as in the example of Murmansk Oblast. Even though FSC is trying to address these problems by cheaper group certifications, as is positively presented by the move of Maloshuykales into a group certificate, smaller companies still might prefer to join eventually cheaper or possibly less restrictive regional certification under PEFC standards. In general, companies’ future decisions to support a specific system will become strongly influenced by the changing demand situation on the domestic as well as international market. Thereby, the political flanking mechanism by the Russian government, as well as by Western governments, for instance through green procurement directives accepting different standards, will play an increasing role. Thus, future development will show whether FSC certification is able to continue its rapid rise and improve its contribution to SFM in Russia while showing its ability to cope with future developments as the looming round wood custom tariffs or the emergence of PEFC certification in the Russian market. As described before, as a relational space, forest certification in Russia, due to its ongoing production through interactions and processes, is constantly in the making, something that also applies to an improved SFM through FSC certification in Russia’s Barents Region. Nevertheless, in terms of a provisional permanence (cf. Murdoch 2006) of this relational space, FSC can be nominated as the most
successful alternative to approaching SFM practices in Russia and its Barents Region for almost a decade.
References ASI. 2008. Accreditation Service International GmbH [online]. Available from: http://www.accreditation-services.com/ [Accessed 17 February 2009]. Axelsson, R., Angelstam, P. and Elbakidze, M. 2007. Baltic Forest WP 5, Sustainable Forest Management arenas in the NW Russia: three implementation projects. In: 4th Baltic Forest Meeting, October 22–25, 2007, Vilnius, Lithuania [online]. Available from: http://www.balticforest.net/files/lit_axelsson-3russian-mf-20071023.pdf [Accessed 2 June 2008]. BCC. 2008. Results achieved within the Forest Program in collaboration with other conservation organizations [online]. Available from: http://www.biodiversity.ru/eng/programs/forest/r esults.html [Accessed 20 January 2009]. BMELV. 2008. Interview with expert on sustainable forestry, certification and chain of custody, Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. 21.01.2008, BMELV, Bonn. Cashore, B., Auld, G. and Newsom, D. 2004. Governing through markets: forest certification and the Emergency of Non-State Authority. Yale University Press, London. Cashore, B. 2002. Legitimacy and the Privatization of Environmental Governance: How Non-State Market-Driven (NSMD) Governance Systems Gain Rule-Making Authority. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 15 (4), 503–529. Castree, N. 2008. Neoliberalising nature: the logics of deregulation and reregulation. Environment and Planning A, 40, 131–152. 32
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FAO. 2007. State of the World’s Forests. FAO, Rome. FFIF. 2008. Higher export duties for Russian timber would make imports to Finland unprofitable [online]. Available from: http://www.forestindustries.fi/JuuriNyt/Ajankoht aista/Pages/HigherexportdutiesforRussiantimberw ouldmakeimportstoFinlandunprofitable.aspx [Accessed 07 January 2009]. forest.ru. 2008. Forest Club of Russian nongovernmental organizations [online]. Available from: http://www.forest.ru/club.html [Accessed 27 May 2008]. FSC. 2008a. Interview with Hubert Kwisthout, FSC int. Network Manager, 24.10.2008, FSC int., Bonn. FSC. 2008b. Russian National FSC Standard Approved, 29.11.2008 [online]. Available from: http://www.fsc.org/news.html?&tx_ttnews[tt_ne ws]=78&tx_ttnews[backPid]=22&cHash=d647a9 db4d [Accessed 1 January 2009]. FSC. 2008c. Interview with Marion Karmann, FSC int. Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, 22.10.2008, FSC int., Bonn. FSC. Russia 2008. Razvitie FSC в Rossii [online]. Available from: http://www.fsc.ru [Accessed 18 December 2008]. FSC-Watch. 2007. ‘Non-existing’ indigenous people challenge WWF’s certified ‘model’ forest project, Komi, Russia [online]. Available from: http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/05/30/ _Non_existent__indigenous_people_challenge_ WWF_s_certified__model__forest_project__Ko mi__Russia [Accessed 29 May 2008). GFA Certification. 2008. Email communication with GFA Certification official. 19.12.2008 Greenpeace. 2006. Partners in Crime: A Greenpeace Investigation into Finland’s Illegal Timber Trade with Russia. Greenpeace International, Amsterdam.
Gulbrandsen, L.H. 2004. Overlapping Public and Private Governance: Can Forest Certification Fill the Gaps in the Global Forest Regime? Global Environmental Politics, 4 (2), 75–99. Harvey, D. 1996. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Blackwell, Oxford. Haufler, V. 2003. New Forms of Governance: Certification Regimes as Social Regulations of the Global Market. In: Meidinger, E., Elliott, C. and Oesten, G., eds. Social and Political Dimensions of Forest Certification. www.forstbuch.de, Freiburg, 237–247. HDM. 2008. FSC Zertifizierung [online]. Available from: http://hdm.info/portal/index.php?lang=de&extra =&site=1§ion=about&ber=0&site=5 [Accessed 20 September 2008]. Hirschberger, P. 2005. The effects of FSCCertification in Russia. An Analysis of Corrective Action Requests [online]. Available from: http://assets.panda.org/downloads/fscanalysisrussi a.pdf [Accessed 25 May 2008]. Hirschberger, P. 2008. Illegaler Holzeinschlag und Deutschland. WWF Deutschland, Frankfurt a. M. Karpachevskiy, M. 2006. Certification development in Russia: Advances and Challenges. In: Forest Products Trade between Russia and China: Encouraging Responsible Enterprise through a Solid Investment Climate, August 17–18, 2006, Burduguz Village, Russia [online]. Available from: http://www.forest-trends.org/documents/ meetings/baikal_2006/presentations/M.%20Karp achevsky%20(BiodivConsvCntr).ppt [Accessed 27 May 2008]. Karvinen, S., Välkky, E., Torniainen, T. and Gerasimov, Y. 2006. Northwest Russian Forestry in a Nutshell. Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, 30. Finnish Forest Research Institute, Helsinki [online]. Available from: 33
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http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/200 6/mwp030.htm [Accessed 10 May 2008]. Kortelainen, J. 2008. Performing the green marketcreating space: emergence of the green consumer in the Russian woodlands. Environment and Planning A, 40 (6), 1294–1311. Kortelainen, J. and Kotilainen, J. eds. 2006. Contested Environments and Investments in Russian Woodland Communities. Kikimora Publications, Helsinki. Kotlobay, A., Ptichnikov, A., Voropayev, A., Sonntag, U. and Zahnen, J. 2003. Illegal Logging in Northwestern Russia and export of timber products to Germany. WWF Russia, Moscow. Massey, D. 2005. For Space. SAGE, London. Murdoch, J. 2006. Post-structuralist Geography: A Guide to Relational Space. London: SAGE. Oldfield, J.D. 2006. Russian Nature. Exploring the Environmental Consequences of Societal Change. Ashgate, Aldershot. PEFC. 2008. Interview with P. Bahnmüller, PEFC Deutschland e.V., Public Relations Manager, 27.10.2008, PEFC Deutschland e.V., Stuttgart. Silver Taiga. 2008a. Silver Taiga Foundation [online]. Available from: http://www.komimodelforest.ru/cgi-bin/eng/ eng_main.pl?page=2 [Accessed 29 May 2008]. Silver Taiga. 2008b. FSC Certification [online]. Available from: http://www.komimodelforest.ru /cgi-bin/eng/eng_main.pl?page=3&spage= 3&sspage=2 [Accessed 29 June 2008]. Smartwood. 2006. Forest Management Certification Re-Assessment Project for: Dvinskoy LPH OAO in Arkhangelsk region, Russia. Smartwood Regional Office, Arkhangelsk. Tysiachniouk, M.S. 2006. Forest Certification in Russia. In: Cashore, B., Gale, F., Meidinger, E. and Newsom, D. eds. Confronting Sustainability: Forest Certification in Developing and Transitioning Countries. Yale School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies, New Haven, 261– 295. Tysiachniouk, M.S. and Meidinger, E. 2006. Using Forest Certification to Strengthen Rural Communities: Cases from Northwest Russia. Buffalo Legal Studies Research Paper Series, 2006-011, 1–18. Tysiachniouk, M.S. and Reisman, J. 2004. Comanaging the Taiga: Russian Forests and the challenge of International Environmentalism. In: Lehtinen, A.A., Donner-Amnell, J. and Saether, B. eds. Politics of Forests, Northern Forestindustrial Regimes in the Age of Globalization. Ashgate, Aldershot, 157–178. UN General Assembly. 2007. Non-legally binding instrument on all types of forest. A/C.2/62/L.5. New York. Välkky, E., Nousiainen, H. and Karjalainen, T. 2008. Facts and Figures of the Barents Forest Sector. Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, 78. Available from: http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/workingpapers/200 8/mwp078.htm [Accessed 23 May 2008]. WWF. 2008. Interview with official from WWF Deutschland e.V.. 21.10.2008 at the WWF Deutschland e.V., Frankfurt a.M.
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Company positionality and its effects on transnational forest governance: Two German companies and their approaches to forest certification MORITZ ALBRECHT, Joensuu, Finland The article presents the differentiated approaches of two German companies and their industrial sectors to forest certification systems and their implications for transnational forest governance. Companies operating in the magazine printing and publishing sector and the retail/Do-it-yourself sector are evaluated using the geographical concepts of relational space and positionality. Thus, the companies’ decisions about their utilization of forest certification systems resulting from their position in the relational space of forest governance are evaluated. The paper points out that the varying approaches are strongly affected by the companies’ positionality within this space. In particular, their location within the supply chain, the specifications of their products and the resulting varying relations with other entities shape their approaches to interacting with the certification systems or their supporters. The relational space approach to forest governance further implies the importance of evaluating the positionality and rationalities of entities in order to understand the behaviour of various actors within transnational (forest) governance.
Auswirkungen von Unternehmenspositionalität auf die transnationale Governance der Waldwirtschaft Der Beitrag evaluiert die verschiedenen Ansätze von zwei deutschen Unternehmen des Druck/Verlagswesens und des Baumarktsektors im Umgang mit Forstzertifizierungssystemen sowie deren Auswirkungen auf transnationale Governance-Netzwerke der Waldwirtschaft. Zur Analyse dieser qualitativen Fallstudie folgt die Studie einem relationalen Raum-Zeit Konzept. Die Entscheidungsfindungen und Ansichten der Unternehmen zur Nutzung von Forstzertifizierungssystemen werden anhand ihrer Positionalität in den Governance-Netzwerken der Waldwirtschaft erläutert. Der starke Einfluss dieser variierenden Positionalitäten wird hervorgehoben. Die Fallstudie zeigt, dass die Unternehmen im Besonderen von ihrer Stellung in der Warenkette, den Charakteristika und Spezifikationen ihrer Produkte sowie den daraus resultierenden Beziehungsgeflechten zu Akteuren oder Instanzen beeinflusst werden. Die Beziehungsgeflechte sind dabei nicht auf Akteure oder Aspekte innerhalb der Warenkette beschränkt, sondern integrieren eine Vielzahl externer, jedoch gewichtiger Einflussfaktoren. Der relationale Ansatz zur Evaluierung der unterschiedlichen Unternehmensansätze zeigt den Wert solcher Positionalitäten, um das Verhalten von Akteuren in der transnationalen Waldwirtschaft besser zu eruieren.
1 Introduction In the 1980s the first Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)-driven protests concerning the destruction of tropical rainforests took place in Germany; they were targeted at the major
German retail company OBI and demanded a change in its procurement policies on tropical hardwood (Cashore et al. 2004). NGO protests continued in the mid-1990s, concerning unsustainable and environmentally damaging forest management practices by logging companies;
Urheberrechtlich geschütztes Material. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitungen in elektronischen Systemen. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2011
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hence, the entire wood product supply chain was pressured by the public (Soyez 2002, Cashore 2002). While at the outset these later protests focused on old growth forest destruction in Canada and the European North, they were connected initially to the major publishing companies in Germany, who were among the main importers of those products in Europe (Hayter/Soyez 1996, Lehtinen et al. 2004). Since these first events the scope of NGO campaigning has increased, addressing the retail and do-it-yourself (DIY) sectors as well as printing and publishing companies in Germany. Large international NGOs, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), created public awareness to perform green markets in Western Europe (Kortelainen 2008), and thereby threatened the reputation of companies and market acceptance of their products. On the other hand, NGOs, in the ‘carrot’ and ‘stick’ approach mentioned by Cashore (2002, 507), offered the
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threatened companies forest certification by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as an instrument to prove the products are based on sustainable forest management (SFM). Additionally, in 1999 the Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification1 (PEFC) was founded as a competitor label to FSC. Aside from disputes on FSC certification requirements and governance structures (Cashore et al. 2004, Auld et al. 2008), according to founding members the establishment of PEFC owed much to sensitivities between FSC international and European forest owners, as described by an FSC official. This resulted in a harsh conflict between the certification systems, NGOs and supporting companies or associations in the market (Humphreys 2006). Basic variations between the systems are displayed in Table 1. Currently both certification systems are regarded to varying degrees as proof of SFM and to secure this claim throughout the supply chain.
Table 1: Basic comparison of FSC and PEFC Forest/Chain of Custody (CoC) certication systems
Established Int. Secretariat Standards
Certicates/area (January 2011) Supporters Criticism
FSC • 1993 • Bonn, Germany • International forest standards, 10 principles & 56 criteria; national standard development is based on them • Use of generic standard in countries prior to own standard • Chain of Custody of full supply chain • Third-party assessment • 134 mil. hectares (81 countries) and 19617 CoC certicates • Major NGOs, especially WWF as founding member, selected companies/forest owners • Breaches of certication criteria in local cases • Monopoly claim to SFM • Neglect of private forest owner interests; NGO-dominated
PEFC • 1999 • Geneva, Switzerland • National forest standards are endorsed by adherence to PEFC Council Technical Document describing criteria and standards • Umbrella system also endorsing independent national standards • Chain of Custody of full supply chain • Third-party assessment • 232 mil. hectares and 7617 CoC certicates • Forest owners and industry • Landesforstanstalten (Germany) • Less stringent protective criteria • Less stringent control criteria lead to more breaches • Favouring industry interests
Sources: www.fsc.org; www.pefc.org, Interviews.
Urheberrechtlich geschütztes Material. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitungen in elektronischen Systemen. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2011
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From a geographical perspective, this topic, concerning choices of and interaction with certification systems by companies follows the growing acceptance of the effects of environmental aspects on economic processes and governance (e.g. Bridge 2008, Hayter 2008, Braun 2003). Bridge (2008, 80) mentions how the production of environmental outcomes might produce political-economic relations and stresses the importance of being specific about the relationships that produce nature and space. Further, Bathelt and Glückler (2003) acknowledge that economic processes are embedded within social relations for instance between suppliers, customers or institutions. Companies therefore are embedded in institutional, cultural and societal production networks that influence their actions and decisions (Zademach 2009). Similarly their product markets are performed by an array of human as well as non-human actors (Berndt/Boeckler 2007), which supports the relational approach to the topic chosen by this study. Recent studies have described strategic choices by landowners and forest companies concerning different forest certification systems; in Germany, printing and publishing companies as well as DIY retailers were also discussed more as a supportive issue (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004, Cashore et al. 2005). Previous studies also explored how industries may shift their support or approval for specific systems due to public pressure, a result of internal evaluations of the system benefits by certain stakeholder groups (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004, Klooster 2005, Bernstein/ Cashore 2007). However, while these studies describe certain outcomes, they fail to address the underlying relations stressed above, which shape these processes (e.g. Zademach 2009, Bathelt/ Glückler 2003) and regard the behaviour of firms from a more general perspective. Such market relations were integrated to a certain amount by Morris and Dunne (2004) in their study on the South African furniture supply chain. However, their study considers the issue from a producer country perspective and describes the European retail companies in an outdated positionality of pure FSC support (Morris/Dunne 2004).
Therefore, this in-depth case study aims to provide new insights into the re-production of attitudes and rationalities of companies due to their positionality and dwells on the underlying relations shaping the processes of transnational forest governance. To achieve this goal the article seeks to explain the recent perceptions and related rationalities of two wood-product-related business sectors in Germany, namely magazine publishing and printing and DIY, based on two major German companies (see Table 2): Hubert Burda Media, an international printing and publishing company, and Hornbach Baumarkt AG, one of the largest DIY retail companies in Europe (EDRA 2010a). Intertwined through a multiplicity of heterogeneous and differing relations, specific sectoral differences along with the two companies’ performances and perceptions will be presented throughout the article. The paper will also analyze the risks they face and determine how these aspects influence their decision-making concerning forest certification. It further seeks to evaluate the effects of the companies’ positionality on transnational forest governance. Since the studied companies belong to different economic sectors, the differing positionality and resulting strategies of the companies allow theoretical insights into the behaviour of their respective sectors as well. The following chapter presents the theoretical framework and utilized approach of positionality and relational space and its applicability to geographical research and aims to explain how companies, NGOs and other entities interact, connect and are influenced within this relational space of forest governance (e.g. Albrecht 2010). Moreover, the importance of the resources of trust as well as the trust between companies and further stakeholders itself to shape this space are discussed. Chapter three presents the case studies and methodology in detail. The fourth chapter presents the companies’ positionalities, respective of their industrial sectors and associations in terms of their approaches to forest certification systems in relation to aspects of the supply chain, their relations with NGOs and the role of their trade associations. Finally,
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the conclusion will posit the empirical findings by discussing them alongside the theoretical framework. Hence, depicting the positionality of entities has implications on their behaviour patterns and the reproduction of transnational forest governance and its relational space. 2 Relational spaces of forest governance and certification The cited companies and their industrial sectors are regarded as nodes in a relational space of forest governance with varying approaches to forest certification. Forest certification is frequently described as a market-driven approach to forest governance (Cashore et al. 2004, Gulbrandsen 2004, Bernstein/Cashore 2007); it can thus be referred to as a market space connecting consumer markets, and processing and producing companies via multiple relations to nodes of resource and production. As described by Massey (2005), market spaces are prime examples of the relationality of spaces as they establish themselves through heterogeneous relations. This view is supported by Murdoch (2006), who describes spaces as open and composed of multiple relations. Relations can be made up of social and biophysical components and include connections of various kinds between entities, resources or other realms of space and place. For example, knowledge networks, trade or supply chain characteristics or product specifications are relations which enable or restrict entities in their activities or choices. Notwithstanding the multiplicity and openness of these relations, Massey (2005) points out the asymmetries of power relations able to create dominant imaginations or alignments. As Murdoch (2006, 20) puts it, ‘The relational making of space is both a consensual and contested process’; it is, thus, a process of including and excluding specific relations between entities according to different agreements or imaginations within those entities. It thus follows that various entities and sectors within the relational space of forest governance interact differently according to their differing
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relations and resulting trajectories and imaginations of that space. Relations therefore shape the rationalities of entities (Dean 2010) involved in forest governance and consequently guide their approaches and decisions. Every entity is linked to a differing and varying set of relations, thus situated in its specific positionality. As noted by Sheppard (2002), this reflects how they are positioned in respect to their socioand biophysical relations to each other in space and time. Nevertheless, certain entities share a similar set of relations which can stabilize to a certain degree (Murdoch 2006). For instance, the debate over the two forest certification systems as an instrument to guarantee SFM is due to two relatively stable and partially dominant set of relations shared by multiple actors. Harvey (1996) calls these relatively stable sets of relations permanences, and stresses their temporality. The positionality/place in which entities (e.g. companies) define or imagine themselves is a spatio-temporal event in an open space and subject to change (Sheppard 2002, Massey 2005, Murdoch 2006). This accounts for the certification systems, their supportive networks and public perception as much as it does for the companies’ positionalities. Thus, aspects of the positionality of the entities play a vital role in governance processes; their importance for the prospects of localities, in this case companies, is stressed (Zademach 2009, Sheppard 2002). Campaigns by NGOs strongly reshaped the space of forest governance by presenting events in resource areas to the consumer markets. Crang (1996, 51) describes this in a similar form for food products as ‘roughing up the surfaces’ of products by presenting their embeddedness in formerly hidden relations. Thus by performing green markets in countries such as Germany, The Netherlands or the United Kingdom as described by Kortelainen (2008), NGOs similarly raise awareness through campaigns to visualize these relations. This can create what Murdoch (2006, 180) calls ‘relational reflexivities’ among consumers in their purchasing behaviour toward companies’ products. As O’Rourke (2005) points out, connecting companies with negative rather
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than positive products has greater impacts since it threatens the companies’ reputation and therefore its competitiveness, which must be regarded as highly important (Katsoulakos/Katsoulacos 2007). Companies thus have to (re-)gain trust within the ‘relational reflexivities’ (Murdoch 2006, 180) of consumers and NGOs in the companies’ products or resources. However, self-proclaimed company reports on good environmental performance tend to be questioned by public opinion (Dawkins 2004); hence, relational links to NGOs are described as a means to gain consumer credibility and verify industry claims (O’Rourke 2005). Currently, forest certification systems are seen, though to varying degrees, to provide such links and serve as a tool to guarantee that the processed end product the consumer or business customer purchases is in accord with accepted SFM standards. Nevertheless, the credibility of those standards relates to what Bachmann (2001, 349) calls ‘system trust’. For Giddens (1991), system trust is created through the utilization of institutional structures whereby their knowledge and regulation play a vital role. However, Bachmann (2001, 149) indicates that this framework of system trust is supported by the representative ‘access points’ to the systems. In regard to forest certification systems, it must then be noted that those representative ‘access points’ widely differ between FSC, based on NGO support, and PEFC, supported by forest owners and the forest industry (Cashore et al. 2004, Humphreys 2006). Additionally, as pointed out by Berndt and Boeckler (2007), the importance of trust also is affected by the spatio-temporal distance between the consumer/customer and the resource areas. This is definitely true in regard to the northern resource areas and their central European markets discussed in this paper. Since NGOs possess the power relations and credibility to threaten the companies’ reputation by campaigning against them (O’Rourke 2005, Gulbrandsen 2006), resources and product vulnerability through direct relations with a company, thus an important aspect of its positionality, are a factor for strategic behaviour and the
choices companies make. From a competitive standpoint, risk has to be balanced in relation to the trust put into an economic relationship (Bachmann 2001) while, on the other hand, Barney (1991, 104/115) points out that ‘first mover’ choice or good reputation due to complex social interrelations are resources which can create a sustained competitive advantage within an industrial sector. It follows, as Cousins et al. (2004) state, that risk and strategy shape the decisions of companies to the greening of their supply chains. Risk, however, is linked closely to the company and its products’ positionality, which affect the sensibility to negative campaigns. The trajectories of the involved entities are shaped by their positionality and produced by a multitude of spatial dimensions (Sheppard 2002). Thus, following the critique of Jessop et al. (2008), the framework of relational space aims at avoiding one-dimensionality in studying socio-spatial relations. Hence, it seeks to evaluate the perceptions of actors in terms of the relations between the socio-spatial dimensions of place, networks and territorial and scale-related attributes concerning their positionality within that relational space. As pointed out by Jessop et al. (2008) in their account of TPSN2 research frameworks, such an approach fosters an understanding of the production and maintenance of different spatio-temporal events (see also Jessop 2006). Viewing forest certification systems as such permanence or a spatio-temporal event within changing transnational forest governance, a research framework of relational space seems well suited to respect the positionalities and consequently produced rationalities of entities. It further enables integration to so called market/ supply chain “external” aspects and influences important in the evaluation of company decisions (Berndt/Boeckler 2007). Thereby, this theoretical framework further creates the necessary openness of company systems to evaluate their environmental-related governance issues as mentioned by Braun (2003).
