Forests, Biodiversity & Land-Use Politics

Abstract

This panel examines forests and biodiversity as central, contested arenas of contemporary environmental politics. The papers explore how competing political, economic, and ecological priorities shape land-use governance across local, national, and supranational levels. Several contributions focus on forest governance in the context of ambitious biodiversity and restoration agendas, analysing how political conflict, institutional design, and stakeholder opposition influence policy outcomes. A core theme of the panel is politicisation. The papers show how forests and biodiversity have moved from being treated as largely technical policy domains to becoming sites of explicit political contestation. Contributions examine how international commitments, EU-level regulations, and national policy frameworks interact with local practices, indigenous knowledge systems, and economic interests. Others critically assess how forests are mobilised within broader climate and inequality narratives, revealing tensions between symbolic commitments and material outcomes. Through diverse empirical cases and conceptual approaches, the panel highlights the limits of top-down governance in addressing biodiversity loss and land-use change. It demonstrates how power struggles, distributional conflicts, and knowledge hierarchies shape the implementation—and sometimes the failure—of forest and biodiversity policies. By foregrounding political dynamics rather than purely ecological indicators, the panel contributes to a richer understanding of how land-use decisions are negotiated and contested, and what this means for the future of biodiversity governance.

Title	Details
The Politics of EU Nature Restoration Regulation	View Paper Details
Analysing the Inequality Machine: a Critical Examination of the Global Forest Sector in the Congo Basin	View Paper Details
Towards the Politicisation of Nature? Forests and Biodiversity Issues in European Party Manifestos	View Paper Details
Where Brussels’ Forest Restoration Ambitions Confront National Realities: A Country Comparative Historical Analysis	View Paper Details
“Salmon is the Bear of Waters” – Killing with Care as Political at River Njauddâm	View Paper Details