The UFRO conference at Renmin University from October 9th to 11th provided a unique opportunity for our team to engage directly with leading international researchers and practitioners in forest-related social sciences. Over several days, we shared our own research, attended thematic sessions, and participated in lively discussions that highlighted the challenges and innovations shaping forest governance, policy, and sustainable management across the globe.
Our session, titled “Forest & Land Governance in the Tropics: Discourse, Capital and Global Trade”, moderated by Dr. Jianmin Xiao from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, explored diverse perspectives on global inequalities, forest governance, and the political economy of forest-land relations across tropical regions. Tropical forests and forest lands are governed for oftentimes competing interests and actors, domestic and international, such as Europe and China. The production of commodities such as timber, rubber and oil palm compete with areas designated for conservation, mining, social forestry and other activities. Flows of material, finance and ideas are enabled through networks of actors, institutions, and discourses. They produce benefits and burdens in the different localities of production and consumption. The session used a critical global political economy perspective to analyse the often inequal outcomes of global forest governance. Our aim was to identify, together with the audience, pathways that allow to break with current patterns of inequality in the governance of forests and forest lands.
The panel was organised in joint collaboration of the ForEqual and FairFrontiers project and featured presentations by colleagues from the University of Helsinki, University of Göttingen, the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN, Japan), and the Chinese Academy of Forestry. Topics ranged from forest finance and policy transparency to Chinese engagement in African forestry sectors, forest-based livelihoods in Southeast Asia, and the enduring influence of colonial legacies in global timber trade.
We are grateful to the organizers at Renmin University and IUFRO Division 9 for creating such an inspiring and collaborative platform for forest-related social science research.