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3 A case study of two German companies This case study is a part of a larger research project3 to establish a framework of transnational forest governance from Central European consumer markets to the forest resource peripheries in Finland and Northwest Russia (e.g. Albrecht 2010). Information for the study was acquired through a series of 23 face-to-face interviews in 2008-9 with experts from the certification systems, NGOs, German state agencies as well as environmental officers from several transnational companies and associations in the pulp and paper, publishing and printing, and retail sectors. This qualitative approach of open-ended interviews was employed since it is suitable for gaining the experiences of actors (Silverman 1993), which enables an insider’s view of the actors’ rationalities about forest governance. The respective interviews with the two companies’ environmental officers were conducted in March 2009 and provide the bulk of the empirical information for this study. To draw certain sector-related conclusions, information from the companies’ environmental officers was crosschecked on the basis of interview information from additional companies in their sectors and up the supply chain as well as from related associations. Furthermore, in-depth interviews with experts from the Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN), the von Thünen Institute4 and different government agencies familiar with the forest product markets were utilized to support broader generalizations. Later, position papers of the corporations, their respective associations and NGO documents concerning market issues were employed to construct a broader knowledge base. Thus, the study follows recommendations by Yin (2003) to reinforce data through multiple sources of evidence, even though it only discusses two cases in detail. According to Braun (2003) such a focus on specific individual companies allows a better perspective on the workings and aspects of environmental initiatives, such as forest certification. However, it must be acknowledged that generalizations undertaken within this study are
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more theoretical due to the limited number of direct company sources (Yin 2003). Nevertheless, these generalizations contribute valid information to increase the development of a theoretical understanding of transnational forest governance and the actors and their relations involved in its spaces. In respect to the choice of companies for the case study, they were chosen due to their transnational character, their prominent brands in the German and European markets (see Table 2), their relations with Finnish and Northwest Russian suppliers, and therefore with these often debated resource areas (Hubert Burda Media 2004). The three focus areas of these study – supply chain issues, NGO relations and certification as well as the role of trade associations – were later chosen on the basis of information gathered during previous research and will be presented in detail in chapter four. Thus, these areas are considered highly important to explain and depict how entities are intertwined by varying relations into forest governance and therefore provide main reasons for differing approaches. In addition, trade associations are seen to represent certain access points to the sectors (Bachmann 2001). The focus on forest certification and the companies’ approaches towards the systems is utilized to provide a framework to study the complexity of transnational forest governance in a more explicit way, in regard to environmental issues. Owing to the heterogeneous theoretical framework of relational space (Massey 2005, Murdoch 2006), this focus enables a more detailed view on how and why entities within this space interact and shape transnational forest governance. In the following, the entities of the case studies and their positionality are presented. 4 Accessing sector positionalities The relational framework specified above enables the study of how differently interconnected companies and sectors, due to their varying social and biophysical resources and relations,
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Table 2: Basic information on case study companies
Hubert Burda Media • 77 Magazines in Germany/191 in 11 foreign countries (143 titles published in Eastern Europe, the rest to France, United Kingdom, Turkey, South Korea, Thailand) • 7,118 employees • Own printing plants in Germany and France • FSC & PEFC Chain of Custody certicate (printing) • 80.1 % of German market impact Hornbach Baumarkt AG • 131 DIY markets in 9 European countries (Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, Slovakia, Romania) • 11,357 employees • FSC & PEFC Chain of Custody certicates • More than 2.500 FSC products • 8.7 % market share of German DIY • 7th largest company in net sales in Europe (2009)
Sources: Hubert Burda Media 2010; Hornbach Baumarkt AG 2010; EDRA 2010a.
choose different approaches as a reaction to similar events, for example, the above-mentioned NGO campaigns or environmentally conscious markets. The following three sub-chapters will describe the past and current processes, approaches and relations of the two companies with references to their industrial sectors. These aspects provide examples and are based on issues surrounding forest certification but further display the aspects that support the approach of a relational space in an empirical way. For obvious reasons just a selected share of the multiplicity of relations highlighting the positionalities concerning forest governance and even certification can be offered within the scope of this paper. 4.1 Supply chain specifications The procurement aspects of these two industrial sectors are a major topic in describing the different relations interconnecting the included entities. Despite the similar international procurement policies of both sectors (e.g. EDRA 2010b, FIPP/FAEP 2009) and the companies’ commitment to legally harvested, non-controversial resources, including the protection of High Conservation Value Forests5 (HCVF) and primeval
forests, major differences can be observed. As expressed by environmental representatives of Hornbach Baumarkt AG and Hubert Burda Media, differences in their procurement are partially related to the products they offer; for example, due to their size certain wood products in the DIY sector are restricted for economic reasons to short transport distances. On the other hand, qualitative matters restrict the paper procurement policies of Hubert Burda Media for its gravure printing machines, removing such paper supply countries as Canada and Russia from consideration. Nevertheless, wood from Russia6 is utilized in Finnish pulp and paper mills, which deliver paper to Huber Burda Media. Due to the recently implemented Russian export taxes for roundwood, this share has drastically declined (METLA 2009). Another significant matter indicating the differences between the two companies becomes evident regarding their position in the supply chain. While DIY markets mainly sell to the end consumer, printing and publishing companies offer their services to business customers, and are therefore interconnected in a different manner with the green markets described by Kortelainen (2008). Similar aspects can be found on the supply side, which permit the description
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of more direct relations to forestry companies in the case of Hornbach Baumarkt AG; the printing and publishing industry, however, is mainly connected via the paper industry to forestry itself. Officials of both companies described efforts to induce suppliers to avoid or resolve problems deriving from public controversy, such as NGO campaigns, while at the same time having a certain market power to do so. However, the environmental officers seem to agree that within the EU both certification systems follow good forest management practices, and thus problematic logging areas involving PEFC and HCVF protection in Finland were described as an exception. This is an attitude shared by most interviewees. This controversy over Finnish forestry, specifically targeting the Finnish/Swedish global paper and forest product company Stora Enso (Greenpeace 2009a), naturally affected Hubert Burda Media due to the large share of Finnish paper in their procurement structure. Nevertheless, the problems which arise with suppliers, whether in Finland or Russia, are described as best handled through common dialogue and consensus rather than a purchasing boycott, which would not improve the situation in the affected forest areas, as stated by the companies’ environmental representatives. In the Finnish case, roundtable talks between Finnish forest authorities, Greenpeace, local stakeholders and industry representatives, especially Stora Enso as the main buyer in these areas, achieved a settlement. German actors were not present in the talks but were in frequent communication with the environmental offices of Stora Enso. In October 2009 the main areas of discourse were set aside for protection by the Finnish state, resolving most of the ongoing controversy (Greenpeace 2009b). Thus, risks to the reputation of the companies or their products due to procurement from a controversial resource, as shown by the controversy over Finnish wood, should, according to the companies’ representatives, be avoided at the outset. This might even include changing to an alternative source of supply. However, it must be noted that the companies’ vulnerability
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depends on their positionality, not only in terms of supply chain aspects but also in regard to other entities involved, such as NGOs; they are all at the same time influenced by one another. 4.2 NGO relations and Certification Dialogue with NGOs is seen as a means of communicating the corporate responsibility of companies (Dawkins 2004) and can therefore also be regarded as an instrument for avoiding the above-mentioned negative publicity campaigns against a company. In respect to certification systems, both companies follow different approaches. Hubert Burda Media, despite owning both PEFC and FSC CoC certificates for its production units, seldom labels products while Hornbach Baumarkt AG offers more than 2500 wood products with FSC certification (Hornbach Baumarkt AG 2010); most other wood products are PEFC certified and labelled. In regard to direct cooperation with NGOs and their networks, the company approaches differ as well. Hornbach Baumarkt AG is a very active member of the WWF-associated GFTN Germany and also a member of FSC Deutschland e.V. Regarding forestry issues, Hubert Burda Media relies mainly on communication and informal exchange with NGOs. Cooperation projects between Greenpeace Germany and Hubert Burda Media were carried out in the past concerning protection of rain forests (Hubert Burda Media 2007) and forestry practices and communicative relations are described as ‘… good, though not always pleasant…’ (Interview 2009, author’s translation). As an example, Greenpeace might contact the environmental section of Hubert Burda Media demanding it address a problem concerning a direct or indirect supplier or in some cases pre-announce a public campaign. Nevertheless, in some cases, for example, the 2009 protests at Stora Enso in Helsinki (Greenpeace 2009a), certain issues are announced in the press without prior notification. Cooperation with the certifiers and WWF, on the other hand, has been decreasing since the companies’ certification in 2006.
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While WWF has decreasing cooperative importance for Hubert Burda Media, it is together with the FSC the main environment-related cooperation partner of Hornbach Baumarkt AG. Already a participant in WWF Gruppe 98+ and a founding member of WWF Wood Group Germany7, Hornbach Baumarkt AG is described as being the most pro-active DIY member in GFTN Germany while still maintaining good relations to WWF personnel via the FSC board. Thus Hornbach Baumarkt AG coordinates and positions itself with GFTN, through WWF, against critics from more ‘radical’ NGOs like FSC-Watch8, to contend with economic challenges, for instance, in facilitating the procurement of FSC wood. Nevertheless, while participating in projects with WWF and Greenpeace, for example, protecting the Russian Dvinskiy Forest or supporting the development for FSC certification in the tropics (Hornbach Baumarkt AG 2006), the company has sought to insert practicable solutions for environmental and certification issues from a market actor point of view into the dialogue with the NGOs on protection and certification. In spite of this, both companies’ methods of cooperating or communicating with NGOs are derived to a high degree from public NGO campaigns and to safeguard their reputation and credibility. Both companies therefore stressed that as family-run corporations, their reputation and credibility are extremely important. This aspect correlates with the findings of Block and Wagner (2010) in their study on attitudes concerning corporate social responsibility of family-owned companies. However, as the first campaigns targeting paper companies and publishers were primarily focused on Canada and its relation to the European newsprint market, Hubert Burda Media, with its magazine paper supply lines mainly found in Europe, was of less interest to NGOs. Nonetheless, protests took place in the past (Soyez 2002) outside Hubert Burda Media buildings in Munich and the controversies over Finnish forestry were thought to increase problems with Finnish suppliers, especially Stora Enso, until the recent solution described above.
Following such events, representatives of Hubert Burda Media participated in talks initiated by the Finnish Embassy and the Finnish Forest Council with the Finnish forestry and paper industries as well as, in part, Greenpeace. These talks concerned logging controversies and also aimed at convincing the Finnish industries of the necessity to involve NGO interests to avoid negative publicity. In these cases Hubert Burda Media and other printers and publishers acted as a kind of mediator between the NGOs and their consumer campaigns in Germany and its Finnish, indirectly affected, supply companies. In contrast, Hornbach Baumarkt AG, in cooperation with the GFTN and the affiliated NGOs, jointly affect suppliers. Thus they construct a different yet interrelated network with the NGOs compared to most companies in the printing and publishing sector. 4.3 The Role of Trade Associations The role of trade associations within the relational space of forest governance is extremely complex to access. This complexity might be questioned, as Bachmann (2001, 356) states in regard to Germany: …powerful trade associations truly stand for their industry. These trade associations are self-organized by their members who take an active interest in the representation of collective strategies within their industry. In work groups, economic and technical knowledge is frequently exchanged between the member firms and this is highly conductive to generating and monitoring the rules and standards of business behaviour (and beyond)
Yet, it must be noted that forestry and certification are not necessarily the main topics under discussion even within the environmental working groups of these associations (VDZ 2009a, EDRA 2010c). Thus, firms or individuals with a certain interest in or motivated by an issue such as forest certification might involve themselves more actively, thereby generating more influence in the shaping of the association’s strategies for that particular topic. The networks of these trade associations are therefore open to a wide
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variety of complex relations and do not purely represent collective strategies. Nevertheless, I certainly agree with Bachmann (2001) that due to the power of the system inherited by trade associations companies are often hindered in utilizing them opportunistically. As a result of the memberships of the casestudy companies in their trade associations, the main focus is on the Verband Deutscher Zeitschriftenverleger9 (VDZ) and the Federation of European Magazine Publishers (FAEP) in the case of Hubert Burda Media; Hornbach Baumarkt AG’s representative associations are the Bundesverband Deutscher Heimwerker-, Bauund Gartenfachmärkte e.V. (BHB) and the European DIY-Retail Association (EDRA). While all these trade associations have environmental working groups, their trajectories differ to a great extent; all, however, deal to some degree with forestry and certification issues. In its sector Hornbach Baumarkt AG plays a prominent role since its environmental officer holds the chair of the environmental working groups of the BHB and EDRA; Hubert Burda Media has two employees serving in the environmental working group of the VDZ (VDZ 2009b). As positions taken by actors are considered solely as spatio-temporal events or permanences, as noted by Jessop (2006) and Harvey (1996), it becomes obvious that the associations’ strategies or preferences are in constant flux depending on changes which reproduce their networks. In the following, several changes concerning forest certification can be observed in the positions of the sectors’ associations since the end of the 1990s. Hence, a movement away from the previously purely FSC position to a more neutral position seems to have taken place within BHB (WWF Schweiz 2003). Still, BHB, like EDRA, must be described as promoting FSC since they cite it as the certification criteria to follow (BHB 2009a); FSC is also a major partner in environmental issues on the BHB homepage (BHB 2009b). On the other hand, as early as 2001, a position paper by VDZ (VDZ et al. 2001), Verband Deutscher Papierfabriken10 (VDP) and other paper-related trade associations
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demanded the mutual recognition of systems fulfilling a described set of requirements, which must be understood as a demand that FSC and PEFC recognize the other’s standard (see also FIPP/FAEP 2004, FIPP/FAEP 2009). Prior to that demand, FSC was fully rejected in a written statement by the director of VDP (Kibat 1998) summing up VDZ and VDP positions on forest certification. It must be stressed that as a result of the interconnectedness of their supply chains VDP and VDZ frequently cooperate in positioning themselves publicly. While the issues under discussion in BHB and EDRA relate mainly to an exchange of the best practices on environmental performance and political targets such as EU regulations11, VDZ and FAEP are more concerned with the reputation of paper products on the market. 5 (Re-)production of the varying approaches The previous chapter, presenting certain aspects of the positionality of the two companies, demonstrated the different relations shaping the approaches and strategies of the sectors. While a good company reputation is vital to any business (Katsoulakos/Katsoulacos 2007), the main differences shaping the varying approaches and positionalities of the sectors become most obvious in regard to their differing position within the supply chain and the sectors’ product specifications. These positionality aspects largely influence the relations of the companies and their associations towards NGOs and the certification systems themselves. It must be stated that positionality within the supply chain is not restricted to relations with entities within the chain itself (e.g. Kulke 2007, Borman 2008), but includes the multiplicity of possible relations that re-produce the discussed space of forest governance. Thus, the direct position in the chain itself just opens up the possibilities for further, chain external relations that might influence governance processes and decision making. The empirical data presented above aims to display these multiple relations based on matters of perceived importance.
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In regard to the supply chain, the position directly linked to the end consumer and therefore a direct brand connection from the public to the specific DIY market chain seems to shape the pro-FSC attitude of the DIY sector. This is also evident since several major German DIY companies are members of GFTN and were ranked as performing well in terms of increasing their FSC share on a recent WWF list (WWF Deutschland 2009). Furthermore, within their supply chains from the forest to the end consumer they represent the main focus in the relational reflexivity of the consumer, as described by Murdoch (2006). Thus, as described by a PEFC official, members of the DIY sector are good targets for NGO campaigns and therefore often choose to publicly support FSC. This supports the claim by O’Rourke (2005) that links to NGOs provide credibility not achievable by self-declared claims; this was also affirmed by the head of FSC Germany in stressing that FSC is particularly used as a security measure by retail companies against NGO campaigns. Thus, it appears that due to a more open, vulnerable situation towards NGO campaigns DIY retailers take a more proactive approach to cooperation with NGOs. On the other hand, the positionalities of the printing and publishing sector differ to a high degree. Firstly, as mentioned above, the sector is situated in a business to business environment seldom catering to the end consumer, but to editors of magazines, books and newspapers12. This has strong implications on the recognition of their brand since in few cases does the reader connect the end product to the publisher, as pointed out by a Hubert Burda Media official. Readers purchase products due to their special content, hence a specific magazine, which, compared with a piece of wood or garden furniture, is less replaceable by a product from another company. Secondly, publishers are not the direct link to the forest companies or wood traders but mainly linked to them via the pulp and paper industry. As this industry is a strongly global business and contains a number of large transnational players, it represents further targets for NGO campaigns, containing more direct
relations to resources and are first in line in cases of a ‘roughing up the surfaces’ by NGOs, as Crang (1996, 51) explains. Nevertheless, the printing and publishing sector is faced with protests or demands by NGOs, but it appears that its positionality enables a publicly more neutral standpoint, as is also visible in most code of conduct statements by companies and associations (e.g. VDZ et al. 2001, Axel Springer AG 2007, Hubert Burda Media 2008). This seems critically related to the second main difference distinguishing the sectors: their product specifications. Thus, supply areas and techno-economic possibilities play a major role. This can be tied to perceived material practices in production countries and fosters claims about the importance of localities and their prospects in regard to their relations in a global and local context (e.g. Sheppard 2002, Massey 2005). Hence, as for supply chain issues, product specifications are not merely features of the product itself but include also aspects of related entities. These aspects or features often overlap yet stress the interconnection of various empirical issues presented above and their effects on the entities decision making. For the DIY sector wood can be separated into regional, inner EU sourcing and sourcing from the tropics or other high-risk areas such as Russia. It appears that in terms of tropical wood and wood from high-risk areas only FSC products have recently been seen to provide credibility in the face of NGO campaigns. In regard to regional, inner European sources, chiefly PEFC products are trusted and widely utilized because of their greater availability, though they are less often advertised. Also the lack of valuable old-growth forests in most EU countries decreases the possibility for high impact NGO campaigns. Thus the environmental issues in Germany’s DIY sector focus more on easily recognizable tropical wood and to a certain degree Russian wood, which require FSC certification to be credited by NGOs, while within the EU PEFC is routinely accepted, as pointed out by officials from Hornbach Baumarkt AG and the certification systems.
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In respect to paper products a different picture appears. Even though pulp and paper mills are trying to source their material regionally, due to the complex production processes from forest to finished magazine, different sources become merged into a single end product. Thus, the same end product might frequently change its sources as the pulp for the paper might come from another mill or forest. For Germany, France, Austria and Finland, it must be pointed out that the ratio of PEFC certified forest far exceeds FSC certified (FSC 2010, PEFC 2010). This reduces the possibility of pulp and paper mills to regionally procure sufficient FSC certified products, since this depends on their locality and positionality towards suppliers. Moreover, as pointed out by an official of a large printing and publishing company, specific magazines require specific paper grades, which are printed on different machines or even at different locations from varying sources. Thus, it seems challenging that periodicals label a steady flow of sufficient FSC certified products, which are more frequently sought after; this, however, is difficult to procure on a secure long-term basis. The case suggests that even though CoC certificates cover different origins within the product, technical issues combined with the necessary amounts and production on a fixed schedule could disturb the constant flow. Consequently, it appears that the desire to label products and actively support a specific scheme is more limited within the magazine and newspaper printing and publishing sector. Still, certified material is used and promoted, though in varying degrees and with PEFC dominance. Asides, it must to be stressed that these aspects vary between publishing sectors and FSC labelling is more common in books or single issue catalogues (e.g. Random House, OTTO Verlag), due to their different positionality. For example, less stringent production timetables or specific brand and marketing issues are influential aspects. However, to dwell deeper on this issue would go beyond the scope of this paper. Yet, the complexity of those aspects highlight the need for a relational evaluation of entities as
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proposed in chapter two. This also accounts for the aims of improving the systems or establishing alternative instruments for SFM. Not taking a specific stand, the printing and publishing sector is in general still very much aware of its own and its products’ credibility and the importance of its reputation in the public realm. The study implies that due to its different positionality in comparison to the DIY sector, it can follow a dissimilar approach to maintaining public credibility and creating a kind of system trust, as mentioned by Bachmann (2001). This also shows as noted by Schulz and Soyez (2003) and Zademach (2009) that the framing of environmental problems is socially contextualized within a certain regional environment. However, such scale-based argumentation must be extended through the relational approach utilized, since restricting or enabling aspects are influenced by a much more heterogeneous set of entities and their positionalities. This multiplicity also accounts for the important aspects of positionality mentioned. Supply chain issues and product specifications as influential aspects of economic processes are not new to geographic research (e.g. Borman 2008, Kulke 2007, Gray et al. 2007). However, when this is tied to environmental aspects while broadening their contents and integrating prior external entities and relations, it provides fresh insight into recently evolving environmental aspects in economic geography (e.g. Braun 2003, Hayter 2008). The conclusion below indicates how these positionalities within the relational space of forest governance affect companies, the relational reflexivity of their products and reputation as well as their strategies in terms of issues related to forest certification systems and the possible implications for forest governance. 6 Conclusions The empirical data presented above display in an ostensible manner the relationality of actors and their positionalities within the space of forest governance. The positionality of entities inter-
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acting within these spaces must be regarded as open though restricted, as described by Murdoch (2006) and Sheppard (2002). Restrictions, as the empirical data suggests, can refer to place in a topological manner, such as access and transport to, or the utilization of, available resources. However, common values of certain places as the performed green markets (Kortelainen 2008) play a role at the outset in shaping actors’ strategies for avoiding risk as well as on the socioeconomic aspects in the resource areas. In regard to the specifications of the supply chain, the findings partly correlate with the hypothesis of Cashore et al. (2004), stating that the higher the ownership concentration in a country along the supply chain the higher the pro-FSC choice of companies and landowners. Consequently, while ownership structures often with only a single major (known) company in the retail sector and its preference for FSC support this claim in comparison to the more fragmented situation with the paper supply chain, for the German case increased landowner support must be rejected. In addition, these findings stress the importance of evaluating the rationalities of entities in depth due, to their positionality in the multiplicity of relations, while considering certain asymmetries within space (Massey 2005, Murdoch 2006). The necessity for pro-FSC activities in the DIY sector and its stronger connection to NGOs seems to be restricted by certain territorial aspects since the focus is obviously on non-EU countries. In contrast, the rationalities of entities, being a spatio-temporal event, as pointed out by Massey (2005) and Jessop (2006), set PEFC and FSC on an almost equal level of system trust in respect to sustainable forest management within the EU. This further leads to the importance of the product specifications mentioned above. In the printing and publishing sector the complexity of trade networks in regard to place of production and technical issues can be considered to have a restrictive effect on the utilization of FSC, especially within the periodical press. Stronger utilization of the PEFC label, on the other hand, seems restricted by the low business demand,
regardless of its broad availability. Availability in the resource areas on the other hand is influenced by a vast heterogeneity of relations and positionalities of the entities in those areas, thus influencing company decisions and vice versa. Taking into account the possible competitive advantage of the ‘first mover’ described by Barney (1991, 104/105), the differences between the sectors are striking. As noted by representatives of the publishing and printing sector that consumers buy magazines and books for the content, the competition is focused on the same, while most wood products can be purchased in several DIY brands. Hence, within such a similar product market FSC can be advantageous and therefore become a strong part of a company’s strategy as well as a tool for risk remediation, as discussed by Cousins et al. (2004). The protection of the company’s reputation and the paper product, in the printing and publishing sector, are described as major reasons for supporting forest certification systems. Understanding such perceived needs of companies to support a certain system and, as Bachmann (2001) calls it, utilizes its representative access points, as well as its credibility, requires the evaluation of the positionalities of the entities. Following the empirical material concerning the companies’ positionalities presented above results in varying implications for transnational forest governance. Considering that forest certification can make a difference towards improved and more sustainable forest management13 as well as policy making (e.g. UPM 2005, Auld et al. 2008, Schlyter et al. 2009), low actual demand in the end consumer markets must be acknowledged. Taking into further account that green markets are performed to a certain degree by NGOs (Kortelainen 2008), the pro-active approach by the DIY sector seems to have wider implications for changing transnational forest governance. With its public focus on FSC, it supports public knowledge about the issue of forest certification in a more direct manner, while the high amount of labelled products in regard to the periodical press provides certain guidance to consumers. This approach influences customers’ rationalities
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concerning wood products. Hence, as pointed out in previous studies (O’Rourke 2005, Gulbrandsen 2006), it can provide incentives to companies and market power to NGOs. Additionally, FSCs market awareness is increased, an important leverage for FSC and its supporters. On the other hand, the neutral stance of the magazine publishing and printing sector fails to create this strong, direct advertisement for certification; however, by calling for the mutual recognition of the major systems it supports the growth of forest certification and its implications for forest governance in general. Therefore, its approach aims to remediate accusations by FSC and supporting NGOs towards PEFC, which might lead to irritation among end consumers and forest owners (PEFC 2009), and consequently poses a threat to stop or slow down the development of certified areas. In contrast, PEFC and its recognized schemes are accused of creating exactly this confusion by establishing itself as competitor scheme to FSC (Humphreys 2006). Nonetheless, PEFC has been a main mover in increasing the amount of certified area worldwide. Since the positionality of entities in the printing and publishing sectors is affected by multiple relations in a different manner from those in the DIY sector, the certification systems are marketed less in respect to its different reproduced rationalities and resulting strategies. The empirical analysis of the two companies presented above, shows the importance of such underlying rationalities, re-produced by the entities’ positionalities. Since these rationalities guide their decision-making (Dean 2010), it is of the utmost importance for the evaluation of governance systems to understand these underlying relations in order to explain governance systems and their processes. Furthermore, this approach provides valuable and necessary knowledge for development or possible alternative forms of governance. Finally, as the positionality of companies and other entities within transnational forest governance strongly affects them in different socio-spatial dimensions, for instance, in terms of their vulnerability to NGO campaigns, procurement aspects or trade connection, the
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framework of a relational space of forest governance by its multiple approaches offers valuable opportunities to gain fresh knowledge on the subject. In its heterogeneity such an approach might be regarded as eclectic by some readers, however, to integrate the multiple relations of entities in space, a variety of theoretical and empirical aspects must be integrated to display the underlying processes. In addition, although not discussed in this study, such territorial and scale-related aspects as national and EU laws or regulations by the World Trade Organization demonstrate further relations that shape the recent formation of transnational forest governance and the strategies and rationalities of the actors involved. However, following a relational view of space (e.g. Massey 2005, Murdoch 2006), it must be kept in mind that certain permanences or imagined positionalities of entities and their related domination or marginalization are solely spatio-temporal events in a constantly re-producing relational space. Thus, further research should evaluate the shifting and maintenance of the multiple relations between entities and their positionalities to create a more profound picture of the networks and relations shaping the transnationalization of forest governance. Therefore, as shown throughout the article, attention must be paid to the specific positionality of entities, their trade partners and “externalities” in different countries, sectors and scales to evaluate transnational governance spaces. Utilizing the framework of relational space, as presented in the example above, is a valuable approach to evaluate and gain a deeper understanding of governance structures in comparison to many previous approaches and studies as it reaches beyond supply chain or internal company systems more frequently studied in economic geography. References Albrecht, M. (2010): Sustainable Forest Management through Forest Certication in Russia’s Barents Region: Processes in the Relational Space of Forest Certication. In: Fryer, P., Brown-Leo-
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Sheppard, E. (2002): The Spaces and Times of Globalization, Place, Scale, Networks and Positionality. In: Economic Geography 78(3), 307-330. Schlyter, P., Stjernquist, I. and Bäckstrand, K. (2009): Not seeing the forest for the trees? The environmental effectiveness of forest certication in Sweden. In: Forest Policy and Economics 11(5-6), 375-382. Schulz, C. and Soyez, D. (2003): Agenten des Wandels: Konzeptionelle Überlegungen zur Bedeutung wissensintensiver Dienstleister für den betrieblichen Umweltschutz. In: Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 47(1), 15-28. Silverman, D. (1993): Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction. London. Soyez, D. (2002): Environmental Knowledge, the Power of Framing and Industrial Change. In: Hayter, R. and Heron, R. (eds.): Knowledge, industry and environment: institutions and innovation in territorial perspective. Aldershot, 187-208. UPM (2005): Parallel eld testing of forest certication standards. Valkeakoski. VDZ, VDP, BDZV, bvdm and VdD (2001): PresseDruckerzeugnisse und Ökologie. http://www. vdz.de/leadmin/download/umwelt/37_PresseDruckerzeugnisse_und_Oekologie.pdf (accessed November 2009).
