The International Forest Policy team in collaboration with the HELSUS project “Future ‘Ecotopias’ of Sustainability in Nordic Forests Systems” will host a session ‘Working Group 4’ at the Development Days Conference 27-28 February 2025, in Päärakennus (Main Building), University of Helsinki. This year, our theme draws inspiration from novelist Ernest Callenbach’s ‘ecotopia’ envisioning the harmonization of ecologically balanced principles for human wellbeing. We welcome ongoing research, theoretical pieces, and other kinds of contributions that deconstruct and decolonize maldevelopments of forests in the Global North and South. Both areas despite their feature in the Sustainable Development Goals, are impacted by practices of deforestation, biodiversity loss, resource recentralization, and imperialist legacies that present many challenges for forests and people. We ask what would a ‘forestopia’ look like, for whom, and what enables or hinders the transition towards a forestopia that features social environmental justice?
Abstract submissions are welcome until November 24, 2024.
See topics of interest from the Conference website
For any inquiries, contact akonwi.ayonghe@helsinki.fi and maria.brockhaus@helsinki.fi