VDZ (2009a): Ziele des Arbeitskreises Umwelt. http://www.vdz.de/umwelt-ziele.html (accessed November 2009). VDZ (2009b): Mitglieder des Arbeitskreises Umwelt. http://www.vdz.de/umwelt-arbeitskreis. html (accessed November 2009). vTI (2009): Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institut. http://www.vti.bund.de/de/ (accessed September 2010). WWF Deutschland (2009): So ‘Grün’ ist die deutsche Holzbranche! http://www.wwf.de/leadmin/fmwwf/pdf_neu/WWF_Ranking_2009_Web.pdf (accessed November 2009). WWF Schweiz (2003): Europa. - Faktenservice Wald und Holzzertizierung 4, 3. Yin, R.K. (2003): Case study research: Design and methods, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks. Zademach, H.-M. (2009): Transnationale Wirtschaft: Unternehmen, Wertschöpfungsnetzwerke und regionale Integrationsprozesse. In: Hess, M. and Paesler, R. (eds.): Wirtschaft und Raum. Wege und Erträge der Münchner wirtschaftsgeographischen Forschung. München, 71-96. Author: Moritz Albrecht, Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, P.O. Box 111, Fi-80101 Joensuu, Finland, E-Mail: moritz.
[email protected]
1 Originally named Pan European Forest Certication it was renamed in 2003 to display the further internationalization of the scheme. 2 Territory, Place, Scale and Network (see Jessop et al. 2008). 3 Research Project ‘Transnationalization of Forest Governance’ (2008-2011) based at the University of Eastern Finland, funded by the Academy of Finland (Project no. 14770). 4 vTI is a federal research institute with high expertise in forestry issues working for the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. 5 The concept was developed by FSC to describe forest with particular attributes or values worth protecting (see www.fsc.org). 6 Russian timber provided an important source for FSC certied pulp and paper to Finnish mills because of large FSC areas in Russia (e.g. Albrecht 2010). 7 WWF Gruppe 98+ and the WWF Wood Group Germany were the predecessors of GFTN Germany. 8 FSC-Watch is an NGO criticizing FSC-certied forest management practices worldwide (see www.fsc-watch.org). 9 VDZ; Association of German Magazine Publishers. 10 VDP; Association of German Paper Producers. 11 Wood-product-related directives are, for example, the EU Action Plan for Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and the proposed regulation by the European Parliament and Council concerning operators who place timber or timber products on the EU markets (COM 2008). 12 Editors of magazines and newspapers are often situated within the company structure of large printing and publishing companies (e.g. Hubert Burda Media, Axel Springer AG, Gruner & Jahr) but printing is also done for external customers. These entities are then also situated in different positionalities entailing varying rationalities. 13 There has been an ongoing debate on the different effects and outcomes of FSC and PEFC for SFM over the past ten years between NGOs, companies and among scientic institutions. However, to discuss this in more detail is outside the scope of the article and would greatly exceed its length. Urheberrechtlich geschütztes Material. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitungen in elektronischen Systemen. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2011
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Soc. Sci. 2012, 1, 4–23; doi:10.3390/socsci1010004 OPEN ACCESS
social sciences
ISSN 2076-0760 www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci
Article
Public Procurement and Forest Governance: A German Case Study of Governmental Influences on Market-Driven Governance Systems Moritz Albrecht Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistokatu 7, Joensuu 80101, Finland; E-Mail:
[email protected] Received: 24 May 2012; in revised form: 10 August 2012 / Accepted: 30 August 2012 / Published: 13 September 2012
Abstract: With increased privatization of natural resource regulation, green or sustainable public procurement policies are emerging as incentives for sustainable development. Thus, a revival of governmental influences on so-called non-state, market-driven governance systems takes place. The paper exemplifies this development by reference to the green public procurement directives for wood products in Germany and its influence on major forest certification systems and forest governance. Using an approach of governmentality in relational space, the paper displays how governmental entities play a significant role in influencing forest governance systems and the greening of markets. The importance of the underlying relations that shape governmental instruments and their influences on forest certification and governance are evaluated from a German perspective. Acknowledging the market-driven aspects of forest certification systems, the paper highlights the often-neglected impacts of governmental regulation on emerging forest governance systems. Thus, the framework allows insights into how relations among political entities and their means of knowledge production are essential for processes of forest governance. Keywords: public procurement; forest certification; governmentality; forest governance; Germany
1. Introduction Neoliberal politics have led to a high degree of privatization in natural resource regulation [1,2]. With an array of often-called non-state, market-driven systems evolving [3,4], forest certification
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systems have taken a prominent position within this debate. Currently, two forest certification systems operate on a global scale. The first is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), established by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 1993. The second is the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC), which evolved as a forest-owner-backed response in 1999 [3]. Both systems promote themselves as instruments to provide sustainable forest management (SFM). It should be noted that FSC avoids the direct term „sustainable‟ but talks about "environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable forest management…" [5] paraphrasing their target of SFM. The perceived move towards privatized transnational governance systems [1–3], such as forest certification, has led to a neglect of state influences and processes in academic literature on environmental and forest governance. Political aspects have often been reduced to simply provide framework conditions for privatized systems [3,6,7]. In this regard, political influences have been treated in a more general fashion [6,8–11] or in relation to tropical export countries [12,13]. Yet, links between state politics and certification, specifically FSC, can be found in academic literature [4,10,14,15]. While some studies mention the connections between public procurement regulations and the uptake of certification systems [3,4,15,16], the underlying relational processes and the influence of rationalities on forest governance, in relation to green Western European markets, as hereafter displayed by the German case, remain unexplored. The main aim of the following study is to evaluate how governmental market regulations, such as public procurement, affect forest governance through their impact on these systems and their surrounding discourses, by promoting their various approaches to, and knowledge about, SFM. To display the heterogeneity of such processes, regarding procurement and its related certification discourses, a rather novel approach of governmentality paired with a relational view on the space of forest governance [17–19] is employed. This approach highlights the relations of entities, be it their social, economical or biophysical interlinkages, and the entities' rationalities, which become re-produced by these relations and the knowledge networks they entangle. Thus, how are governmental instruments, as procurement legislation, influencing the certification systems and forest governance in general, by re-producing public as individual rationalities? The paper thereby highlights relations, drivers and their effects on transnational forest governance. With this relational and spatial scope, it also moves beyond governmentality accounts on forest certification or environmental governance [20–22]. These processes are exemplified by the relations and rationalities of German state and non-state actors that are involved in the debate about the integration of forest certification into German procurement legislation. The study focuses on networks of knowledge production and distribution concerning the certification systems as means to achieve SFM and displays how these play a role in the decision making of actors. This is to highlight the heterogeneous processes of state influences in transnational forest governance, often perceived as increasingly privatized. Concerning the approach of this study, a few limitations should be mentioned at the outset. The paper does not attempt to rank the certification systems based on their relative successes or failures at contributing to SFM; research on this subject, although often, controversy already exists [7,23,24]. Neither does this study aim to define or evaluate the actual criteria for SFM, promoted by the two certification systems. Thus, it is not on the internal workings of the certification systems, an aspect well studied elsewhere [3,15,16], rather, the employment of these certification systems to display
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governmental aspects of relational processes which shape forest governance and environmental governance in general. Further, certification is understood merely as a part of forest governance [17–19] not as forest governance in its own right [3,4,6]. Green public procurement directives are rapidly increasing in the EU and other developed countries, and are regarded as regulative incentives to green markets [25]. In the EU, this process is primarily based on the European Commissions' Communication on Green Public Procurement [25]. As an exemplifying case study, the Federal German Gemeinsamer Erlass zur Beschaffung von Holzprodukten (Joint Instruction on the Procurement of Wood Products) of 2007, with its focus on legal and sustainable procurement, is presented. The Joint Instruction obliges all wood or wood containing-products, with the exception of paper, procured by the German federal administration, to come from sustainable sources. To accept a contractor‟s bid, one must ensure the legality and sustainability of its products and sources via forest certification labels or other comparable documented means [26]. In accessing a debate on certification systems from a German perspective, it has to be pointed out that with 7,3 million hectares, almost two thirds of Germany‟s forest area, PEFC is the dominant system, compared to 0,41 million hectares of FSC [27,28]. This also relates to the strong involvement of German forest owners in the development of PEFC [3,29]. 1.1. Methods and Structure The case study is based on a series of 18 open-ended interviews conducted from autumn 2008 to spring 2009. In Germany, interviews were conducted with officials from the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Protection (BMELV) and the Federal Agency for Environmental Protection (BfN), as well as with experts from the forestry sections of the Johann Heinrich von Thünen Institute (vTI) [30], the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) [31] and a regional, German forest authority. Aside from the five interviews with the certification and procurement experts from state institutions, further interviews were conducted, with non-state actors. Four interviews were conducted with officials from FSC and three interviews from PEFC, both at national and international offices. Further, two officials from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Germany and three representatives of forest product-related companies and industrial associations were interviewed. Supplementary information was obtained by participating in autumn 2008 in an FSC workshop on public procurement, held in Bonn. Data presented in the empirical part of this paper relate mainly to the information derived from these sources. Additionally, position papers and legal documents were used to provide a broader framework. Aside from being part of a wider research project studying core-market, resource-periphery relations of forest products [17–19,32] the case of Germany was chosen due to its prominent position as a major importing country within European wood product markets [33] and its resulting influential position in global forest trade. Further it possesses legally binding wood procurement legislation [26], compared to regulations largely based on political obligations in other EU countries [34]. Following the theoretical framework, the study summarizes the development process of the Federal German Joint Instruction on Procurement of Wood Products with regard to the inclusion of the certification systems. The relations that have contributed to its recent form are investigated to highlight influential political decisions, local complexities and political relations that influence forest
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certification and governance. The discussion will merge the theoretical framework with the empirical findings presented below, while the conclusion will wrap up the findings on governmental influences on forest and environmental governance. 2. Governmentality and the Relational Space of Forest Governance Forest certification is often considered to be market-driven within a neoliberal system [35–37]. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Lemke ([38], p. 201) describes neoliberal forms of government as "…not only direct intervention by means of empowered and specialized state apparatuses, but also characteristically develop indirect technologies for leading and controlling individuals [and collectives] without at the same time being responsible for them." Thus, Foucault ([38], p. 193) denies a separation of the economic and political spheres, while Gulbrandsen [39] discusses the blurriness of the divide between these realms and the scientific knowledge used. Therefore, despite failed international, regulative attempts in forestry [2,3], governmental rationalities are regarded as co-constructing the knowledge of the actors and the direction of processes [40,41], and thus should be assumed to continuously play a role in an increasingly privatized forest governance. Recent studies of certification systems discount the effects, and specifically the processes, of governmental market regulatory tools, such as procurement policies. However, some studies discuss political influences on forest certification. Boström [10] and Hysing [14] examine the state dependency of FSC in Sweden, while Rametsteiner [6], in a more normative manner, studies government influences on the certification of state forests. Various studies [10,14,15,35] stress the role of government choices for certification systems to gain legitimacy, while Boström [9] highlights that such credibility is related to perceptions about the operations of an organization. Political influences are further treated in some studies [11,42,43] partially regarding actors as entangled in certain governance networks. Additionally, the role of procurement as a framework condition and influencing factor for the uptake of certification has been mentioned by some studies [4,7,15,16]. Although Segura [12] and Carey and Guttenstein [13] provide several case studies on governmental influence on certification systems, they focus on developing producer countries. Thus, their accounts fail to address green markets for certified products in Western European countries. Green markets are addressed by Morris and Dunne [44] in their account on the driving forces for forest certification in South Africa, although with a focus on the economic supply chain. Issues such as procurement policies, and these policies‟ in-depth discourses and processes are peripheral in the certification and forest governance literature [7,8,15]. Forest or environmental governance is treated hereafter, in the sense of Bulkeley [45], as a set of hybrid assemblages, compared to the more structured and fixed frameworks of multi-level governance, often employed in procurement literature [46,47]. Forest governance, including certification, is studied by a relational view of space [17,19,48,49]. Such spaces, for instance, made up of market relations [48], are open and in constant re-production, as are their governance networks. However, their entities lack full interconnection. Thus these spaces are created by heterogeneous relations, which might consist of "…physical force, political (mis)alignment, of imagination…" ([48], p. 100). The lack of interconnection is supported by existing contests and consensuses between actors, which guide the re-production of such spaces. Certain sets of relations, such as knowledge or values, may dominate,
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thus excluding or marginalizing opposing actors and their aims [49]. Nevertheless, such dominant sets of relations are solely of a temporal nature and subject to change [48,49], an aspect visible in the global competition of the two certification systems, but also in the German case presented hereafter. Struggles for supremacy in these spaces evolve in relation to the varying relationship patterns of entities [49]. Regarding forest certification, competition between the systems involves two political technologies (FSC and PEFC) that are competing for legitimacy [8]. Baldwin [20] describes this process whereby FSC criteria are deployed to define SFM as a political technology. According to Murdoch ([50], p. 52), political “…technologies serve to translate governmental rationalities into routinized modes of action…” For the study at hand, this means that political, as well as other entities, evaluated by this study may support a technology (e.g., PEFC or FSC) which translates their rationalities or aims into practicable modes of action. Thus, an evaluation is made of the kind of political technologies that are supported as being sufficient to provide SFM, based on the rationalities of the various German entities and on how they promote these claims. These processes are not necessarily only concerned about the rigor of certification criteria, but also, on how knowledge produced about what is considered sufficient for SFM can be distributed and established. From a relational perspective, no entity or actor is solely situated within a single set of relations but interacts within a multiplicity [49]. This displays the involvement of falsely perceived external relations or notions which equate forest certification with forest governance per se. Hence, while struggling for supremacy, the certification systems reshape their own and others' rationalities and relations while being influenced from within and outside their networks. Thereby, the rationalities of different entities play a key role for governance processes. According to Dean ([40], p. 24) "Rationality in this context means any way of reasoning, or way of thinking about, calculating and responding to a problem, (…) and which might draw upon formal bodies of knowledge and expertise." For instance, knowledge networks produced by German state agencies, NGOs or other entities, which are presented in the upcoming sections, shape the re-production of the rationalities of actors involved in the German procurement and certification discourse and also effect entities beyond this national debate and vice versa. Forest governance and certification are global processes, thus Massey's [48] criticism of the common failure of global politics to take into account the differences of local relations when dealing with global issues, does account for the above-mentioned aspect. Her view is supported by the United Nations‟ failures in transnational forest regulation [2,3]. Further, Murdoch [50] warns of selective, local utilization of national policy mechanisms that can steer implementation towards differing local rationalities. In consequence, this study evaluates political influences within transnational governance systems from a German national and local perspective, since such aspects, including politics, co-mediate relations and processes that shape each other [51]. Hence, actors or entities re-produce knowledge and values on other actors and non-human aspects, which in turn guide their activities [52]. These aspects highlight the possibilities gained by utilizing a governmentality approach with its focus on governmental rationalities, knowledge production and 'how' questions [40]. So, how are processes of forest governance influenced by the networks of knowledge production and distribution deriving from political legal discourses and their related entities? This highlights how the promotion or support of one or another certification system by state or EU institutions may influence forest governance.
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According to Jessop's [53] account of Foucault, such systems and their supporting networks aim to colonize or extend certain knowledge and power relations. Similarly, Merlingen [52] stresses the need to delve into the political relations of national policies towards transnational organizations and points out the remaining role of the nation state in the networks of power within transnational governance processes. In this case, power is the production and circulation of specific knowledge or, in the case of forestry, the representation of nature to obtain geo-power [20]. Baldwin ([20], p. 419) asserts, "This is to say that the apprehension of knowledge about how it is that ecosystems are central to human survival becomes a political technology through which geo-power is exercised." The notion of geo-power widens Foucault's [54] notion of bio-power, concerned with the government of the self and the social body, to include its material surroundings, in this case forest issues [20]. While Baldwins' [20] study is a good example on how a governmentality approach can be employed for studies on certification, it unfortunately ends short of integrating wider processes and relations which create the rationalities that frame certification as political technology. Hereafter, geo-power is acquired when actors position their agendas concerning SFM and knowledge as accepted values within the society and the economy, thereby promoting their specific political technologies and rationalities, for instance through procurement legislation. This shift from bio- to geo-power additionally opens up the utilization of a governmentality approach to fit into the open framework of relational space and enables criticism to be addressed. For instance, Murdoch [49] points out problems in applying Foucault‟s ideas outside of the micro-scale of institutions. The relational perspective taken by this paper [48] enables the integration of such wider, heterogeneous and shifting aspects in various spatial settings. With its openness, it further provides means to overcome criticism of Foucault‟s governmentality approach, including its state-centrism, closed-ness and disregard for excluded subjects [21]. Thus, with the approach followed by this study, governmentality is not treated as a one-way road from state institutions to govern “free” individuals at a distance [55]. Rather, it becomes a relational discourse between various, spatially embedded entities with the aim to steer, perceived free, yet relationally-embedded actors and individuals with their knowledge claims and produced rationalities [17,19]. To analyze neoliberal government approaches through a governmentality lens, Dean [40] urges the inclusion of the different rationalities of governing and governed entities in evaluating governance networks, an aspect strongly followed in this study. Changes in these rationalities are related to "problematizations", which place previous forms of governance into question ([40], p. 31). NGO protests concerning unsustainable forestry are but one example. Market driven forest certification, by the proclaimed values of western green consumers [3,18], provides another linkage to governmentality, since Foucault [54] places his governing focuses on the self, thus, societies‟ images of governance. Although the green consumer and its markets are largely co-constructed through NGO campaigns and other market actors, while the actual demand remains relatively low [32,56], knowledge distribution influences evolving perceptions and shapes rationalities. Additionally, as a process of self-government, governmentality enables individuals to decide according to their own rationalities, based on knowledge and perceived credible norms available to them, and thereby influence the direction of governance networks [40]. Thus, as pointed out by Murdoch [50], while a governmentality approach is appropriate to study the technological and the material attributes that shape political decision making, such as the discourse surrounding public procurement legislations and forest certification systems, the relational
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perspective provides additional means to evaluate the in-depth processes and spatial peculiarities of governance. Thus, while this approach provides few means to evaluate good or bad governance, a research aim also suspect to Foucault himself [22], it enables the relational processes of forest governance and its governmental influences to be displayed. 3. Public Procurement and Forest Certification 3.1. German Legislation, Development and Discourses The process for a new sustainable procurement policy for wood was initiated in 2002 by a red-green government coalition of Green Party and Social Democrats. Initial attempts focused on legislation, accepting only FSC-certified wood. This idea was supported by the Federal Ministry of Environment (BMU), regarding the PEFC system as insufficient. BMELV personnel had criticized FSC standards as too demanding to achieve wide support from forest owners. Therefore, the BMELV preferred more pragmatic solutions, including PEFC. Further criticism was addressed by PEFC Germany, which challenged the red-green approach from a legal perspective, stressing its non-compliance with national and World Trade Organization contract procedure legislation. To address these criticisms and avoid an escalating conflict among involved entities, the government decided to create its own certification criteria. The initial criteria, based partially on the German FSC standard, troubled both systems because of their strict guidelines in the pilot assessment in 2005 and 2006. Concurrently, the BMELV requested that the vTI break the FSC monopoly by evaluating the inclusion of PEFC. Thus, the decision was the result of a political adjustment process of lobbying for the systems or political technologies instead of performance criteria. Nevertheless, the national standards of both systems were partially altered to meet the demands of the developed criteria. In this process, PEFC and FSC both lobbied actively. The former, supported by forest owners, the backing of industrial associations and partially the BMELV, lobbied for its inclusion, the latter, supported by NGOs and the BfN, lobbied against it. Yet, the final decision to accept both schemes on a global scale was reached. It was described by a PEFC official as not through intensive discourse among involved actors (aside from the partial success that the red-green government had decided to agree on the acceptance of the German PEFC standard), but due to the change from a red-green government to a coalition of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD) in 2005. Supporting forest certification and SFM in general [57], the then new government accepted the "joint instruction on the procurement of wood products" in January 2007 [26]. Accepting both systems, it overrode critics from FSC supporters. The political shifts in the responsible ministries from the Green Party to the SPD in the BMU and to the Christian Social Union (CSU), a CDU affiliated party in Bavaria, within the BMELV, also affected the decision. This highlights the production of knowledge and its relations within such a process. Geo-power is exercised through the discourse on what counts as nature ([20], p. 424) or, in this case, SFM and its political technology. Thus, the government change was accompanied by changing rationalities on SFM due to different relational networks of the newly involved actors. The new rationalities on what standards are sufficient for SFM opened a broader spectrum of management practices for forests intended for public procurement contracts. Still, critics from both sides continue to frame the instruction.
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In the interviews, criticism occurred in a twofold manner. Firstly, PEFC inclusion is perceived as a major problem for FSC and its supporters. It was pointed out that it provides public credibility and value to a weaker system by naming it as equally acceptable to prove SFM. Large differences in national PEFC standards were brought up. Although some FSC supporters contend that German PEFC standards are close to those of FSC, non-European standards were frequently presented as insufficient. Therefore, because Chain-of-Custody (CoC) certificates are indistinguishable by country, generally PEFC and its forest management criteria are criticized as non-reliable. This criticism reflects the positive perception by PEFC. The instruction asserts that the government has deemed the two systems equally acceptable, and that both systems are reliable instruments to improve SFM. This contention is in direct opposition to the strongly pro-FSC chorus of the major NGOs that blame PEFC of insufficient practices [58,59]. Thus, recognition by the government improves PEFC's public role as a political technology to guarantee SFM [20]. Aside from this, PEFC officials expressed concerns over the lack of criteria specifying further means of proof according to German and EU contract procedure legislation. Specialists at an FSC procurement seminar also recognized problems for the potential of public procurement because of this bureaucratic burden. Secondly, the implementation of the instruction itself stands out as the main common issue of criticism. Officials from both systems questioned its impacts due to the lack of CoC-certified handicraft enterprises. Both systems require final certification to close their CoC. In FSC, at least a few companies at the end of the CoC are certified, but the situation for PEFC was described as an empty field. This was a great impediment for the federal authorities applying the instruction and for the certification systems as a political technology for SFM. However, the situation has been improving in recent years [27,60]. Additionally, within the complex field of public procurement, wood products are merely a small share, so the procurers' certification system knowledge is limited. Apart from these problems, the impact of the instruction is increasing beyond federal authorities. Since no central statistics on public procurement spending for Germany exist, the share of public procurement in Germany is estimated to be 10% of GDP, including national, federal states and community spending. However, estimates vary between 17% in 2002 [61] to 5.2% in 2005 [62]. Previous studies calculate an estimate of 10.6% for 2006 [63]. A vTI expert estimated the accumulated effects up to 15%–20% of German GDP. For wood products, because federal states, several cities and state-owned companies, such as the Deutsche Bahn, have implemented the directive [64], additional demand for certification is created. This forces even opponents of forest certification to deal with such issues. By promoting the certification systems as political technologies, the government is able to change the rationalities of previously opposed actors. Hence, forest certification systems are no longer a mere option to green the company‟s reputation, but a necessary practice to secure access to federal contracts. While PEFC is said to have gained credibility and legitimacy, FSC and its supporters are more critical of the recent instruction. However, FSC officials' fears of a negative outcome were partially unfounded. According to them, procurers' knowledge on certification has increased, and there are benefits for FSC with its high number of standards in tropical countries, due to the prominent position of tropical hardwood in construction materials. The processes of these discourses, happenings and resulting regulative frameworks exemplify how state governmental influences within market-based certification systems and the distribution of certain knowledge shapes and re-produces rationalities, as pointed out in studies on governmentality and governance [40,52,65].
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Figure 1 displays the entities which, based on their rationalities, influence the integration of PEFC and FSC into the current German procurement legislation. As the procurement instruction was reconfirmed in January 2011 [26], the vTI and the BfN, as scientifically responsible state agencies, are continuously re-producing, eventually differing knowledge on political technologies to distribute to the implementing ministries. By taking into account further perceptions and values of non-state produced knowledge, the ministries will maintain or transform their rationalities and technologies regarding the development of further national legislation. Thus, a multiplicity of eventually opposing representations of the forest and elements necessary to achieve SFM are integrated with both economic and political sets of relations and their rationalities. Thus, as shown in Figure 1, their rationalities are continuously influenced by a variety of hybrid assemblages', cross-cutting local, national and transnational contexts. Figure 1. Discourse on the integration of the forest certification schemes into German (and EU) procurement legislation. Entities displayed in boxes are not enclosed systems but tied in further set of relations and knowledge networks, similar to the one displayed here for the German procurement instruction.
3.2. On the Heterogeneity of Political Institutions Public authorities, such as ministries and federal agencies. are important in the production of knowledge, which shapes regimes of practices and influence their maintenance or transformation [40]. The German case exemplifies how knowledge re-production and promotion influences forest certification systems as political technologies for SFM. Following notions of Foucault [54], this section concentrates on the internal heterogeneity of state-affiliated organizations and their differing rationalities and perception of SFM, due to their relations. While the BMELV's perception was
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described to favor PEFC as political technology to guarantee SFM, the BMU and the BfN tend to favor FSC. With the differences changing, these preferences emerge from the different relations of the ministries and result in specific knowledge accepted and implemented in the political realm [40]. Since the BMU strongly relies on knowledge by the BfN, which is mainly concerned about nature conservation, it was described as favoring FSC with its more stringent set of standards and protective criteria. In contrast, the BMELV was said to favor PEFC as a means of compliance with SFM, while its consulting agency, the vTI, regards both, as well as their credible equivalents, as sufficient. This relates to the vTI's increased concern, compared to the BfN, with economic issues. Additionally, the close ties among forest owner associations and the BMELV, and the close ties between the BMU and environmental NGOs play a major role in such decisions. Varying rationalities of the political parties to support a system were pointed out in the interviews. The conservative (e.g., CDU/CSU) and liberal parties historically linked to the farmer associations tend to support PEFC, while the Green party, which is affiliated with many NGOs, is a strong supporter of FSC and has even partially rejected PEFC. Until recently, the federal states' choice of a certification system was recognizable by their political leanings. Following PEFC certification of all federal state forests, with the exceptions of double certifications in the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland, such political leanings are no longer simple predictors of certification system choices. This development was also due to indirect forest owner pressure. However, the support of a political technology by governmental means can also produce unintended results. An expert from the BMELV asserted that the preference of forest owners for PEFC was promoted by the decision of the former minister of the BMELV, the Green party's Renate Künast, to support FSC. This was said to have motivated forest owners who were previously against certification in general to opt for PEFC. Several interviewees described forest owners as distrusting of the Green party, and especially FSC-affiliated NGOs. Additionally, German forest owners frequently regard themselves as the inventors of SFM and see no need for improvement. They advertise German forestry and its forests as sustainable despite a lack of FSC certification. This claim is rejected by most NGOs and the Green party and frequently leads to tension while influencing the process. Forestry and environmental protection issues in Germany always need to take into account that responsibility and decision-making power is reserved by the federal states (Bundesländer) [66,67]. The Landesforstanstalten, or Federal State Forest Agencies, and their attached scientific departments, play a major role in establishing the federal state governments‟ rationalities. For example, in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, issues concerning forest certification are handled by the environmental ministry, while in Baden-Württemberg; these topics are handled by the agricultural ministry. Nordrhein-Westfalen was governed by a red-green coalition, while Baden-Württemberg was governed by the CDU. These two factors contributed to dissimilar policy regimes. Nordrhein-Westfalen certified its forests according to FSC because of demands by its environmental ministry. Baden-Württemberg certified its forest according to PEFC and is considered a strong PEFC supporter. A further shift in the rationalities involved the CDU in Nordrhein-Westfalen. After taking government it has been reluctant to refresh the expiring FSC certification despite criticism from the Green party and the SPD [68]. Similarly it will be of interest how the recently elected Red-Green government coalition in Baden-Württemberg and Nordrhein-Westfalen will affect these issues in the future.
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State choices influence private forestry as well. Although no specific scheme is promoted, many private forest owners have chosen the same certification system implemented by the Landesforstanstalten in their forests. In contrast, it was stressed that the public institutions have to bow to certain business demands. In Nordrhein-Westfalen, this forced the ministry to open up to PEFC certification because sawmills opted for PEFC. This decision was supported by the Landesforstanstalt of Nordrhein-Westfalen, which, due to the close relation to forest owners, favor PEFC. Supporters of both systems point out that PEFC entails better access to the Landesforstanstalten due to its forest owner support and therefore is able to generate support. These close relations are frequently criticized by FSC supporters. There was at least one case where PEFC regional sustainability reports were written by officials from the Landesforstanstalten and PEFC profited from state resources and knowledge. This displays how entities are struggling against each other, promoting their rationalities through the distribution of certain knowledge while being affected by other relations, their knowledge and rationalities. This prevents the strict separation of market forces and politics as well as their produced knowledge ([38], p. 193). 4. Governmental Aspects of Forest Certification and Governance Starting with Foucault's [54] notion that governmentality of states focuses on population, I draw the link to forest certification as a market-driven system created by re-produced consumer demand [32]. The consumers and policy makers in the green markets have expressed value for SFM. In this regard, it has to be pointed out that most actors (e.g., consumers and policy makers) rely on external representations and knowledge regarding what they then consider to provide, or define SFM, or on the state of forests. Thus, it is the various representations of the material practices that are most important in influencing the development of transnational forest governance, as most entities utilize these expertises to decide upon what they consider SFM. Political discourses are struggles for supremacy by political entities and their varying supportive networks. Thereby, for instance, forest owners or NGOs attempt to include their own rationalities into a stable set of relations [19,40]. This specific knowledge production aims to prioritize certain power relations over others [69]. Cross-cutting throughout multiple scales, the process is not reducible to a single entity as a state or an actor but is deeply rooted in transnational relations, as are the certification systems themselves. As nation states in the international decentralized processes in the EU remain important [52], the same accounts for national state procurement policies and the relations that shape their discourses and influences forest governance. This is not to say that politics determine the direction of forest governance, rather that considering certification systems as non-state governance [3,4] is a flawed conception. With political influence taken for granted, two questions remain. Firstly, by promoting certain political technologies and knowledge, how are different sets of relations influencing the discourse on procurement instructions? Secondly, how does this affect forest governance? It should be remembered that forest governance is understood as hybrid assemblages of entities and their relations [45] and, such as shown in Figure 1, this development process is influenced by an array of related actors and their rationalities. For instance, the support by the former BMELV minister for FSC led to an anti-FSC effect, due to negative attitudes of the German forest owners towards her supportive set of relations
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(e.g., the Green party and environmental NGOs), and not necessarily due to the material practices or standard criteria of the systems. It shows how individual rationalities may influence the direction of governance [40]. Thus, I avoid forecasting if future policy outcomes are able to provide improved SFM or which certification system might eventually succeed the competition, but attempt to shed insight into the re-production of governance processes. State agencies enclose vast capacities of knowledge production that might be in line with, or in opposition to, knowledge produced by non-state organizations such as NGOs or companies. Certain rationalities or political technologies concerning SFM are included or excluded according to the promoting actors‟ patterns of relationships in space [49]. A prominent example of this is the shift towards private forest governance systems due to the lack of international agreements [2,3]. This transfer is owed due to a wide distribution of knowledge related to NGO rationalities. NGO rationalities are sustained further by the high credibility of their institutions, which, as pointed out by Boström [9], correlate with the perceptions on actors' activities. One might think that FSC, supported by most NGOs, should dominate in those nations with green markets and subsequently be promoted by governments. Initially, that was the case in Germany and, for instance, the Netherlands, whereby the responsible institutions discounted local relationship patterns, such as forest owners in the German case. The governmental changes in both states display the importance of taking into account such seemingly external yet involved sets of relations and their rationalities. Hence, while certain groups felt excluded by the means of privatized governance systems, they were able to strongly voice their opinions in the public policy discourses on procurement. In Germany in particular, forest owners, with their strong relationships to the conservative parties, were able to utilize these sets of relations to integrate their rationalities into state policy. Since policy is shaped by multiple relations, these processes are concerned with more issues than just forest certification. For example, the World Trade Organization or the EU trade regulation limits the acceptance of a single system as opposed to free trade. This decreases the possibilities for specific certification systems. Here, it must be pointed out that most PEFC supporters, unlike those of FSC, promote no monopoly claims in this two party competition on SFM certification. The prior aim of PEFC lies in mutual recognition as a credible instrument for SFM. Thus, this situation of relative openness in this governmental space can be regarded as an advantage for PEFC to integrate its standards and to gain legitimacy via state support, despite weaker protective criteria [9]. In her account on FSC, Eden [43] stresses the importance of place in relation to the re-production of governance networks. Place-related attributes, such as specific or localized knowledge and material practices, influence the possibilities of such networks [9,43]. This supports Massey's [48] criticism of the global political failure to take into account local relations. National governments and the national chapters of the certification systems are building their rationalities and the resulting political technologies partially from nationally or locally embedded set of relations (e.g., Figure 1). In the German case, the BMELV pro-PEFC position, in comparison to the pro-FSC position of the BfN, is as much an example of this as the different evaluation results within other EU procurement directives [34]. This reflects Murdoch's [50] findings that centrally produced rationalities might face problems in being equally adapted by different locales, an aspect often neglected in normative accounts on forest governance. In Germany, according to a vTI expert, a sole reliance on FSC would prevent access to state procurement contracts to approximately 75% of all German forest owners, even though German forestry is seen, even partially among FSC supporters, as comparatively well managed. These
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examples display the "problematizations" focus of governmentality mentioned by Dean ([40], p. 31). Because the political actors in Germany are tied to multiple sets of relations aside FSC or PEFC, they balance their decision-making and the re-production of their rationalities on various problematizations. Thus, they rank the environmental, social or economical aspects of SFM in varying manners. In the case of procurement legislation, one part of this decision was between broader acceptance (PEFC) and higher conservation standards (FSC) of the procurement instruction, in addition to external considerations not directly related to forest management (e.g., economic and party politics). Inside the EU, PEFC is mostly perceived as sufficient for SFM [17], due to the strong existing legal framework for forest management within most member states, despite PEFC's weaker general criteria. Illegal logging or mismanagement are therefore less common than, for instance, in developing tropical countries or the Russian Federation, and provide fewer reasons for public controversy, which is an important aspect to influence public and political rationalities on the issue [17,19]. However, this is not the case in the tropics according to FSC supporters. Hence, despite their international criteria and indicators, the systems entail varying national standards and implementation [24]. Thus, it becomes almost impossible for international policy to agree upon or promote a single way concerning SFM through a singular forest certification system. Nevertheless, to include their rationalities of SFM through a specific certification system, the supporters of the systems must be able to produce and distribute knowledge which promotes their approach as a globally, unified political technology [37,50]. Such actions create important promotional networks and generate certain "geo-powers" [20] for systems found in Germany and elsewhere. Further, such relational processes influence the conduct of governance processes for various entities [40,41]. Having discussed the relational re-production of the procurement instruction itself, the influence on market-driven forest certification systems and governance in general requires additional evaluation. Even though procurement legislation merely regulates minor shares of a specific market, it creates a wider contribution to the greening of markets. Depending on the rationalities of the procurement regulation, certain actors can become connected to this newly developing set of relations by sharing some of its values. The case of the pro-PEFC federal state of Baden-Württemberg is a good example, because adoption would have been unlikely with a national procurement policy focused exclusively on FSC, as its forest owners and institutions support PEFC. As more institutions adapt this legislation, the certification systems can become state-accredited systems of market regulation, providing them with improved power relations. Regarding low end-consumer demand [32], PEFC seems to be recently better equipped in Germany to gain from this policy. The support from forest owners has a definite influence because of their interrelations with governmental authorities, such as the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry, who are often in charge of the above-mentioned legislation, in addition to responding more sensitively to economic concerns. Additionally, these pro-PEFC entities entail strong means of knowledge production as well as distribution networks to influence the rationalities of involved actors and some political actors in Germany. Contrariwise, FSC enjoys broader public acceptance due to its NGO linkages, providing it with an advantage in market-driven governance aspects, and is therefore enabled to utilize different channels than PEFC to promote its rationalities and itself as the better political technology for SFM. Hence, as can be derived from the examples provided above by the German case, which system profits more strongly is related to the relations of the further involved actors with the
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political and economical institutions, which co-construct the knowledge and the resulting rationalities [40]. 4.1. Governmental Effects on Forest Management through Certification A different conclusion regarding SFM is drawn concerning the system's own performance. The German legislation distributes knowledge that supports or neglects a certification system rather than shaping the certification systems' on-the-ground criteria or internal processes. Nonetheless, the perceived on-the-ground performance plays an important role in the re-production of the rationalities and values of the involved entities. Most studies concerned with the on-the-ground performance of certification systems acknowledge positive effects of forest management when private, third-party accredited systems are in place [7,70,71]. This, at least, is in comparison to business-as-usual forestry, an aspect which is further supported by a recent study on Finnish forestry actors and their perceptions on certification [19]. Thus, political regulation by promoting certification through public procurement should be able to provide a positive impact on the state of environment in forests and on their environmental aspects of their management. Yet, if the choice of a single system, for instance FSC, would provide even larger improvements for the forests themselves is a different question and requires further research beyond this study in, what I would call, a rather disputed subject, concerning forest certification. Despite current state acceptance, supporters of both systems questioned if the German procurement directive as well as its responsible ministries and political actors share the same rationalities and aims concerning SFM, as promoted by the certification systems themselves. Furthermore, it is questionable whether legislation will be capable of keeping up with the rapid development of the certification systems. Thus, which sets of relations are able to include new or sustain old rationalities into these regulations remains an important question. Keeping in mind the importance of place in relational space [48,49], local sets of relations like the ones presented from the German example are also the underlying relations that shape the re-production of legislations in other EU countries and are vital in understanding the development of a future all-EU procurement legislation. That, specifically since Germany is further part of a six EU country-wide working group on the public procurement of wood products in the EU Standing Forest Committee. While this is an important aspect, it lies beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, these aspects provide a further incentive for additional studies to remediate the lack of national and local peculiarities in previous research on public procurement, market regulations and their influences on forest certification and forest governance in EU states and elsewhere [6]. 5. Conclusions The market-driven aspects of forest certification and its related systems, especially FSC and PEFC, are described by several studies [3,15,72,73]. Treating the subject within a framework of relational space and a governmentality approach [17,20,40], a strong influence by state actors remains. This accounts as well for the influence of procurement legislation on forest or environmental governance in general, if through certification or by further means. The German case presented above shows how formerly voluntary certification systems are transformed into political technologies with state legitimacy by means of procurement legislation.
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Procurement guidelines thereby provide market incentives and become an essential aspect of the greening of markets, as described by Kortelainen [32], although their market-driven aspects are co-produced, based on governmental relations and rationalities. Thereby, the study pointed out the importance of taking the heterogeneity of a political discourse into consideration to evaluate how transnational governance processes are shaped by national peculiarities. It showed how different entities, based on their relationship patterns, become involved in governance processes and how varying knowledge, concerning SFM, is mediated in a political discourse to a certain end. For the systems themselves, this might be positive if they are accepted as a political technology or negative due to the introduction of competing technologies. Even though, in the case of Germany, both systems were finally accepted (and one might ask if the process described above made any difference), the ongoing discourse which surrounds the legislation continuously influences the rationalities and therewith the understandings and decision-making process of various actors and entities in the field of forestry and certification. Generally, current German legislation has been supportive of forest certification as a political technology. However, in terms of achieving SFM, it certainly has only fulfilled its proclaimed target of securing sustainable procurement based on the rationalities of some of the involved entities due to the varying definitions of SFM among involved entities. Concerning the systems themselves, state authorities' relations and rationalities influence the rationalities of actors and the development processes of the certification systems. Thereby, the systems rationalities are publicly ranked and promoted as a technology for SFM by state authorities. Hence, the knowledge produced, accepted or rejected by different entities within this process contribute to the overall re-production of transnational forest governance spaces as it not only creates some of the framework conditions in which forestry or certification takes place, but also shapes the rationalities of all directly or indirectly involved entities, which guides their decision-making and conduct. Additionally, individuals in a powerful governmental position can strongly influence the process. However, they are individually unable to direct a specific development. Such processes as presented by this study, framed by a governmentality approach and its networks of knowledge production enable it to provide an improved understanding on how heterogeneous processes of forest governance take place. Compared to many other studies, this study has aimed beyond aspects relevant for the internal workings of the certification systems or normative policy accounts [4,6,10,15] and evaluated the relational processes of state influence which influence and guide governance processes. Thus, as mentioned before, it does not evaluate good or bad governance, neither can it provide a structured framework on how to achieve the former, but the study has displayed important processes of how entities are involved in governance networks and are able to shape their processes. Finally, I regard the approach of governmentality within a relational space of forest governance as helpful in studying transnational governance systems for its provision of important insights into the institutional and spatial settings co-producing the involved discourses. From this perspective, the paper fosters further understanding and research into the local and often falsely assumed external processes that influence forest or natural resource governance. It opens up the governmentality perspective by integrating the spatial peculiarities of localities and actors, their relations and the implications for hybrid, scale crossing governance assemblages. Thereby, it rather adds to the current state of research in studies on environmental governance and the influence of governmental entities on market-based
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certification systems, then to deliver an improved understanding in the realm of literature concerned with the certification systems themselves [3,8,15]. Nevertheless, keeping in mind the permanent re-production of space and knowledge [40,48], I conclude with the thoughts from a researcher of the vTI who stated that what is politically considered legal logging today was considered SFM ten years ago. This statement displays the shifts on how nature and its needs are represented through changing rationalities in our society and throughout our policies. Hence, while common values and rationalities are constantly shifting, governmental and political realms permanently co-construct these rationalities and values, even in a strongly market-driven governance sphere. Acknowledgments This research is part of the research project "Transnationalization of forest governance" at the University of Eastern Finland and has been funded by The Academy of Finland (Project: 14770) and has been supported by the strategic funding of the University of Eastern Finland (Project: 931429). I would like to thank Jarmo Kortelainen for his valuable comments on the previous versions of this paper. References and Notes Noel Castree. "Neoliberalising nature: The logics of deregulation and reregulation." Environment and Planning A 40 (2008): 131–152. 2. Ronnie D. Lipschutz. Global Environmental Politics: Power, Perspectives, and Practice. Washington: CQ Press, 2004. 3. Benjamin Cashore, Graeme Auld, and Deanna Newsom. Governing through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergency of Non-state Authority. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. 4. Benjamin Cashore, Elizabeth Egan, Graeme Auld, and Deanna Newsom. "Revising Theories of Nonstate Market-Driven (NSMD) Governance: Lessons from the Finnish Forest Certification Experience." Global Environmental Politics 7 (2007): 1–44. 5. FSC. "Our vision and mission." FSC, 3 August 2012. http://www.fsc.org/vision-mission.12.html. 6. Ewald Rametsteiner. "The role of governments in forest certification-a normative analysis based on new institutional economics theories." Forest Policies and Economics 4 (2002):163–173. 7. Graeme Auld, Lars H. Gulbrandsen, and Constance L. McDermott. "Certification Schemes and the Impacts on Forests and Forestry." Annual Review of Environment and Resources 33 (2008): 187–211. 8. Errol Meidinger. "Forest certification and democracy." European Journal of Forest Resources 130 (2011): 407–419. 9. Magnus Boström. "Regulatory Credibility and Authority through Inclusiveness: Standardization Organizations in Cases of Eco-Labelling." Organization 13 (2006): 345–367. 10. Magnus Boström. "How State-Dependent is a Non-State-Driven Rule Making Project? The Case of Forest Certification in Sweden." Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning 5 (2003):165–180. 11. Dan Klooster. "Environmental Certification of forests: The evolution of environmental governance in a commodity network." Journal of Rural Studies 21 (2005): 403–417.
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71. Peter Schlyter, Ingrid Stjernquist, and Karin Bäckstrand. "Not seeing the forest for the trees? The environmental effectiveness of forest certification in Sweden." Forest Policy and Economics 11 (2009): 375–382. 72. Ronnie D. Lipschutz, and James K. Rowe. Globalization, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the Rest of Us? New York: Routledge, 2005. 73. Lars H. Gulbrandsen. Overlapping Public and Private Governance: Can Forest Certification Fill the Gaps in the Global Forest Regime? Global Environmental Politics 4 (2004): 75–99. © 2012 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
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Environmental customer demands: market relations, knowledge networks and their effects on (forest) governance and practices Moritz A lbrecht University of Eastern Finland, Department of Geographical and Historical Studies.
Abstract Following the academic debate on the privatization of transnational forest governance and the integration of environmental aspects into economic geography, this study evaluates aspects of environmental business customer demands regarding transnational wood processing corporations. Thereby the role of forest certification systems on forest governance is critically discussed. Inter-firm relations and the production of knowledge networks concerning sustainable forest management (SFM) are highlighted. A case study of transnational Finnish corporations is employed to display how environmental aspects of resource exploitation are negotiated by various actors and networks along the value chains towards the company’s European core markets. The role of knowledge networks concerning processes of environmental governance is stressed. The cases are based on qualitative data (in the form of interviews), gathered with representatives from the respective corporations as well as from further related actors. Forest certification systems are thereby acknowledged as an important driver. However, based on its relational approach, this study argues that further varying and perceived external relations between actors, institutions, or the resource areas, play a more important role for transnational forest governance than most of the current literature on so called ‘market-driven forest governance’ suggests. Keywords: forest governance, market relations, environmental customer demands, knowledge networks, Finnish companies.
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Introduction Environmental governance is currently embroiled in an academic debate over an increase of non-state or private led decision making and influence. A prime example of this, and frequently discussed in literature are transnational forest governance systems (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004; Bass and Guéneau 2005; Chan and Pattberg 2008). Forest certification (often described as a market-driven regulatory instrument) has gathered considerable attention in the past and related to increased business customer demands and its surrounding knowledge networks is treated as an important factor of forest governance in this article. As most natural resources, wood-based product trade is a global process as are its wood product flows and its environmental implications on the utilized resource. Thus the environmental performance of products or their utilized resources are negotiated within these transnational spaces and influence their governance. By evaluating the market relations and knowledge networks of corporations in terms of requests concerning SFM on their influence on forest governance the paper echoes a current trend in economic geography to integrate environmental aspects from a relational perspective into governance processes (e.g. Bridge 2008, Hayter 2008). Governance is understood as a hybrid process including multiple practices (e.g. Bulkeley 2005). As knowledge resides at the basis of regimes of practices and governance spaces (Dean 2010, Massey 2005) its performance in global value chains is stressed in economic geography (e.g. Vallance 2007, Grabher and Ibert 2006, Birch and Cumbers 2010). Further, knowledge networks are considered of prime importance concerning the governance of global value chains and in the (re-)production of inter firm relations (Castells 2005, Maskell et al. 2006, Birch and Cumbers 2010). While influence of knowledge networks is stressed in general (Massey 2005, Huxley 2007) geographies’ value chain related literature recent focus on knowledge concerned with product innovations (e.g. Maskell et al. 2006, Vallance 2007, Birch and Cumbers 2010) seems to neglect external influences. For instance, the integration of environmental aspects stressed in writings on economic geography mentioned above. Thus, environmental aspects related to global or transnational value chains and often external to their products characteristics deserve attention as they influence governance of the respective resources be it forests, fisheries or others (e.g. Kortelainen 2008, Soyez 2002, Eden 2010, Kooiman and Bavinck 2005). Further, as production, trade and knowledge networks are reproducing rationalities of involved actors a remaining importance of the actors’ relational embeddedness in place and within less restricted networks of knowledge distribution shape decisions and rationalities. Thereby they provide a contribution to transnational resource governance. Taking into account the aspects presented above the study aims to answer the following questions: (i) how inter-firm relations and environmentally related demands influence forest governance systems? and (ii) how does the positionality within these markets influence the involved actors’ activities? Both questions are addressed by a focus on how networks of knowledge production and distribution
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surrounding instruments for SFM affect forest governance. Aside the focus on forest governance the findings posses’ general value for other realms of resource governance related to global value chains. A short excurse on forest governance and the role of certification in the following section will provide a contextual framework for the study. Following sections describe the methods of empirical data collection while the theoretical framework presents the utilized approach of relational space of forest governance and addresses the role of knowledge networks in transnational governance. The paper will subsequently answer the above mentioned questions by describing actor relations, networks and their differences while evaluating the influence of knowledge networks on governance practices. Further, the effects of the findings on forest governance will be discussed and the conclusion whilst summarizing the results will integrate the findings into the broader debate on transnational resource governance and related aspects of knowledge networks.
Evaluating current aspects of forest governance and forest certification schemes
Increased business customer demand for forest certification schemes (see Table 1) and the surrounding debate about their promotion as tools for SFM was chosen as an exemplifying case to display processes of environmental focused, transnational economic governance. This was chosen due to forest governances’ prominent role in debates about the privatization of natural resource governance and its commonly perceived market driven character (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004, Chan and Pattberg 2008). As mentioned by Doel (2000) markets produce matters of concern, in the case of wood based products concerns about unsustainable forestry practices. These concerns have lead to past and ongoing protest campaigns in central European markets about the logging practices of Finnish as well as other transnational forest industries (Albrecht 2010b; Hayter and Soyez 1996; Greenpeace 2009a; Greenpeace 2009b) and increased the amount of customer requests concerning SFM to these companies. Thereby, varying environmental customer requests and their subsequent handling become increasingly integrated into everyday value chain management and transnational forest governance per se (e.g. Albrecht 2010a).
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Table 1: Basic comparison of FSC and PEFC forest certification systems FSC
PEFC
Established
• 1993
• 1999
Int. Secretariat
• Bonn, Germany
• Geneva, Switzerland
Standards
• International forest standards,
• National forest standards
10 principles & 56 criteria;
are endorsed by adherence
national standard development
to PEFC Council Technical
is based on them.
Document describing criteria
• Use of generic standard in countries prior to own standard. • Chain of Custody of full supply chain. • Third-party assessment.
and standards. • Umbrella system also endorsing independent national standards. • Chain of Custody of full supply chain. • Third-party assessment.
Certificates/
• 134 mil. hectares (81
area (January
countries) and 19617 CoC
2011)
certificates.
Supporters
• Major NGOs, especially WWF
• 232 mil. hectares and 7617 CoC certificates. • Forest owners.
as founding member, selected companies/forest owners. Criticism
• Breaches of certification criteria in local cases. • Monopoly claim to SFM. • Neglect of private forest owner interests; NGO-dominated.
• Governments and Industry1 • Less stringent protective criteria. • Less stringent control criteria lead to more breaches. • Favouring industry interests.
Source: Albrecht 2010a, modified by author. 1 In most cases there is not a PEFC only support but a neutral view, regarding both as equally sufficient. This view however favours PEFC (Albrecht 2010a).
NGO pressure or boycott campaigns are performed publicly while the debates about the two main certification schemes and their proficiency for SFM are largely internal discourses among supply and production companies, their business customers and further involved organizations. In most cases the former are the receivers of requests and criticism. Hence, a transnational-company-centric view of perceived relations and influences allows the display of market relations from one of the few, quasi fixed points within the global value chain of wood based products. The study addresses environmental requests on a globalized market from a local perspective. It does so by evaluating the Finnish pulp and paper sector and studies its four major Finnish transnational corporations (TNCs) regarding
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customer request on SFM (FFIF 2010). A specific focus is set on the market relations with Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) since the majority of Finnish wood based products in 2010 were exported to Germany (19%) and the UK (10%) while these countries rank second, respectively third largest paper importers worldwide (FFIF 2011). With 23% of Germany’s paper and cardboard and 24% of pulp imports deriving from Finland it is the largest importer for those products (VDP 2008).
Methods The focus of this case study is on four Finnish TNCs (see Table 2) and the environmental demands, concerning SFM, addressed to the same. The choice of the respective companies allows a certain degree of generalization due to their prominent position in the European and global paper product markets. Thus with almost 100 production sites throughout Europe (FFIF 2011) they have a strong market penetration whereas their respective representatives broad experiences should provide valid examples to display general processes. Since qualitative interviews are an important mean to gain actors experiences (Silvermann 2006) which, by evaluating their perceptions, enables a view on their rationalities about governance or the promotion of knowledge networks; open-ended, in-depth interviews with seven representatives of these TNCs were conducted between autumn 2009 and spring 2010. Instead of large samples the research is based on deep and intensive investigation of few cases, yet deploys a broad array of data from multiple sources (Yin 2003) or in this case companies. Interviews were conducted with the environmental offices of all companies but Stora Enso in which case the request was forwarded from its Helsinki Headquarters to its International Wood Supply Sustainability section whose vice director was deemed more suitable concerning environmental as well as European market issues. Further interviews were conducted with the UK based Environmental Marketing director of UPM, a Germany based sales manager responsible for environmental aspects of Myllykoski and an expert form Metsäliitto Groups’ sustainability office, responsible for Russian wood supply and environmental affairs. For a general point of view and to cross check the information from the single companies an additional interview was conducted with a representative of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation in 2011. Interviews lasted from one hour to two and half hours and were digitally recorded and subsequently transcribed. Two of the interviews were conducted in German, others in English. Information utilized for the empirical part of the paper is largely drawn from these interviews. While the small number of interviews restricts quantitative significant generalizations, this is not the case for theoretical generalizations aimed for by this paper (Yin 2003). Additionally, in terms of environmental governance a focus on specific companies has been promoted to increase the understanding of environmental initiatives as certification systems (Braun 2003).
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Table 2: Company facts & figures, overview on case study companies UPM-Kymmene
• Global, Finnish wood based product Corporation. • 22,000 employees, 8.9 bill. € net sales, production in 15 countries (2010). • Product spectrum covering pulp, paper/paperboard, engineered wood based products, (bio-)energy/fuels, forest management, ownership of forestry holdings in Finland, United Kingdom, United States of America; Plantations in Uruguay2. • 3rd largest forest industries company in Europe.
Stora Enso
• Global, Finnish/Swedish wood based product Corporation. • 26,000 employees, 10.3 bill. € net sales, production in 35 countries (2010) • Product Spectrum covering pulp, paper/paperboard, engineered wood based products, bioenergy/fuels, ownership of plantations in Brazil and Chile. • 2nd largest forest industries company in Europe.
Metsäliitto Group
• International, Finnish forest industry group. • Cooperative ownership structures, 126,000 members (Finnish forest owners). • 13,000 employees, 5.3 bill. € net sales, production in 11 European countries. • Product Spectrum covering pulp, paper/paperboard, engineered wood based products, forest management/wood supply, indirect ownership of ~50% of privately owned Finnish forests. • 6th largest forest industries company in Europe.
Myllykoski
• International, Finnish family-owned paper industry group3. • 2,400 employees, 1.1 bill. € net sales, production in Germany, Finland, United States. • Product spectrum covering uncoated and coated publication papers. • Focus of production in Germany
Source: FFIF 2011, Stora Enso 2011, UPM 2011, Myllykoski Corporation 2011, Metsäliitto Group 2011. Plantations in Uruguay are directly owned by Forest Oriental, a 100% subsidiary of UPMKymmene (UPM 2010). 3 On December 2010 sale of Myllykoski group to UPM-Kymmene was announced for the third quarter of 2011 (Myllykoski 2010) 2
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Additional information from 18 further, in-depth interviews with officials from Finnish institutions, forest certification systems FSC and PEFC, German woodbased product utilizing industries and government institutions as well as with representatives of the world Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Global Forest Trade Network (GFTN) are utilized to form a basis for this research (see also Albrecht 2010a, 2010b). All interviews were conducted in the period from autumn 2008 until 2011. Furthermore, public documents, academic literature and company reports as well as position papers of the actors, organizations and companies under investigation were qualitatively evaluated as were web-based sustainable wood product databases. Such additional data sources strengthen and enable to cross reference data from the main interviews (Yin 2003). Generally, data has been gathered at the company’s main nodes of knowledge production and promotion concerning SFM issues. Following the theoretical section displays the papers relational approach on space wherein processes of knowledge circulation and their influences on governance take place.
Relational market spaces, knowledge networks and environmental (forest) governance Global product flows and a neoliberalization of market processes are transforming global markets and the relations of entities within. This has wider applications on the governance of natural resources since as commodity products their management is shaped by entities within and related to the market. Entities are thereby defined as individuals, institutions as well as non-human assets like the forest or certain forest conflicts. A shift towards private governance systems for natural resources is well documented (e.g. Lipschutz and Rowe 2005; Castree 2008; Falkner 2003). This accounts for forest governance where so called market driven, mostly private forms of forest governance practices hold a prominent position to substitute for the failure of transnational, institutional attempts to regulate or govern this realm (Humphreys 2006; Cashore et al. 2004; Gulbrandsen 2004; Visseren-Hamakers and Glasbergen 2006; Chan and Pattberg2008). Regarding recent academic literature corporate or country choices for certification regarding institutional regimes, history of forestry or situation of the country within the global forest product market have been previously discussed (Cashore and Vertinsky 2000; Cashore et al. 2004; Cashore et al. 2007; Gulbrandsen 2006). Regarding commodity chain aspects, Morris and Dunne (2004) describe influences of large British retailers in driving the certification of the South African timber products industry. A retailer influenced governance is further stressed by Klooster (2005) highlighting problems, deriving from the FSC focus on retailer co-operation for small and medium sized community forest’s integration. Large retailers are discussed in relation to the mainstreaming of certification and the possible negative effects of lower standards due to corporate pressure (Klooster 2010). However, most of these studies focus firstly on the FSC and tend
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to treat competitor schemes such as the PEFC solely as a side issue (e.g. Eden 2009; Klooster 2010) and secondly are in most cases dealing with ‘sawn wood’ related companies as retailers or furniture companies (e.g. Klooster 2005; Morris and Dune 2004). Thirdly, aspects of knowledge networks concerning SFM in regard to company and value chain aspects are barely touched upon. Few exceptions to this pattern include the work of Correia (2010) on certification preferences in the State of Maine related to a restructuring process in the pulp and paper sector, and the work of Stringer (2006) on the emergence of certification schemes in chosen resource peripheries. However, while both studies evaluate issues related to those subjects they end short of presenting how TNCs in the pulp and paper sector perceive their own position, act accordingly and distribute knowledge to influence global value chains. Yet, the notion of certification as a market driven approach, based on pressure from environmentally aware markets (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004; Haufler 2003) and basis for most studies mentioned above is a main point of conjecture to investigate the deeper structure of market relations and their involved entities. Doreen Massey (2005) highlights spaces constituted by market relations as a good example of relational space as they present a vast array of rationalities, inequalities and influences among its entities. Being under constant reproduction by their entities and by external factors including bio-physical influences, these spaces are considered open (Massey 2005; Murdoch 2006). Yet these relational spaces as markets are never all inclusive due to their consensual and contested character (Murdoch 2006). Also, spaces as well as global markets or governance systems should not be seen as homogenous entities since they are shaped and performed by local perceptions of place and embedded knowledge (Massey 2005, 2004). Thus place related rationalities, knowledge or values of entities as well as territorial peculiarities of institutional settings or bio-physical aspects shape the reproduction of those spaces. This correlates with the notions of Jessop et al. (2008, p. 389) regarding place, territories, scales and networks “…as mutually constitutive and relationally intertwined dimensions of socio-spatial relations”. Despite its open character and constant reproduction, relational space and the entities involved are strongly characterized by certain spatio-temporal fixes (Jessop 2006). These fixes nonetheless are of temporary nature and therefore prone to destruction due to the reproduction of space (Murdoch 2006). They are constructing provisional boundaries and create a structural coherence within certain spaces (Jessop 2006). In other terms, they represent a temporary fixed set of relations among entities and create certain rationalities, values or perceptions tied within. Forest certification can be regarded as a spatio-temporal fix as a means to improve forest management. Thus, by promoting knowledge fostering a certain approach entities re-produce such spatio-temporal fixes. When analyzing perceptions on different relations concerning spatio-temporal fixes, Jessop et al. (2008) urges the integration of aspects of place, territory, scale, and networks in the evaluation process. This also addresses criticisms made towards a relational approach and its omission of categories of understanding. (e.g. Sunley 2008).
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Returning to the interplay between a relational market space of wood based products to forest governance, forest certification is a classical example of connecting core areas or markets to forest resource peripheries (Stringer 2006; Albrecht 2010b). In the case described here, the relationship between the Northern resource areas and the central European markets. The value chains between these various localities can be seen to form the back bone of private governance practices such as forest certification. Global value chains are further utilized by NGOs, who through boycott or protest activities campaign against unsustainable forest management practices in the resource peripheries and to connect them to companies in the core markets (Kortelainen 2008). This “roughing up the surfaces” (Crang 1996, p. 51) of products, creating a “relational reflexivity” (Murdoch 2006, p. 179) among consumers or corporate customers helped the NGOs4 to perform green (or environmentally aware) consumer markets as described by Kortelainen (2008) and to render corporations involved in the trade of wood based products more open to environmental requests concerning their products and own environmental performance. Since governance is affected by the reaction of corporations on those external pressures it is important to focus on these processes including the underlying knowledge re-production.
Governance of global value chains and the role of knowledge production
Most studies are based on an approach looking for general reasons or causes why companies or institutions support certification or further governance practices but neglect the peculiarities of single involved entities (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004; Gulbrandsen 2006). Hughes et al. (2008) as well as Berndt and Boeckler (2009) in their papers on Global Production Networks stress the importance of exactly these local peculiarities of commodity culture and knowledge while pointing out the importance to take social, territorial and network embeddedness into account to evaluate their implications on commodity systems. This accounts for governance systems in general. As mentioned above, governance is hereafter regarded as hybrid assemblages of governance practices (Bulkeley 2005). Thus, compared to many papers on forest governance, forest certification is not regarded as an own form of governance but as a practice of governance. Hence, as pointed out by Hughes (2006, p. 640) certification systems “...have infiltrated practices of governance...”; yet, following a relational approach of space, governance processes of global value chains are shaped also externally to such systems (Kulke 2007, Bulkeley 2005). Business customer requests concerning SFM are important aspects which influence governance processes and their practices. Being often framed in debates on forest certification systems the paper follows this approach. Environmental related business customer requests involve a communicative process what points to the importance of knowledge networks among entities involved in relational space. This view is supported by Eden (2009) in her relational approach on FSC The NGOs most active towards the issue of forest certification and wood product related boycott campaigns in Europe are Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature and Friends of the Earth (especially in the UK).
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as she stresses the importance of knowledge networks for certain actors to maintain in a powerful position. Knowledge networks are produced through what Ash and Cohendet (2005) describe as circulation of knowledge, not being a mere transfer but a continuous process of knowledge re-production. However, from a global value chain perspective the compatibility of circulated knowledge towards a market place and its actors must be ensured (Vallance 2007). The discrepancies existing among their supporters regarding the value of the different certification systems bolster this claim (e.g. Table 1). This paper aims not to discuss actual differences or results at the implementation level (see Auld et al. 2008; UPM 2005; Schlyter et al. 2009) nonetheless, this point should make clear the importance of produced knowledge on the systems and its distributive networks to shape rationalities of involved entities (Dean 2010, Baldwin 2003). Contrary to knowledge circulation based on product or production innovativeness (expert to expert) knowledge on environmental standards (including their implementation) is often communicated from expert to lay person (e.g. procurement officer) or even solely among lay persons. Following, the complexity of relational space, in this case forest governance practices and their effects, is preventing actors to perfectly understand it. Thus, bounded rationalities including a risk of uncertainty prevails (Morgan and Murdoch 2000) while knowledge distributed by entities must be related to a certain amount of trust in the entities on whose account knowledge is produced (Morgan and Murdoch 2000; Bachmann 2001). By tying “relational reflexivity” deriving from NGO campaigns to consumer and business customer decisions (Murdoch 2006, p. 179), the positionality of the companies or entities involved becomes an important factor to shape their knowledge networks and influence forest governance (Albrecht 2010a). Following Sheppard (2002) positionality is hereafter regarded as how entities are positioned towards each other in relational space. In this case for instance their embeddedness in place, their product peculiarities or global value chains as well as their knowledge and cooperation networks. According to Berndt and Boeckler (2009) a focus on such local and trans-local relations and the understanding of embeddedness also fosters an understanding of the multiscalar nature of processes. Thus the market relations and knowledge networks which are connected to or maintained by TNCs, play an important role by reproducing or maintaining regulation systems in a relational space of forest governance. The next section thus provides empirical findings on environmental customer demands to the TNCs and displays knowledge networks related to governance practices produced by specific actors and groups.
Environmental demands and customers’ positionality?
Environmental performance of wood and wood product producing or trading corporations is not seen as a marginal side issue today but a major aspect of doing business and as a safeguard for the company reputation (e.g. Albrecht 2010a). Finnish TNCs discussed in this paper are confronted with requests and demands concerning SFM from their customers’ and possible pressure through NGOs.
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Notwithstanding this general pattern of increased environmental business customer demand, specific demands or requests must be seen as affected by the customers’ positionality within a relational market space (Albrecht 2010a). To begin with, the country of the customers markets is playing an important role. Regarding the awareness on environmental sound forest products Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) are often cited (e.g. Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006; Hayter and Soyez 1996). This was supported by company’s representatives which highlighted Germany and the UK but also France as environmentally aware markets from where most requests originate. Some company representatives also stated these markets as more developed in their environmental demands than for example southern European countries or Asian markets. While in public discussion environmental topics were described to have moved from paper production issues (chemicals, water) to forestry issues (illegal logging, certification) during the last 15 years, recently life cycle and carbon footprint issues have become more important; however, do not play a substantial role in the public discussions of wood based products thus far. The environmental topics within the most aware markets are said to be similar but the manner in which they are discussed varies. Regarding wood based products, the number one requested topic described by environmental specialists of the Finnish TNCs is forest certification, and which system can be offered to the customer. Thereby, it was pointed out by industry officials that FSC is seen as sufficient by almost all customers while it seems difficult to find someone supporting solely PEFC while rejecting FSC. However, most customers take a relative neutral stand. Acceptance of a certain system was also described in relation to the dominant certification scheme operating within the markets own forests. Since domestic forest practices are less often scrutinized (Albrecht 2010b) customer demands aside or additional to certification concern mainly non-domestic resource areas. These demands are often related to the target areas of NGO campaigns made public in the domestic market of the customer. This runs parallel to the importance and possible influence of place and territorially embedded relations of companies mentioned by Berndt and Boeckler (2009) and Jessop et al. (2008) to steer the perceptions of actors and affect governance processes. Further examples of territorial embeddedness are public procurement laws utilizing certification systems as prove for SFM or legality and thereby influencing market demand for the systems. Regarding German and UK markets despite the influences produced by the national peculiarities on their home markets, strong general differences between the business customers’ environmental demands and rationalities were not experienced. Keeping in mind that spaces are tied to a multiplicity of relations as stressed by Massey (2005) and Murdoch (2006) it was pointed out that differences regarding customer demands and priorities, for instance for a distinct certification system, could be found among and within most countries. The structure of the value chains, which in turn is related to the product specifications and the positionality of the customer, plays an important role here (Albrecht
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2010a). According to officials from the environmental sections, environmental demands vary to a certain degree due to product, positionality within the global value chain and partially to company size. On the other hand, the major TNCs are affected by the positionality of their production facilities to cater to certain demands. Some interviewers stressed the fact that most of the Finnish and German forests are certified with PEFC while most specific demands request FSC certificates, creates pressure on the production facilities of their companies in these2 countries5 to obtain these materials from external sources. However, direct requests for FSC were said to constitute yet a minor share of the supply contracts to customers.
A sector of multiplicity: paper products customers
Looking at how positionality affects actors’ activities and markets, product related differences were described for various paper products of which six will be discussed in brief. Environmental demands from newsprint customers are primarily concerning issues on recycling, whereby high or even full recycled content was even described as a pre-requirement. Nonetheless, certification was mentioned to increase as some Scandinavian and Russian producers start to promote fresh fibre based newsprint products. On the other hand, concerning magazine and catalogue papers forestry and forest certification are of primary concern to environmentally conscious customers with the ongoing of recycling issues. Most large German magazine publishers and printers within this sector express a neutral attitude towards the two certification systems and take a more pragmatic approach (Albrecht 2010a). A strongly pro FSC approach is apparent in the liquid packing sector where companies such as Tetra Pak or Elopak ”…would change if possible from today to tomorrow to 100% FSC…” (Company interview I, author’s translation). However, even with strong FSC countries such as Sweden, this demand would exceed the available resources. Recently, environmental awareness among non-liquid packaging product customers was described to emerge; however, especially in the packaging sector quality, long product development periods and the need for the correct fibres were noted in heavily influencing the decisions and possibilities of customers and suppliers. A similar raise of specific request, mainly concerning certification, was described for specialty papers (such as envelope paper) which are often sold to smaller conversion companies which supply the end product to large corporations like banks or postal services. Thus the demand for a certain label derives from the large companies, complicating negotiations about alternatives to their demands. Finally, demands from the hygiene and tissue paper sector have experienced a shift towards FSC following a large Greenpeace campaign (Greenpeace 2009c) and pressure on large retailers in the German and UK markets as mentioned by some interviewees.
FSC certified products are available; however to a limited degree by some suppliers and some of the companies own FSC certified plantations/forests in Asia, S-America and Europe. In Europe PEFC forests prevail strongly.
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Despite the general impressions presented above, it should be pointed out that these mainly relate to customers or companies with specific environmental demands to the Finnish TNCs and are not able to construct an all encompassing picture of the market actors. This was also supported by the perceptions of some environmental officers stating that most customers possess only a vague knowledge of forestry practices or the certification systems and are satisfied with any reliable third-party audited forest certification system. Thereby, it was emphasized that the large customers companies with sufficient resources to finance their own environmental sections and gather information often follow a different approach than smaller companies who rely on external sources of knowledge on environmental practices. Regarding these basic varying positionality aspects and their effects on business customer demands, knowledge networks affected by, and tied to the same are a further part of the assemblages performing hybrid governance in relational space.
Is knowledge production performing markets? The knowledge basis and distribution networks within the market must be treated as a strong influence on governance systems as it produces the perceptions and rationalities of entities and on the same (Baldwin 2003; Dean 2010). Following Dean (2010), groups or individuals govern by regimes of practice related to what they believe to be the truth, for example about SFM, whereby truth; respectively knowledge can be produced in several ways. For forest governance the major current discussion deals with the actual affects of the certification systems on the forests itself and which systems can assure SFM. Thereby, a two folded picture can be evaluated with major NGOs on one side and, at least for the Finnish case, the large TNCs on the other (see Fig. 1). While the main NGOs equalize the support for FSC with fostering SFM (displayed by left side of Fig. 1), Finnish TNCs state their support for SFM itself, whereby FSC and PEFC are regarded as equally suitable (displayed by right side of Fig. 1). Exemplifying for this approach is the quote from a company representative stating that “...A lot of people mistake us for supporting PEFC, we don’t support PEFC, we support credible certification and PEFC is one of those schemes.”(Company Interview II). Figure 1 displays how the two sides promote their current knowledge (statements on SFM in the resource areas), thus aim to establish their approach as spatio-temporal fix for SFM to guide the core markets, and which entities they draw upon in this process. Hereafter these knowledge networks displayed (see Fig. 1, or for exemplifying case Fig. 2) are identified as a critical approach for the former and the pragmatic approach for the latter concerning forest management and its accepted SFM criteria. The pragmatic notion is tied to the perceptions of company representatives and not essentially tied to its possible philosophical use in geography despite certain similarities (e.g. Proctor 1998; Barnes 2000). Equally, the critical approach linked to the NGO community is based on the common critic of current forest
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management practices, including industry supported certification schemes, by those groups. Nonetheless their pragmatic approaches, representatives of the Finnish TNCs acknowledge differences between these two certification systems but deem them as marginal in most cases. As one representative stressed: “... global NGOs should rather focus on the majority of forests which are not certified (...) rather than finding the differences, tiny ones sometimes, very tiny ones between FSC and PEFC.” (Company Interview III).
Resource peripheries Resource areas
Knowledge production/circulation Environmental section of TNCs
NGOs
Databases I
Databases II
Sales offices
GFTN Converter
Core markets
Business customers Consumers
Fig. 1: Knowledge networks; critical and pragmatic approach of knowledge production/circulation concerning SFM criteria.
It is not the aim of this paper to validate either claim regarding the value of the certification systems for SFM; yet, it emphasizes the importance of this varying produced knowledge on governance processes. Concerning environmental practices, and especially with certification systems, the NGOs and the Finnish TNCs are promoting their approaches through multiple and changing relations to the customers and consumers on the markets. Hence, their common knowledge networks are performed through loose and varying relations but currently their approaches, if pragmatic or critical are competing spatio-temporal fixes of governance practices to prove SFM. It must be stressed, as was pointed out by the TNCs environmental specialists that this process is not to reject or oppose the NGOs approach, but to include alternatives which are regarded as similarly appropriate means to secure environmental sound sourcing and production.
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Relations of knowledge circulation within global/transnational value chains
The most frequent structure on environmentally related demands or requests from customers towards the TNCs was described as taking place between the customer procurement section and the TNCs sales offices. However, large or important long term customers with their own environmental sections were mentioned to contact TNCs environmental offices directly. By the time customers address the sales offices with requests, for example the wish for certified material, they possess certain preconceptions or attitudes which guide these requests. Company officials perceived these preconceptions to stem from their customers’ environmental sections, NGO pressure group websites, and product related databanks as well as from information provided by the TNCs on their websites or via previous sales talks. Additionally, this knowledge might derive through contract requirements of an end customer further down the supply chain, stated to be a common reason with converting customers. Companies which gather their information solely from websites of NGOs or by studying public opinion, tend to steer towards a preference of FSC products. This was supported by statements like, “...with FSC the marketing is better and there is a much better market penetration. So that’s mostly the scheme they (business customers) have heard of.” (Company interview II) or “The FSC organization which is derived from WWF (...) they have from the beginning done a very good marketing performance and the FSC with its label has gone into many heads already (Company interview IV, translation by author). In these cases the TNCs environmental staffs either directly or through their sales employees aim to explain their view on the topic to the customer in order to assure him or her that also their non FSC certified supply chains are in order. Thus, the TNCs external control systems, certificates and environmental performance was said to be presented in more or less detail to educate the customer that, according to most companies, there is more behind a proper environmental performance than solely FSC certification. Additionally, representatives of Myllykoski and UPM mentioned seminars, for instance environmental breakfasts to communicate with their customers from different sectors on SFM and environmental performance. Reactions towards this approach were described as positive, while, as stressed by a marketing specialist, “..if you can combine a seminar with a forest visit the feedback is even better.“(Company interview II). Nevertheless, it was stressed that it becomes difficult to convince a customer about alternatives in cases were a fixed procurement policy has been determined ahead of sales or informational talks. Similar communications are taking place within companies that possess their own environmental officers or sections. These companies, often among the larger customers, are defined by a deeper knowledge of the environmental aspects and certification systems while additionally requiring more detailed information from the TNCs. Members of this group were described in mainly following the pragmatic approach, accepting the TNCs efforts while also being very aware about their own reputation. Companies who long to establish themselves as leaders in
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environmental responsibility, for example, the Axel Springer AG in Germany whose environmental officer mentioned in the interview that they conduct their own supplier audits and visits to reduce the risk of market campaigns including their names. Thereby, following a quasi intermediate approach that mirrors the pragmatic pathway of the TNCs (Fig. 1, central arrow). An additional instrument of this group frequently utilized to evaluate the TNCs environmental performances are questionnaires. Depending on the production range of the customer, questionnaires were described to include in depth requests on environmental and even social standards of the TNCs supply chains and thus allows these companies to establish their own databanks featuring the environmental performance of their different suppliers. Another peculiar case is customer companies involved in the WWF GFTN. These companies often work in close cooperation with WWF and as pointed out by one of the company representatives “...are very much influenced by that only FSC agenda” (Company interview V). Additionally, by being a part of the GFTN they have agreed to increase their share of FSC products. What proves most difficult is for the TNCs to convince them on alternatives; even though, there might be a personal acceptance of PEFC by the companies’ specialists as stressed by some company officials. The GFTN is also an important source of information for smaller companies who lack the funds required to have their own environmental section, whereby its members were described to request vast amounts of additional information as specific country of origin and species utilized for the paper aside the FSC label as explained by a company official. This in turn is criticized as it counters the aim of certification, which is to facilitate proof of origin by the simple use of labelling. In these cases it was assumed that the information gathered is forwarded to the WWF for their databases. Nevertheless, in relation to the Finnish TNCs with their focus on paper products, it must be stressed that the GFTN in Germany and the UK is dominated by retail and non-paper wood product companies with liquid packaging companies, a large tissue producer in the UK, and some publishers and printers being a minority (WWF 2010a). According to a German GFTN official, increasing interest from the paper sector is expected. Databases or paper evaluation systems are another source of knowledge distribution to create the market actors rationalities. Several of these instruments for the product paper exist on the markets, created by different entities and promoting different approaches. Among these instruments are the Paper Scorecard by the WWF, the Paper Profile (e.g. database II in Fig. 1)which is a voluntary declaration by paper companies or for example the PREPS database, a initiative of UK publishers6 (see WWF 2010b; Paper Profile 2010; PREPS 2010). These tools should allow customers to receive a quick and easily understandable evaluation of the environmental performance of certain paper products on the markets. While these instruments as such were described as helpful, the bias of the Paper Scorecard and the PREPS database towards FSC (e.g. databases I in Fig. 1) were criticized by some company representatives. It was additionally stressed that 6
PREPS database is dominated by book publishers (PREPS 2010)
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members of databases like PREPS due to that bias prefer FSC, even though personally PEFC might be accepted as well. Thus by providing certain knowledge, such networks are able to steer companies and their decisions towards certain governance practices yet related to their positionality within the same. Entities shape knowledge networks and their relations while their own positionality connects them to certain sources of knowledge distribution. Thus the multiple relations of entities and their embedded knowledge reproduce the space they interact with and within (Massey 2004). This positionality affects actors’ interaction towards the TNCs and shapes the direction of their environmental as well as further demands towards the same. Additionally, while the demands might be the same, for instance pro FSC, the reason or rationalities of the entities behind it may vary. Thereby, a company may choose a certain practice due to its own knowledge, external expertise or solely due to request from its own customers without being concerned about the systems implications itself. Thus evaluation of these aspects depicts how processes of governance are shaped by the positionalities of actors and entities. The variation of reasons affects in turn the knowledge network maintained by the TNCs themselves. This is because it was urged that information has to be distributed to the entities that take the prior decision on environmental practices in order to shape their rationalities despite trying to convince converting customers following requests from further down the value chain. The next chapter discusses how these multiple relations of positionality and knowledge circulation (e.g. Fig. 1), concerning SFM affect transnational forest governance processes surrounding global value chains. It therefore aims to present an important aspect of the relational space of forest governance and ties it to previous studies on this topic (e.g. Albrecht 2010a, 2010b) by merging the empirical data collected in the interviews with the theoretical framework presented above.
Discussing the influences on forest governance and its practices The empirical findings presented above offer an insight into how entities relations and knowledge networks surrounding the transnational or global value chains of wood based products influence forest governance or natural resource governance in general. Since, the introduction of the article states that the study critically evaluates the importance of forest certification and concentrate on further influences on forest governance; the presented material might seem strongly related to forest certification. This impression however displays an important point that this paper aims to establish. Forest certification, within my framework of a relational space of forest governance is merely one, although the most public debated, among multiple governance practices supported by different entities and re-produced or maintained by their relations. It contains several elements of forest governance and can shape forest management; nevertheless, its progress or development is shaped by relations and processes of forest governance external
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to it. These relations as knowledge networks or production peculiarities might be nonetheless connected to its agenda. Environmental concerns about resource governance, its sustainable or nonsustainable practices, have been shaped for the German and UK markets and its entities since the first NGO campaigns took place (e.g. Soyez 2002, Kortelainen and Kotilainen 2006). Initially, this “roughing up of the surfaces” of the supply chain likewise described by Crang (1996, p. 51) for the food supply chain, enabled the development and recent increase of forest certification, initially for the FSC. Nevertheless, the initial establishment of the PEFC was due to differing rationalities and positionalities of certain entities within the relational space of forest governance and their opposition not solely to FSC criteria, but as well to its involved entities (Albrecht 2010a). For instance, in an interview with a forestry expert from the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, German forest owners were described to distrust NGOs, especially if they want to implement regulation on their forests via certification. Returning to the subject of business customers of large wood product producers the certification criteria in the forest or the ways of implementation loses importance as these have no direct effect on entities in the consumption level of global value chains. This correlates with descriptions from environmental officials of the TNCs regarding the occasional uninformedness on forestry matters by their customers. This positionality, often detached from the forest, of business customers despite their relational reflexivity created by NGOs (Murdoch 2006) stresses the importance on how knowledge networks promote certain governance practice and re-produce them as spatio-temporal fixes (Massey 2005; Jessop 2006). It additionally points out that these practices themselves are just a part of transnational governance. The following examples (see also Fig. 2) aim to facilitate and display the complexity of relations affecting transnational forest governance in more detail and show how aspects of positionality, linked to knowledge circulation enables a better understanding of governance processes related to natural resource trade. Companies’ procurement policies or rationalities of customers affect the way the TNCs source their forest resources. Hence, demands for certain certification systems. These demands in turn can be fixed into a policy or more or less open to possible changes or alternatives. An example would be a converting customer, producing envelopes for a bank which has a pro FSC procurement policy. According to a company representative, in this case the TNCs’ sales office will struggle to convince the converter of changing its demand by offering the alternative of Finnish PEFC paper while explaining the similarities. As pointed out by an forest industry representative “They (customers) say we know that PEFC is ok and they say we know that what you’re doing is ok but the guys we’re selling they want FSC...”(Finnish Forest Industry Federation interview). To promote its pragmatic agenda the TNCs offices would have to address the bank itself. However, a change of the bank’s policy due to extra information from the TNC is unlikely for several reasons. First, the bank is not among the typical targets of NGO campaigns about forest destruction; second, to ‘green’ its image for public awareness,
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the FSC with its critical approach is better established than PEFC which is less known and third; a change in its procurement has no positive affects for the bank itself. In that case the bank might not even be interested which systems achieves which changes but in the public impact for its reputation. Hence, by its impartial set of relations (Murdoch 2006), or positionality such business customers are entangled into certain knowledge networks and influence governance processes in a specific way.
Resource peripheries Resource areas
Knowledge production/circulation Environmental section of TNCs
NGOs Databases II Databases I
Sales offices
GFTN
Core markets
Business customers
Converter
Consumers
Fig. 2: Knowledge networks: Bank as final customer (e.g. envelopes)
On the other hand, printers and publishers require often larger tonnages and the production of large magazines can be very complex and take place on several locations with papers from various sources. Thus, due to the certification systems percentage input system labelling a magazine issue is not the problem; however, to ensure that every edition could be labelled is seen critical (Albrecht 2010a). For example if a source of certified timber is not available for a certain period due to unforeseen reasons as for instance a harbour strike7. Such complexities are often forwarded by the proponents of the pragmatic approach regarding its utilization for SFM criteria. Additionally, larger corporations in this sector often use their own environmental sections, producing their own knowledge on the issues at Examples are the Finnish harbour worker strikes in the beginning of 2010 which postponed exports of Finnish pulp and paper for several weeks (Helsingin Sanomat 2010).
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stake while aiming to prevent negative campaigns by ensuring accepted production and procurement. Thus, as stressed by Bulkeley (2005), such sets of hybrid assemblages perform governance, while partially external to the issue of SFM are yet influential on actors decisions about the same. This also creates a basis for fruitful and constructive discussion among these customers and the Finnish TNCs and better enables them to confute against NGO accusation by presenting their findings and external auditing systems. Hence, even though the magazine printing and publishing sector is situated in the front lines for NGO campaigns, to date its positionality prevented a conversion towards a pro FSC agenda as demanded by NGOs. Choosing one or the other certification scheme must also be separated from choosing one or another global forest management system. Even though based on global criteria or guidelines (FSC 2002; PEFC 2007) the systems vary in their national standards and level of implementation (Auld et al. 2008; Ozinga 2004; CEPI 2004). As stressed by most company representatives, the possibility of catering to the demand for certified products varies from resource area to resource area of the supplying companies. Finland for instance has solely a marginal amount of FSC forest, therefore no FSC products can be supplied from there by now. This related mainly to the discourse between forest owners, the forest industries and the NGOs about the stringency of criteria for the new Finnish standard. The NGOs agenda was thereby partly described in mixing up forest conservation with SFM. However, a national Finnish FSC standard was finally agreed in autumn 2010 and testing has been started by UPM-Kymmene (UPM 2010). Yet, already prior due to the percentage input system Finnish forests, managed under the Finnish PEFC standard8 can be part of a FSC product as long as enough FSC fibre for instance from Sweden is included as well. Considering the importance of knowledge networks in global value chain related governance (e.g. Castells 2005, Birch and Cumbers 2010) the empirical data displays how relations among suppliers and business customers as well as their varying positionalities are of influence. Thereby, knowledge circulation concerning value chains not connected to product innovation in a direct manner must be accounted for by different means than knowledge tied to, for instance technical product innovations, addressed in most current value chain literature (e.g. Maskell et al. 2006, Grabher and Ibert 2006, Vallance 2007). Compared to safeguarding and internally circulating innovative knowledge for improved performance, knowledge on environmental performance must be publicly supported and promoted to increase performance, thus requires very different knowledge networks. Following, the positionality of entities influences these processes differently. Apart from the knowledge networks within the global value chain, characterizing thereby the open but restricted character of relational space (e.g. Murdoch 2006; Massey 2005), knowledge production and rationalities on further territorial or place related scales influence development and reproduction of practice 5
Company must have FSC controlled wood standard implemented.
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(Dean 2010). Wood product companies may promote their pragmatic approach, however, if state regulation for example through public procurement rejects the same, attempts to establish it will most probably fail. The same accounts naturally for NGOs and their critical FSC only agenda whereby on account of its monopoly claims a threat can derive already from regulation accepting several systems. This is the case for most procurement or wood product regulative laws at point (e.g. EIA 2009; EC 2008). So knowledge and its distribution is consensual and contested as is space (Murdoch 2006), further, knowledge circulation (Ash and Cohendet 2005) and therefore the rationalities of entities connected to it must be accompanied by a sufficient amount of trust in those knowledge providers or systems as pointed out by Bachmann (2001) and Morgan and Murdoch (2000). Again, the creation of trust is shaped and influenced by the positionality of entities as well as by the positionalities of to be trusted systems or actors i.e. the customers’ home market, its environmental awareness and institutional regulation or the target group for NGOs. Also, governance practices are influenced by similar relations in the resource areas. For certification that would be the local preference of a specific system but also the primary kind of wood fibres produced and their varying utilization in certain end products. For instance Retail markets in Germany faced place related influences which made them to accept PEFC products despite their strong pro FSC agenda and their GFTN membership. When the retailer OBI aimed in rejecting PEFC timber in 2002 for its shops, protests by forest owners took place in front of several OBI markets blaming the company of discrimination of local timber (Teegelbeckers 2003). These protests stress the effect of what Morgan and Murdoch (2000) relate to when discussing the risk remaining in relation to the rationalities of entities. In this case, the question that harms a company’s reputation more in a local German context: possible NGO campaigns due to a mixed procurement approach? or to harm and discriminate the local forestry and its affiliated workplaces? The answer was a silent acceptance of PEFC, several DIY brands followed in Germany (Albrecht 2010a). Hence forest governance and resource governance per se should be evaluated through a relational approach on space to evaluate detailed information on how and by which means decisions to manage forests or other natural resources and the production of its products are achieved. The focus on knowledge networks and relations does not mean that the effects of forest certification systems in the forests can be neglected or to scrutinize the efforts of such governance practices to achieve SFM, but that most entities involved in the relational space of forest governance defined here (see also Albrecht 2010a), derive their knowledge on impacts, bad or good governance by external sources. Forest certification systems are described to enable positive effects on improving SFM (Newsom et al. 2006; UPM 2005; Cashore et al. 2006; Auld et al. 2008; Schlyter et al. 2009; Ozinga 2004), still, even these are in relation to place and locality of the resource and its managing entities despite varying criteria. Concerning market relations among customers in the core markets and Finnish
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TNCs from the resource areas, thus owing to the focus of this study, knowledge and its distribution networks, as shown in Fig. 1, are of major importance in influencing demands concerned with SFM which, vice versa have a direct effect on forest governance. By shaping rationalities, beliefs, or values on forest management systems the activities of decision making entities is shaped, thus forest governance per se.
Conclusion This paper shows how market relations and knowledge networks along transnational and global value chains are re-produced and how they can play a decisive role in influencing forest governance and trade related resource governance in general. However, the market itself is not an isolated driver and neither are market driven governance practices solely responsible for the governance of a certain space. Recently, environmental issues concerning forest certification and the rationalities related to it are found to be of major importance due to the publicity created around it by NGOs and its impact on customer rationalities. To promote their approach, forest companies and NGOs have to follow different measures to influence forest governance depending on the positionality of the actors they long to convince of their governance practices, or the value of a certification scheme to promote SFM. Thus, knowledge regarding governance practice is produced by several factors apart from the certification system itself and may hinder or promote their utilization or individual development within a relational space of forest governance. Stressing aspects of positionality and knowledge networks based on global value chains of forest products; the presented data additionally provides an increased understanding on how environmental aspects concerning resource extraction in general play a role on economical environmental governance processes. Thus, restricting knowledge circulation in and along global value chains to knowledge of product innovations marginalizes an important aspect of governance processes and neglects specific positionalities of entities as described in this paper. Since, environmental, resource extraction related knowledge as described in this paper lacks a direct influence on the products characteristics, the results from this study can be generalized quite well to further cases of environmentally disputed resource exploitation and its related global value chains. Since governance is a hybrid assemblage of practices (Bulkeley 2005) the relations, re-producing the positionality of its entities and its contained knowledge networks that perform and influence these practices are an important aspect to steer governance. As presented for the discourse on governance practices of SFM, increasing environmental demands and their subsequent handling in global value chains are a complex aspect influencing resource governance thus require further attention. The present study accessed several aspects on how Finnish wood based products related TNCs perceive influences or demands from their
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customers in the core market and how they try to promote their pragmatic approach in relation to the critical approach followed by NGOs. By presenting some exemplary cases the paper presented the importance of the underlying relations bound to knowledge production, circulation and the influence of varying aspect of positionality towards the same. Thus, while not answering the question on how to achieve, or what is good or sustainable forest governance the study has shown how rationalities and therefore possible changes of governance practices are reproduced by the knowledge of actors due to the underlying relations and the truths and values related to them in addition to locally or globally embedded influences of place, territory, and biophysical aspects. However, the way in which such value chain related influences and environmental demands are perceived by foresters or in resource areas in general in shaping practical management or resource exploitation practices on the ground must further be evaluated in order to portray a more complete picture of (forest) governance as a relational space from market to resource area.
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Perceiving sustainable forest spaces: governance aspects of private and company owned forests in North-Karelia, Finland MORITZ ALBRECHT Albrecht, Moritz (2012). Perceiving sustainable forest spaces: governance aspects of private and company owned forests in North-Karelia, Finland. Fennia 190: 1, pp. 3–18. ISSN 1798-5617. The integration of improved environmental or sustainable aspects in forest management is often affiliated with the rise of market-driven governance systems, such as forest certification. In terms of forest resource peripheries, like NorthKarelia, Finland, these are often attributed to environmental business and consumer demands from the green Central European markets. While acknowledging these aspects related to the supply chains of wood-based products, this study evaluates the actual perceptions about environmental forest governance and its spaces in the resource peripheries themselves. It displays the perceived changes and practices in forestry by comparing private and corporate ownership and their governance networks. This is accomplished by a qualitative, interview based case study of North Karelian and Finnish forestry actors. Transnational forest governance is hereby treated as a relational space, with forest certification systems as possible technologies used to achieve improved, sustainable forest management. Utilizing the North-Karelian forestry sector, the varying positionalities of actors and institutions within such a relational space shape the knowledge networks, perceptions and decision-making. The study evaluates how these local-global positionalities of actors and individuals shape their understanding, and guide the direction of sustainable forest management in Finland while it (re-)produces opposing regimes of practice. With the discourse on forest certification being twofold, a more complex picture emerges if aspects of evenversus uneven-aged forest management in Finland are integrated. Shaped by the actor’s positionalities and related knowledge networks, perceptions regarding the quality of forest management practices and technologies used to achieve sustainability differ and thereby shape governance processes. The green markets are not perceived as the main driving force and a strong governmental influence, particularly related to private ownership aspects, is noted in the Finnish case. Forest certification systems, and other political technologies for sustainable forest management, are embedded in or strongly restricted by these aspects. Keywords: Finland, forest governance, qualitative case-study, sustainable spaces, ownership positionalities, certification Moritz Albrecht, Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, University of Eastern Finland, P.O.Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland. E-mail: moritz.
[email protected].
Introduction Regarding sustainable forest management (SFM), Finnish forestry has publicly provided a twofold picture on the international scale during the last decade. On the one hand, a positive image of sustainable managed forestry, almost entirely covered by forest certification appears and is promoted by
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large forest and wood-based companies, as well as forest owner associations and the state forest service Metsähallitus (e.g. Metsähallitus 2009; FFIF 2011a; FMA 2011a). On the other hand, large environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGO) blame Finnish forestry for following unsustainable management practices and promoting the destruction of Europe’s last remaining old-
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growth forests (e.g. Harkki 2004; Harkki 2008; Greenpeace 2009). Even though international protests about the destruction of old growth forests in Finnish Lapland have ceased after joint agreements (FFIF 2010), debates about the sufficient means and management tools or practices to achieve SFM in Finnish forestry continue (e.g. Luonto-Liitto et al. 2009; PEFC 2011). A continuous integration of environmental aspects into forest management, harvesting practices and related laws is taking place in Finnish forestry (e.g. Mielikäinen & Hynynen 2003; Parviainen & Västilä 2011). Increased integration of environmental and sustainable aspects into forest management are often attributed to market driven governance systems, such as forest certification, based on customer demands and ENGO protest campaigns in the Central European markets (Cashore et al. 2004; Albrecht 2010a). However, it remains unclear how implementing actors outside the academic or expert communities perceive changes in environmental criteria as well as their drivers. For Finland, multiple studies are concerned with forest owners’ opinions about conservation or environmental management practices (e.g. Karppinen 1998; Horne 2004; Hänninen & Kurttila 2004), yet, taking into account that up to 95% of commercial forestry is carried-out by contracting companies, these are the main implementing actors for management practices in Finland (Koneyrittäjät 2009). These actors’ perceptions are of primary importance when evaluating aspects of environmental forest governance. As perceptions and rationalities guide actors’ activities (Merlingen 2003), it is important to understand the varying actors’ values regarding what has been achieved and what is regarded as sufficient for SFM, and how they define such sustainable forest spaces. While local forestry stakeholders’ perceptions on uneven-aged forest management are described in a Swedish casestudy by Axelsson and Angelstam (2011), their account primary treats the knowledge of the stakeholders on technical aspects of forest management. Suitable for certain comparison, it lacks the relational and spatial aspects evaluated by this study. On account on these aspects presented above the paper utilizes the following research questions as a guideline to provide an improved account of the processes at work in transnational forest governance: (i) How do the perceptions of actors, involved or linked to forestry, differ in terms of their attitudes/definitions towards SFM?
FENNIA 190: 1 (2012) (ii) What is the impact of the actors’ positionality in regard to the (re-)production of their rationalities on, and regimes of practice for SFM? (iii) How do such perceptions of their sustainable spaces of forestry guide their decision making and acceptance of various technologies for SFM? (iv) How do these varying positionalities and perceptions shape the (re-)production of Finnish forestry in terms of SFM and transnational forest governance spaces in general? These questions should not be understood in a normative fashion to determine general patterns in Finnish or transnational forestry but aim to highlight the multiplicity of processes which shape forest governance and the utilization of related technologies such as certification. Transnational forest certification systems are prominently utilized to define SFM, whereby two systems play a major role in global forestry. First, there is the strongly ENGO backed Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and second, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), which is mostly supported by forest owner associations and forestry institutions (e.g. Albrecht 2010b). In Finland, with a PEFC coverage of 95% in commercial forests (FMA 2011b) compared to a just recently approved and marginally implemented FSC the debate can be viewed as the defence of PEFC as a tool for SFM by promoting its achievements. Generally, also in Finland, FSC entails stricter protective criteria and requires to set 5% of the certified forest aside for conservation of biodiversity (see also PEFC 2009; FSC 2011). Nevertheless, since national standards and implementation differs, the paper refrains from ranking the certification systems on their practical achievements for SFM. This has been studied elsewhere with varying results (e.g. Harkki 2004; UPM 2005; Schlyter et al. 2009; Indufor 2010). Additionally, governmental means such as the Forestry Act of 1996 (MMM 1996) or guidelines by varying forestry related institutions play a decisive role in regard to the SFM debate in Finnish forestry. Hereafter, environmental transnational forest governance is regarded as a relational space, including the core market – resource periphery relations of wood product commodity chains (Albrecht 2010a, 2010b, 2012). The local case of the North-Karelian forest sector aims to display how actors in the resource peripheries (Fig. 1) perceive SFM based on their locally embedded relations. As they are integrated to (re-)produce the relational space they
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Fig. 1. Finnish administrative regions and location of case study area of North-Karelia in a North European context.
are entangled with, this paper argues that this local positionality based on ownership patterns and other relations challenges purely market-driven modes and influences resource governance.
Finnish and North-Karelian forestry systems Finnish as well as North-Karelian forestry are distinguished by their high private, non commercial ownership of 52% (Forest Centre PK 2010; METLA 2010). Regarding productive forests the share of private owners in Finland is as much as 60%, while the share of final felling in private forests is 77% of Finnish forestry (METLA 2010). Company ownership of Finnish forests amounts to 9% whilst 35% of forests are state owned, of which only 26% are productive forests. In terms of company-owned
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forests, North-Karelia deviates from the Finnish mean with 23% (Forest Centre PK 2010). This is due to the prominent role of Tornator Oy (Tornator) in North-Karelia, an affiliated company of the global forest product company Stora Enso and responsible for the management of Stora Enso’s former forest areas. State ownership is 20%. In relation to management operations and wood harvesting, despite the large share of private ownership, forestry operations are carried-out by contracting companies in 95% of cases (Koneyrittäjät 2009). Apart from the age structure of private forest owners, with 56% being over 60 in age, this owes to the specific forest planning and management system for private forests (METLA 2010). Finland has 13 forestry districts and regional Forestry Centres, North-Karelia being one. Aside preparing the regional forestry programme the Forestry Centres have several tasks concerning private owned forests: preparation of 10 year management plans for private forest owners and their holdings, and distribution of information, support for forest management, subsidies and education for forest owners and professionals. Additionally, by approving forest use declarations prior to loggings and carrying-out follow-up evaluations in chosen harvesting sites, Forest Centres are the responsible institutions for supervising the implementation of the Finnish Forest Act (Forest Centre 2011). Hence, they strongly guide and influence forest management in Finland. Other important actors are the Forest Management Associations (FMA) and the Forest Owners Union (FOU). The FMA has legislative rights to collect a forest management fee, private forest owners are automatically members of the FMA (FMA 2011a). The FMA supports forest owners in terms of planning, education and timber sale. Harvesting and management plans are developed and tenders for logging rights are offered by power of attorney. North-Karelia’s FMA buys all plans made by the Forest Centre and integrates them into its forestry planning support. Harvesting activities in private forests are carried-out twofold. For thinning and intermediate felling, the FMA marks stands and hires contractors, while for final felling this task is primarily done by the companies after acquisition of logging rights. The FOU, on the other hand, is mainly concerned with broader organizational aspects and supports cooperation among local FMAs. Additionally, the FOU holds and administers the regional PEFC certificate for its forestry district. In North-Karelia, compared to most
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Table 1. List of acronyms with English and original (Finnish) names. Acronym
English name
ENGO
Environmental Non-Governmental Organization
FANC
Finnish Association for Nature Conservation
Suomen luonnonsuojeluliitto
FFIF
Finnish Forest Industry Federation
Metsäteolisuus ry
FMA
Forest Management Association
Metsänhoitoyhdistys
FOU
Forest Owner Union
Metsänomistanjien liitto
FSC
Forest Stewardship Council
NL
Nature League
PEFC
Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification
Tapio
Forest Development Center Tapio
SFM
Sustainable Forest Management
WWF
World Wide Fund for Nature (Finland)
other forestry districts, the FMA and the FOU are one entity separated only on paper. Company forests are less embedded into this structured system. While being obliged to prepare forest use declarations to Forest Centres the same as private forest owners, follow-up checks are carried out by the Forest Development Centre Tapio (Tapio) in most cases. Management planning is carried-out by their own staff while the marking of logging sites is mostly performed by the respective buyers’ personnel. In the case of Tornator, up to 90% of logging rights are sold to Stora Enso which hires contractors to carry-out logging activities. With respect to state owned forests, most responsibilities and duties rest with the State Forestry Service Metsähallitus. The large majority of protected areas are situated in state-owned forest (METLA 2010). Private and corporate owned forests entail numerous entities involved in forest management, who are influencing forest governance with their perceptions, knowledge and the resulting practices. Since these entities are affected by their relations among each other and towards external actors or aspects of environmental forest management, the next section will present the underlying theoretical framework of this study based on relational space and knowledge networks.
Perceiving sustainable spaces of forest governance Local actors and entities are part of a wider space of transnational forest governance. Hereafter,
Finnish name
Luonto-liitto Tapio
space is regarded as relational (e.g. Massey 2005; Murdoch 2006), just as transnational environmental forest governance is perceived as a relational space (e.g. Albrecht 2010a, 2010b, 2012). Interlinked actors involved within this space, whether on a global or on a local scale, (re-)produce and affect the performativity of this space, due to the varying relations they are entangled with. Relations in this regard include social and biophysical components (Massey 2005). For example, knowledge or cooperation networks, varying forestry practices, or ecological aspects of forests are relations which enable or restrict entities in their activities or choices (e.g. Albrecht 2010b). As relational spaces are open and (re-)produced by a multiplicity of relations and actors (Massey 2005), Murdoch (2006) points out its consensual and contested character. This notion is highly visible in the debate about SFM practices, if on a global scale, or in localized examples, like the Finnish debate discussed by this paper. A common problem in debates on SFM and its practices lies in the definition of the criteria necessary for one to achieve sustainability. As stressed by Hudson (2005) in his account on sustainable economic practices, flows and spaces, the delineation of sustainable spaces is critically dependent upon the definition of sustainability in the realm itself. Taking into account the social co-construction of nature (Castree & Braun 2001), the varying perceptions of actors, and entities and their knowledge networks on what is claimed to be the truth, respectively, the necessary means to achieve SFM are steering governance processes and individual
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behaviour (Rutherford 2007; Dean 2010). Thus, evaluating perceptions of actors and entities directly linked to and involved in forest management provides information on the overall performance of transnational and local forest governance. It further enables one to critically access claims about non-state market-driven processes of environmental forest governance via forest certification (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004, 2007). The two forest certification systems, FSC and PEFC, are utilized as instruments for SFM by multiple actors, to varying degrees. Thus, these systems can be seen as governmental technologies promoted by competing regimes of practice (Baldwin 2003; Dean 2010). According to Dean (2010), regimes of practice produce and distribute knowledge based on their internal, yet multiple rationalities and thereby stress varying problematizations related to the space to be governed. The lack of conservation in forest management stressed by ENGOs might be regarded as such. Regimes of practice with their knowledge networks can be a relatively stable set of relations which struggle for supremacy, possibly marginalizing competing regimes (Murdoch 2006; Dean 2010). However, due to the open character of space, these sets are prone to change and marginalization might be overcome (Massey 2005). Yet, if maintained and kept more or less together, a set of relations with its dominant regime of practice may appear increasingly natural (Sheppard 2002). The institutional setting of FMAs, FOUs and Forestry Centres is the dominant regime of practice in the Finnish forest sector. Yet, the perceptions and rationalities of actors, for instance on environmental aspects of forest management, influence those regimes and guide their behaviour (Dean 2010). Actors and entities in practical forest management guide their decisions about what they perceive as truth and what suits their rationality in terms of SFM requirements. These perceptions are influenced by the actors’ positionality within the respective space. Positionality as proposed by Sheppard (2002: 318) might be used “...to describe how different entities are positioned with respect to each other in space/time”. Thereby, the actors’ positionality and the resulting rationalities are influenced by external influences. In terms of SFM, this means that rationalities concerned with the issue are not merely (re-)produced based on knowledge or perceptions directly related to the subject but include various aspects. For instance, economic reasons, personal values or institutional
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structures shape perceptions and thereby decisionmaking and management. Additionally, perceptions about the drivers for environmental achievement are possible indicators on how certain regimes of practice, based on their positionality and problematizations, promote various governmental technologies such as certification, forestry guidelines or law for their aims. Evaluating perceptions of environmental achievements, changes and conflicts, as well as investigating the opinions about their driving forces, enables one to integrate a local case into the wider processes of transnational environmental forest governance (e.g. Albrecht 2010a, 2010b, 2012).
A qualitative case-study of North Karelian private forestry This study has been conducted as a qualitative case-study of the private and corporate owned forest sector in North-Karelia, Finland. In-depth, open-ended interviews were conducted with managers and owners of three forestry contracting companies1 in North-Karelia and with the directors of the North-Karelian Forestry Centre, the FMA and the FOU. Empirical data on corporate owned forests was retrieved from the forest company Tornator, as it represents the largest private/ corporate ownership in the region. Group interviews were conducted with the companies’ Forestry and Resource Manager, the Corporate Responsibility Superintendent and a forestry team manager. Additionally, two visits to logging sites, one thinning and one final cut, with contractors and an extended visit to Tornator’s forests were conducted in January 2011. These forest visits provided additional information from forest workers. Further, an ENGO representative for the regional forestry council was interviewed. Several institutions on the national scale have been integrated. Interviews were conducted with officials from ENGOs; the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (FANC), the Nature League (NL) and the World Wide Fund for Nature Finland (WWF). Further, a certification and auditing expert from Tapio and the Head of forestry affairs of the Finnish Forest Industry Federation (FFIF) were interviewed. Altogether, 17 persons have been interviewed in direct relation to this study. To support the qualitative data and to provide, as stressed by Yin (2003), a multiplicity of data sources, position papers of the respective, as well as other institu-
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tions, were evaluated and interview data from previous studies was utilized (Albrecht 2010a, 2010b, 2012). Owing to the study’s main focus on the actors’ perceptions of environmental related management changes and their drivers, in-depth expert interviews are most suited to provide valuable data (Yin 2003; Silverman 2006) and provide the bulk of information. Being a possible point of criticism, the choice to not include private forest owners’ opinions in the study is due to the fact that the focus is on forest management practice and the previously mentioned low number of forest owners being involved in active management of their forests (Koneyrittäjät 2009). The forest organizations and contractors were chosen as the focus due to their deemed importance in relation to the topic (Cloke et al. 2004) and according to the administrational structure underlying Finnish forestry. Interviewees were asked to present their views on the state of SFM. In addition to providing an answer on the whether or not SFM is practiced in Finnish forestry, their views on specific achievements and problems, as well as the related drivers for those issues were evaluated. Due to the in-depth, open-ended character of the interviews and the heterogeneity of involved entities no standardized set of questions was utilized but the interviewees were requested to tell about aspects of SFM they deemed important. Thereby, their perceptions, requirements and rationalities on their sustainable spaces in forest management are displayed with a reduced danger to be pulled into a certain direction by the interviewers’ preconceptualized framework about the topic (Silverman 2006; Dean 2010). The following section describes these various perceived achievements and problems of environmental forest management and its related driving forces or technologies. Hence, impacts and aspects related to forest certification will be scrutinized, as are the Finnish Forest Act and further means to achieve SFM or improve environmental performance in forestry.
Perceptions of sustainability and its drivers in Finnish forest management Keeping in mind the twofold representation of Finnish forestry from the outset, it is important to be aware of some aspects concerning environmental issues and practices in Finland to under-
FENNIA 190: 1 (2012) stand and evaluate the actors’ perceptions. In Finland, about 95% of commercial forests are PEFC certified by regional group certification (FMA 2011b). Being a member of FMA, the private forest owners become automatically part of the regional group certificate. This system is criticized, as it lacks audits prior to certification and may include actors unaware of their certification (e.g. Harkki 2004; Greenpeace 2011). Regional forest management institutions or regional contracting companies apply for participation in this regional group certificate. In early 2011, after a discussion that lasted almost 10 years (Albrecht 2010b), a Finnish FSC standard was approved and first areas of the global forestry company UPM-Kymmene have been certified (UPM 2011). Demanded by ENGOs, this FSC standard should improve Finnish forestry towards SFM. The most prominent national debate concerning practical forest management concerns the issue of even-aged versus uneven-aged forest management2. The former has been well-established practice for more than three decades and promoted by forest law, while the latter, being commonly practiced until the 1960s (Siiskonen 2007), has recently gained support as environmental and further non-economical management aspects increase. While a forest professional and academic discourse on the feasibility of the two approaches takes place (e.g. Tahvonen 2007; Kuuluvainen 2009; Laiho et al. 2011; Pukkala et al. 2011), the inclusion of uneven-aged forest management into forest law is being discussed by politics and separates the minds of institutions and actors related to forestry. A similar process is taking place in Sweden (e.g. Axelsson & Angelstam 2011). Thus many of the perceptions presented below concerning environmental forest governance in Finland circulate around these governmental technologies being used to promote SFM.
Forestry institutions’ perceptions According to the Forest Centre and FMA/FOU representatives, the current forest management system, backed by the Finnish Forest Act, Tapio’s recommendations for SFM and PEFC group certificates, is generally perceived as sufficient to achieve SFM in Finnish and North-Karelian forestry. Environmental aspects addressed by law and the additional requirements by PEFC were described to be well integrated into the management system with only minor breaches appearing.
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Hence, it was specifically pointed out that new approaches, for instance stricter certification criteria through FSC or uneven-aged forest management as demanded by most ENGOs, are deemed unnecessary. Accordingly, a recent proposal by a working group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry on liberalizing the possibilities of forest management, thus including uneven-aged forest management, is seen as critical. Nevertheless, it was mentioned that law as well as certification are minimum requirements for SFM from an environmental protective aspect, while the criteria could always be tightened, however related to massive cost increases on the forest owner and management side. The Finnish Forest Act, in particular its 10th section concerning the protection of valuable habitats is seen as a major driving force for guaranteeing SFM practices, while PEFC is seen as an extra topping, adding some criteria. For instance, valuable habitats, additional to the legal requirements found in PEFC criteria were mentioned in this regard. However, certification is also regarded as a cost-raising factor driven mainly by company demand. In the case of FSC, it was pointed out that companies only demand it to please the ENGOs. Both certification systems, particularly FSC, were said to require unnecessary bureaucratic efforts, while stricter environmental criteria could be imposed without them if wished so by involved actors. Market-driven influences aside certification demands by companies are based on economical aspects, as wood prices, and not in relation to direct changes in environmental management practices, as stated by some interviewees. Private forest owners are not regarded as drivers for improved environmental protection in forestry; yet, hostile attitudes towards environmental aspects and protection created by ENGO campaigns
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and the weakly planned implementation of Natura 2000 areas in the past are deteriorating. According to the interviewees, this development is mainly due to the METSO protection program with its voluntary protection approach (see Table 2). In relation to private forest owners, it was further stressed that their knowledge of environmental criteria or certification varies strongly. This owes much to the well-structured management system of Forest Centres, FMA/FOU and contracting companies, while most forest owners rely upon that these management aspects are taken care of by professionals, who do the planning and harvesting of their forests. Acceptance of environmental regulations when directly explained is high. As to their own impact on the environmental performance of forest management, it was stated that environmental aspects, based on law, PEFC and Tapio’s SFM recommendations are integrated into several processes. For instance, environmental issues are handled aside from economical aspects, in the Regional Forestry Programme by the Forest Centre, while FMA follows all environmental criteria deriving from law and certification in their forestry planning and harvesting. Further, the Forest Centre controls the environmental quality of regional forestry practices by recording breaches of law, as well as the implementation of environmental criteria like retention trees and valuable habitat demarcation. Additionally, both institutions provide and organize education and information about environmental related forestry practices to forest professionals and forest owners.
The contractors’ view Information retrieved from the interviews with managers and owners of the three North-Karelian contracting companies displayed a cohesive pic-
Table 2. METSO 2008−2016, overview (MMM 2010). METSO Forestry Biodiversity Programme • compensation based protection scheme for private and state owned forest for Southern Finland 2008–2016 lands (voluntary forest owner agreements) • First step: 2008-2012, 180 million € funds • ~14.000 ha protected in 2008–2009 (3661 ha in private forests) • ~6.400 ha restored habitats (300 ha in private forests) Targets
• improved protection/management of valuable habitats • improve network of protected areas in Southern Finland • halt decline of forest based species
Main critics
• insufficient funding • mainly active forest owners participate
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ture about recent forestry practices and their applicability for SFM with the associations’ perceptions voiced above. Nevertheless, aspects of environmental forest management were stressed from the implementation side, while several problems or discourses concerned with the same were mentioned. This relates to the aspect that contracting companies work for organizations in private, state or company owned forests, yet are not representing those ownerships but merely providing services based on the customer demands. Still, they are most concerned with the practicality of environmental criteria. According to the contractors, change concerning the integration of environmental aspects into forest management has appeared on two levels. First, practical issues, such as improved protection of valuable habitats, water protection through buffer zones and protection of waterways, as well as protection of retention trees, have improved the environmental quality of forest management. Second, parallel to the appearance of these practices, attitudes have shifted and the above-mentioned protection measures are described as becoming common practice while their purpose is being slowly understood among forestry professionals. One of the interviewees stressed that there remains a need to explain, especially to machine drivers, the importance of even small protective areas or habitats. Nevertheless, the current environmental criteria are regarded as sufficient for SFM, one contractor stating that some habitats such as “trickles on hill slopes” do not need to be protected due to their abundance in Finnish forests. This statement must be understood in reference to requirements laid down by the section 10 (2/1) of the Forest Act (MMM 1996) and PEFC criterion 10 (PEFC 2009). Describing the law as a basic and obligatory framework for environmental criteria, most specific changes are attributed to PEFC certification. Hence retention trees and required buffer zones on lake shores, both not demanded by law, were mentioned as examples (cf. Forest Act 1996). The environmental quality of the former, consisting of a required minimum of 5−10 trees/hectare left standing after harvesting, were found to improve with increasing machine-driver understanding of their importance (cf. PEFC 2009). Still, in some cases, retention trees are logged in the post harvesting period by misinformed private owners for fire wood. A contractor specialized in insular logging pointed out that the latter, while contributing
FENNIA 190: 1 (2012) to water protection measures in general, has positive impacts on landscape protection values when moving on Finnish waterways. Regarded as a critical aspect of Finnish forestry is the missing management agenda of many private forest owners, which leads to neglected and bushy forest stands, a view commonly shared by Swedish foresters (Axelsson & Angelstam 2011). It was further mentioned that the protection of valuable habitats related to law and PEFC have led to a fragmentation of logging sites making the job of contractors more challenging as more and more aspects and restrictions have to be taken into account. This results in smaller logging sites and constantly requires environmental education for machine drivers and planning professionals. To ensure proficient knowledge for machine drivers most large customers were said to demand an environmental management degree of them. This degree, provided by Tapio in cooperation with Forest Centres requires 4−6 days of courses and an additional amount of self-study to prepare forest professionals to recognize valuable habitats and to take environmental aspects in forest management and harvesting into account (Tapio 2011). Contractors stated that most of their employees, if not all, possess this degree. In addition, the large companies, like Stora Enso or UPM-Kymmene, provide environmental education to keep their contractors up-to-date on environmental regulation or changes in law. Attitudes among contractors towards these trainings varied to some degree. On the one hand, it was mentioned that training should be made mandatory in general and that a lack of possibilities for training exists, while on the other hand, the amount of training was regarded as too high. The additional costs (only educational costs are covered by the large companies) are criticized due to the loss of valuable working time if employees have to take classes instead of being in the forest logging. Information in general was presented as being of the utmost importance to guarantee the performance of SFM practices in forestry. Since harvesting is done preferably in winter times with frozen soils, Finland’s often extensive snow cover restricts recognition of valuable habitats, such as small springs, rivulets or bird-nesting sites. Machine drivers have to rely on their harvesting plans. Harvesting plans are mostly prepared in summer by the companies hiring the contractors’ work, based on management plans for the respective forest sites. Thereby, quality of mapping was said to
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differ. For instance, when harvesting for Stora Enso in a forest owned by Tornator, valuable areas were described as well charted and provided as a GPS map to contractors, partially even including premarked retention tree groups. Thus, it is easy for machine drivers to recognize the environmentally important areas by using their built-in GPS devices, while in private forests, even though for the same company, such digital maps are often absent, which increases the risk of mistakes. Apart from its benefits, the continuous shift to digital maps and GPS is seen as critical, since marking in the forests ceases, and the abilities of machine drivers to use new systems were described as still limited. Generally, it was pointed out that harvesting guidelines provided by large companies take environmental issues of law and certification strongly into account, while at least for FMA this was questioned to some degree. As for the drivers, no specific group was mentioned in relation to the increasing regulation and environmental criteria. Assumptions about environmentalists, some institutional authority and customer demands were provided as drivers for certification. The need for additional certification systems, specifically with stricter criteria was strongly denied and a critical attitude was expressed concerning uneven-aged forest management. However, ENGO demands are partially seen as rightful, yet not a large problem for contractors and in most cases regarded as solvable. It appeared from the interviews that contractors and their association take a more neutral stance towards the larger political debates and leave those to politics, large forestry and wood-based product companies and forest owner associations while concentrating on the practical issues of SFM.
Company perceptions: Tornator Oy With forest holdings of 595,000 hectares in Finland, Tornator is the third largest forest owner in Finland while its focus on Eastern Finland makes it the most important non-state owner in NorthKarelia. Managing the forests formerly owned by Stora Enso which still holds 41% of Tornator shares, between 80−85% of cutting rights from its forests are sold to Stora Enso (Tornator 2011). Forest maintenance and planning is largely carriedout by the own forestry professionals while harvesting activities, specifically final felling, is carried-out by external contractors, mostly by Karel Wood, Stora Enso’s main contractor in North-
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Karelia. The companies own forests are completely PEFC certified. Planning and maintenance services are further offered to private owners in the vicinity of Tornator’s forest areas. In addition to commercial management, Tornator has recently set aside some 1,250 hectares of its forest as part of several state promoted protection programmes, terminating negotiations with the Ministry of Environment lasting almost two decades. Additionally, two areas have been included within the Metso programme since 2009, the latest being a 74 hectare storm damaged area in North-Karelia (Tornator 2011). The Metso programme has been a focus of Tornator’s own environmental responsibility programme in 2009 and its forest superintendents have been trained to identify its habitats (Tornator 2010). As burning over criteria have been tightened in PEFC, trials to burn over retention tree areas in each forestry team have been promoted as part of METSO habitat management (Tornator 2011). Tornator representatives regard the major changes of integrating environmental aspects into forest management in a similar way to the contracting companies. Primary, specifically PEFC certification is said to have united the efforts of different actors to work on and integrate environmental aspects into forestry. It was stressed that forestry organizations, contractors and private owners are now collected within a single framework to handle environmental aspects. Second, in relation to practical changes which promote and improve SFM, retention trees, protection of valuable habitats, water protection and nature management of commercial forests (e.g. Metso) were mentioned. Forest and related environmental laws are considered to provide means for most of these practical changes, while specifically retention trees are credited to PEFC. Another effect brought about by the different environmental regulations is a concentration on economically valuable forest areas away from less productive stands, thus investment in, for instance, peat land has ceased. SFM is stressed as an important aspect in Tornators’ own forest management activities. Hence, requirements by Forest Law, PEFC and Tapio’s recommendations for SFM are always integrated into forestry activities. For that purpose, own contractors for forest maintenance and Stora Enso’s logging contractors are obliged by agreement to participate in training programs organized by the two companies, often taught by the Forest Centre or Tapio specialists. Contractors are provided with
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GPS maps entailing valuable habitats and other areas restricted for harvesting practices. Information on retention trees might be provided and respective areas should already be delineated at first thinnings. Nevertheless, this relatively new practice was described as being in need of improvement. Despite the digital support, the above-mentioned trainings should enable machine drivers to decide upon and recognize valuable areas also by themselves. It follows that Tornator perceives PEFC as widely sufficient, while, for instance, FSC is recently perceived as too strict and based on complicated criteria, and thus it is regarded critically. Yet, implementation would be possible and requests from Stora Enso were received concerning this issue. Nevertheless, increased costs due to logging losses and additional costs in administration are expected and require evaluation, while being a matter of debate between Stora Enso and Tornator concerning plans for FSC certification. FSC demand by Stora Enso is perceived to be customer driven. One aspect highlighted as endangering SFM in Finnish forestry is a decreasing knowledge and activity among a growing number of forest owners. Consisting mainly of young owners living in long distance to their forests, these owners were found to neglect their holdings, which might lead to insufficiently managed forests. Being eventually positive for biodiversity in the short term, this development reduces forest productivity and value for forest owners; both considered aspects of SFM as well. Despite its acclaimed achievements in SFM in its forests (e.g. Tornator 2010, 2011) Tornator, aside from UPM-Kymmene, is blamed by ENGOs for neglecting the protection of valuable habitats based on Metso criteria. The NL in cooperation with its parent organization FANC and with Greenpeace Finland mapped large areas of Tornator and UPM-Kymmene owned forests in 2008 and 2009 delineating 77 exemplifying areas, valuable for protection, 20 of which are situated in Tornator’s forests (Luonto-Liitto et al. 2009). Not being pleased by these ENGO demands, it was agreed to evaluate the areas marked using one’s own discretion. No concrete details were provided in the interviews. However, it was mentioned that some areas do meet Metso criteria while others, a marked sapling stand was described as an example, lack any protective values and are not considered for possible protection. It was further mentioned that Stora Enso, as buyer of most logging
FENNIA 190: 1 (2012) rights, is closely following the happenings and requests full information if respective stands are marked for cutting. Interestingly, opposite to the often mentioned “carrot and stick” approach (e.g. Cashore et al. 2004) FSC was not regarded as a means to avoid such campaigns but was more expected to increase the level of demands brought forward by ENGOs. ENGO protests and market campaigns are recognized as drivers for environmental changes and seen as a push factor for FSC. Parallel to this, ENGO attention is described as shifting from Lapland to southern Finland, where forest owning companies appear as major targets for such campaigns. On the other hand, rethinking in forest policy is regarded as an important driver as well, since certain environmental measures have positive economical impacts in today’s forestry-based business environment.
NGO perceptions: countering claims of SFM Perceptions of Finnish ENGO on achievements and the state of SFM in Finland counter most attitudes expressed by the three actor groups above. First, none of the ENGO representatives regard Finnish forestry to be managed in a sustainable manner. On the contrary, most issue a quite low performance for Finnish forestry in terms of SFM and environmental protection. Within their criticism, the interviewees mentioned improvements and at least some positive development. It is interesting to note that they pointed out the very similar improvements mentioned by the previous actor groups; however they regard them as insufficient to reach SFM according to their definition. Additionally, these improvements, like retention trees, buffer zones and valuable habitats, are commonly attributed to law or the SFM recommendations by Tapio then to PEFC, despite being part of PEFC criteria. In general, PEFC is rejected as a system providing SFM in Finland, due to its weak criteria, and lax implementation and control. Criteria exceeding law, like retention trees or lakeside buffer zones were deemed a nice thought but too weak to bring about significant changes. Only the representative of WWF Finland attributed improvements and certain positive aspects to PEFC as a system to refer immediately to the high amount of loopholes, and inferiority to FSC. Despite its annual regional audits, PEFC was described more as a toothless tiger, as several breaches of criteria dis-
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covered by NGOs remained with no consequences for the certificate holders. Apart from these aspects, ENGOs criticized the fact that the minor improvements achieved with retention trees, buffer zones and the protection of some valuable habitats are promoted by forestry associations and partially by industry as the solution to the problem of insufficient SFM. According to the representatives of ENGOs, Finland’s forestry is in need of restructuring on a larger scale then with beauty corrections such as five retention trees per hectare. Therefore, the debate of even-aged versus uneven-aged forest management was more prominent in their talks. Opposing the positions of forest associations and some contractors, ENGOs promote uneven-aged forest management as the better alternative. In addition to environmental aspects such as improved biodiversity, economic gains through savings in forest regeneration and planting are presented to back their claim. In this regard, the political sphere was described as moving towards more possibilities for forest owners, however in a slow manner with FMAs opposing changes to the recent system. The campaign which aimed at Tornator and UPM-Kymmene differed widely to the public protest campaigns related to old-growth forest destruction in Lapland. Instead of large publicity or protests to blame the respective companies, proposals based on fieldwork findings by NL concerning valuable habitats were submitted to the companies. While the data was published in Finnish online, no large publications (cf. Greenpeace 2009) have been prepared to target an international audience as compared to the Lapland forest conflict. Mapping of valuable habitats was conducted based on Metso criteria and on the improved connection of protected networks (LuontoLiitto et al. 2009). The response of UPM-Kymmene was described as cooperative; Tornator, on the other hand, was described as more reserved on the issue. It was stressed though that for Tornator, with its main revenues deriving from forest management and wood sale, decisions on excluding areas from exploitation weight heavier than for a transnational, integrated forest-product company like UPM-Kymmene. Yet, to increase pressure, proposals were sent to Stora Enso, the main customer of Tornator. As company owned forests were described as thoroughly managed, yet not sustainable in most cases, the situation for private forests was described as strongly variable. Criticized by the re-
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gional forestry institutions and contractors, the forest owners’ lack of a management agenda was coupled with positive effects for biodiversity (e.g. no thinnings). Concerning certification, Finnish ENGOs expect the major companies to certify their forests with FSC in the future, UPM taking the first-mover role. Private owners, especially due to the negative attitudes of their associations are seen as less likely to switch to FSC in the coming years. Surprisingly, and contrary to the public chorus of international ENGOs, like WWF or Friends of the Earth, FSC is not regarded as the sole solution to achieve SFM in Finland. Although it would improve forest management in commercial forests, it was described as unsustainable with regards to forest energy harvesting, while increased political efforts were stressed in order to improve the network of protected areas. Thus while Finnish ENGOs’ perceptions on Finnish forestry varies from that of most other forestry related actors, it also differs from the international, public NGO chorus. The above-mentioned examples display the various rationalities, based on the differing positionalities of actors, which aim at stabilizing or including their regimes of practice in local and transnational forest governance. Political technologies (e.g. Baldwin 2003; Dean 2010) are thereby promoted to different ends and attributed with varying effects. The following critically discusses the performance of these various perceptions and their possible effects on the processes of transnational environmental forest governance.
Discussion The twofold public promotion of Finnish forestry practices is (re-)produced throughout the interviews as all actors, apart from the Finnish ENGOs, regard Finnish forestry as sustainable on their account. Yet, keeping in mind that those perceptions about SFM are closely tied to the actors’ rationalities and influenced by various regimes of practice (Dean 2010), a more diverse picture unfolds. Rationalities of actors are co-produced by their positionality (Sheppard 2002), which makes actor groups or regimes of practice to focus on problematizations from their perspective (Dean 2010). Hence, perceptions expressed by the interviewees relate to a heterogeneous playing field despite an apparently unified arena. So, the question is not merely if there is SFM in Finland but which aspects of forestry are included in the rationalities of in-
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volved entities to decide upon that matter and how varying positionalities of corporate and private forest owners affect the processes of forest governance. The actors in this study are largely concerned with commercial forestry and its sustainability. Thus, they access forestry with regard to commercially utilized forests and aspects of their management (see also Axelsson & Angelstam 2011). ENGOs, on the other hand, see forests from a more universal, environmental perspective. Hence, one must assume a variety of underlying definitions concerning the criteria and values of SFM on which the delineation of sustainable spaces rests (Hudson 2005). While an in depth evaluation of those definitions is not the aim of this paper, the utilization and promotion of different political technologies promoted on the basis of those is accessed. PEFC certification, Forest Law and Tapio’s SFM recommendations are the most prominent technologies mentioned in the Finnish debate. Yet, they are attributed with various achievements towards different ends. Supported by the dominant regime of practice consisting of Forest Centres, FMA and FOU the role of PEFC is the one of the defending champion, while FSC is yet to rise to become a contestant in the same weight class in Finland. The unifying role accredited to PEFC in environmental issues in the interviews is an important aspect of its strength. Since it is backed-up by the monopoly like structured institutions of Finnish forestry it has a large capacity to promote itself. This was supported by an ENGO forestry expert who stressed the onesided, pro PEFC information provided throughout this monopoly system to forest owners and professionals. However, based on positive third party audits, as well as on checkups carried-out by its supportive institutions, PEFC has been able to improve forestry and, further, to strengthen forest law enforcement, as pointed-out by a forest industry representative (see also Indufor 2010). While ENGOs oppose this claim, some of the advertised improvements are accepted, yet attributed to different drivers. Achievements such as retention trees, lake-side buffer zones or additional habitats are affiliated with Tapio’s SFM recommendation rather than to PEFC, despite PEFC criteria being theoretically binding rather than Tapio’s recommendations. This shows how even insufficient deemed achievements are attributed to another political technology rather than to run the danger of creating an eventual support/agreement with an op-
FENNIA 190: 1 (2012) posed regime of practice. Generally, ENGOs describe the achievements mentioned throughout the actor groups as green-washing of forestry practice by forestry institutions and companies, while distracting from the larger problem such as decreasing biodiversity due to a lack of protected areas. With respect to these wider problematizations stressed by ENGOs, it has to be taken into account that this plays only a marginal role within the contractors’ or forest owning companies’ perceptions of SFM. Exemplified by a Tapio forestry expert statement that not all species can be expected to cope in commercially used forests, wider aspects such as large protected areas, or high biodiversity rankings are not necessarily regarded as part of their business. At least not without sufficient compensation paid (e.g. METSO). This stresses the importance of positionality effects related to actors’ rationalities and their resulting practices (Albrecht 2010b), and is akin to findings in Swedish forestry (Axelsson & Angelstam 2011). Thus, as the debate about SFM includes multiple forest images, the common attempt by ENGOs to kill two birds with one stone, for instance with FSC, buries risks of rejection. These spheres are separated in the perceptions of contractors, institutions and Tornator. Thus, while PEFC, forest law and Tapio’s SFM recommendation provide sufficient means for SFM in commercial forests, increasing a protected area network seems to not be affiliated within their direct range of tasks. While, compared to the global FSC equals SFM chorus by many ENGOs, Finnish ENGOs, on the contrary, are aware of that issue and try to avoid accusations of confusing SFM with forest conservation, an accusation mentioned in an interview with a large Finnish forestry company. With rationalities related to SFM being influenced by deemed external relations as well, for instance distrust in ENGOs or private ownership aspects (Albrecht 2012), PEFC, while deemed sufficient, is not promoted as the solution to all problems, even by its supporters. Problems like varying quality of retention trees due to changing forest professional knowledge and interest, or their post harvesting removal by forest owners for their firewood are acknowledged. The latter is a common problem in Sweden, despite its FSC and PEFC forests as well (Hysing & Olsson 2005). However, the achievements in commercial forestry, the felt fragmentation of logging sites due to habitat and buffer zone protection, and the high amount of environ-
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mental related education requirements for forest workers are relations that shape rationalities and provide most forest professionals with the perception that they are doing their share to improve forestry. As even PEFC certification is regarded a burden, requiring costs, education and changed practices, the attitude towards increased restrictions and regulations, be it FSC or any other involuntary measures, are prone to be rejected for the time being. This also seems to relate to perceptions of Finnish SFM practices in global comparison. Interviewees from FMA, FOU, FFIF and Tapio regarded them as top level, while, for instance, forestry in Russia was not seen as being superior despite its FSC certification. Additionally, the demand for certification by the large buying companies is seen as only being for their reputational sake, and not necessarily based on altruistic attitudes to save the environment. The fact that UPM refrained from FSC certification of all its forests, due to low market demand, and disconnection to its own processing facilities, supports these claims (Woodmark 2011). It was criticized by contractors and by Tornator that many costs remain with them while the companies which demand certification restrain from paying higher prices for those sustainable products. This aspect additionally shapes a positionality that creates rationalities which rejects further regulations. Thereby, PEFC, in concert with Finnish forest law and Tapio’s SFM recommendation based on the positionalities of most Finnish forest actors, continues to (re-)produce itself as the dominant regime of practice (e.g. Dean 2010). This, in turn, has strong implications for transnational forest governance. As the majority of Finnish forestry products are exported (FFIF 2011b), PEFC products continue to dominate the certified product market by numbers. Yet, as stated by Massey (2005) on account of the relative instability and openness of space, such domination is constantly challenged. In Finland, the debate of even- vs. uneven-aged forest management is just such an unfolding problematization which affects the various regimes of practice and the space they aim to govern (Dean 2010). Thereby, even-aged forest management, which, following Sheppard (2002), is concurrently promoted as the “natural” regime of practice by Forest Centres, FMA and FOU is in jeopardy. The opening up of forestry practices, thus including uneven-aged forest management on a large scale, is also related to the dismantling of the monopoly structure of the Forest Centres and
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FMAs. Thus, forest owners not only should be enabled to choose their mode of harvesting but have free choice from where to acquire consultation and management services. As such a change is currently politically debated, it is highly welcomed by ENGOs and is further supported by the FFIF and, to some degree, the FOUs, based on the right of forest owners to do as they wish with their forest property. Further, the increased distance of forest owners from their holdings diminishes the influence and informational flow deriving from regional Forest Centres or FMAs, thus detaching the owners from those still dominant regimes of practice. While such a shift might provide more possibilities for FSC and other alternative practices to be integrated, it by no means equals an abrupt end to the dominant regime consisting of the amalgamation of forest law, PEFC and Tapio’s recommendations. Additionally, influences on forest management and utilization are not merely seen as positive for SFM or biodiversity. The lack of a management agenda by private forest owners and the resulting increase in unmanaged, bushy forests criticized by contractors was to some degree affiliated by ENGOs with the onesided management possibilities of the current system. As these areas often entail increased biodiversity, due to their natural character, opening up new management possibilities might lead to a reintegration of such areas into commercial forestry, thereby resulting in a possible loss of biodiversity, as stressed by a Tapio expert. Further, a possible decrease of dead wood was described as a possible effect, while missing expertise regarding large scale uneven-aged forestry was stressed to be the main hindering factor (see also Axelsson & Angelstam 2011). Nevertheless, while being probably less productive, uneven-aged forestry is seen as less costly since reforestation and clear-cut site management costs lapse. The fact that forest regeneration is Tornator’s largest single expense fosters that claim (Tornator 2011). Nevertheless, uneven-aged forestry is seen as more likely to be integrated into private forest holdings by the interviewees compared to corporate holdings, due to their focus on wood production. Yet, implications on the certification systems as political technologies for SFM performance (Baldwin 2003; Albrecht 2010b) in Finland remain tied to the positionalities of the implicating actors in their local settings. Being recently promoted due to business demand through large companies like UPM-Kym-
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mene and Stora Enso, both being supportive for PEFC in Finland at the same time (Albrecht 2012), the awaited opening-up of forestry management services adds possibilities for FSC to gain its share of the previously dominated PEFC market. This especially accounts for corporate holdings, as they are prone to ENGO campaigns and market pressure, while implementation of complex standards is facilitated due to their large-scale and professional management. The recent certification of UPM-Kymmene forest areas is a good example of this. Yet, the rationalities of implementing forest actors are (re-)produced by their positionalities (Sheppard 2002; Murdoch 2006). Thus, despite the new possibilities opening up, the current system of Forest law/PEFC seems better suited to target the sustainable spaces perceived by most implementing actors. Hence, the strong and positive role affiliated by most interviewees to the state driven METSO programme counters the all-in-one market driven SFM alternatives, to some degree. It separates the struggle for SFM in commercial forests, according to most actors sufficiently managed by Forest law/PEFC, and improves protection measures through state funds on a voluntary basis. The METSO programme, based on its wide recognition, apart from the criticism of insufficient funding by ENGOs and FFIF, has managed to be a supported political technology that fits the rationalities of most actors belonging to opposing regimes of practice. Thereby, from a local perspective, it strongly influences market driven aspects such as certification demand and further highlights the importance of local steering mechanisms for transnational environmental forest governance.
Conclusions The debate on sufficient measures for SFM will continue in Finland, with an expected increase in its complexity, due to the integration of wood energy aspects. The system’s current restructuring opens up possibilities for previously excluded alternative political technologies to be integrated into Finnish forestry since positionalities change and with them the rationalities of involved entities. It is, however, questionable if these changes will bring the awaited improvements hoped for by ENGOs or if the current dominant regime of practice entails the resilience to maintain its position. While FSC is expected to increase on corporate owned land, due to business demand, the posi-
tionality of forest owners in Finland is preventing such a sudden change and there can be doubt if it will rise to become the dominant system in Finland. On the other hand, uneven-aged forest management is more likely to be integrated into privately owned forests. Thus, it remains to be seen if respective forest owners choose FSC in concert or if Forest Centres, FMAs and FOUs provide uneven-aged aside from even-aged forestry with a continuous reliance on PEFC as the more pragmatic and forest owner trusted system. Thus, will they adjust their system to remain the dominant regime of practice? Following the research aims presented in the introduction, this paper has displayed how local perceptions based on the positionality of actors (re-)produce the various rationalities of actors on SFM. Further, they display these rationalities’ influence on decision-making and practices for SFM and transnational forest governance per se. While the positionality of corporate forest owners, tied to market demand and vulnerable to ENGO campaigns, is more strongly affected by market driven aspects of forest governance (Cashore et al. 2004; Albrecht 2010b), private forest owners are strongly influenced by their locally embedded relations which (re-)produce their positionality. These include governmental instruments (e.g. METSO), knowledge networks or practicalities which all play their role in influencing and shaping transnational forest governance practices, and the utilization and promotion of its political technologies as forest certification schemes. Thus, local regimes of practice in resource peripheries with their affiliated knowledge networks have the strength to resist and shape market-driven domination in forest governance. Based on the theoretical approach of this paper, it is likely that these findings can be generalized to other areas of natural resource management (e.g. sustainable bioenergy), as long as private ownership exists alongside corporate and state owned premises. However, to strengthen this claim further research is required.
NOTES One of the companies, Anaika Wood had just changed its focus from forestry contracting to bioenergy production, nevertheless it was active in contracting during recent years. 2 Even-aged forest management is commonly practiced by a rotational process of thinnings, clear-cuts 1
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and reforestation. Uneven-managed forest management refers to practicing continuous growth forestry (uneven aged tree cover) with selective loggings and mostly natural regeneration (e.g. Axelsson & Angelstam 2011).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research has been funded as part of the Academy of Finland project (no. 14770) “Transnationalization of Forest Governance” and by the University of Eastern Finland (project no. 931429). Special thanks go to Eija Kärkkäinen for her valuable help with the Finnish interviews and translations. Further I like to thank the North Karelian forestry companies, Institutions and Finnish NGOs who have participated in this research.
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