Beyond participation!:social innovations facilitating movement from authoritative state to participatory forest governance in Ukraine

Abstract Tuning participatory processes is often insufficient to achieve transition from authoritative state to democratic and participatory forest governance due to institutional inertia and unwillingness to truly decentralize decision-making power. Social innovations as reconfigurations of relationships between state, market actors, civil society and science can help to meet concerns of local people about forest Ecosystem Services (ES). In Ukraine, the Swiss-Ukrainian Forest Development (FORZA) pilot project initiated a social innovation process complementing regional forest planning with local participatory community development plans in Transcarpathia. This paper examines what kind of changes need to accompany the succession of participatory practices in transition processes from authoritative state to democratic forest governance, and what are the lessons learned for social innovations based on the Ukrainian case study. This paper synthesizes knowledge on the FORZA case analyzed by inductive content analysis, and integrates these local level results with a national survey (N = 244) on Ukrainian forest governance. Transition processes need to go “beyond participation” by (i) legal reforms to better acknowledge ES important for local people, (ii) a change from an exclusive focus on timber to acknowledging multiple ES, (iii) changed spatial and temporal rationales of state-based governance, and (iv) recognition of local people as credible experts. Social innovations can detect key barriers to the transition during the policy experiments, and need to pay significant attention on how the novel practices can be sustained after the pilot, replicated elsewhere and up-scaled. Without such considerations, social innovation projects may only remain as a marginal curiosity

Human values as catalysts and consequences of social innovations

Abstract We studied the role of human values in social innovations (SIs) in four forest-dependent communities (FDCs) in Europe. We draw on 71 semi-structured interviews with FDC members in Finland, Slovenia, the UK and Ukraine, and a survey of householders (n = 150) and focus group interviews with related stakeholders in Ukraine. The material collected was analyzed with mixed methods with respect to relational values as catalysts and consequences of SI. Relational values, which are derivative of the relationships between human and non-human world, and responsibilities towards these relationships, were divided into three categories: Doing, Belonging and Respecting. Doing encompasses the individual’s perspective of the opportunities offered by nature to individuals. Belonging encompasses a communal dimension of values manifested as the experience of “being at home” in social collectives and landscapes. Respecting addresses environmental and social justice. Common cause for SI was the need of FDCs to sustain or enhance relational values linked to forests while, once emerged, SIs also have potential to become global game-changers. SI encompasses the reconfiguration of: i) forest management and use, ii) decision-making structures and processes, and iii) stakeholder’s perceptions of sustainability. Examples include the co-management arrangement between a State forestry enterprise and the local community, buying woodland from the State by the FDCs to enable community forestry, reinvention of traditional forest management, and the active involvement of FDC members in halting illegal logging. As a conclusion, we developed a general value hierarchy accounting for value plurality in which relational, instrumental and intrinsic values can be interpreted from any perspective

Social innovation for sustainability transformation and its diverging development paths in marginalised rural areas

Abstract Social innovation is perceived as a collaborative response from civic society actors to societal challenges and as such is increasingly being recognised as a driver for sustainable development. Social innovation promotes civic values, particularly in marginalised rural areas that are often struggling with biophysical and market limits, as well as shortages of public funding. In order to identify diverging development paths (DDPs) for social innovation, in this article, we use two large sets of empirical material from the SIMRA research project. First, for meta-analyses of social innovation in diverse situations and contexts, we use 211 validated social innovation examples. Second, we rely on 11 in-depth cases to reflect on the contexts and dimensions of social innovation. The elaboration of conceptualisation and deductive analyses result in the creation of a typology of social innovation DDPs, with four DDPs identified and explained. The article provides an improved understanding of how social innovation emerges and develops and how to capture processes and resulting changes in marginalised rural areas in order to turn such areas’ diversity into strengths. An important conclusion is that social innovation involves both local and external actors, yet cannot develop without specific internal local activity and local knowledge

An institutional analysis and reconfiguration framework for sustainability research on post-transition forestry:a focus on Ukraine

Abstract In this paper, we elaborate an Institutional Analysis and Reconfiguration Framework centered around the ‘action arena’ theoretical approach. We develop this framework to analyze institutional reconfiguration to enhance sustainability, and operationalize it using research methods which focus on documentation of the institutional contexts through an extensive literature review and interviews of experts in forest policy. We apply the Institutional Analysis and Reconfiguration Framework to examine forestry institutions, address forest governance, and investigate their effect on socio-economic and environmental performances in forestry of Ukraine. The paper draws on the state of affairs in post-transition forestry, its difficulties, and new prospects for economic and institutional reforms. We examine challenges and opportunities in forestry and suggest key remedies and prospective ways forward. Results show that a combination of path dependency with the rigidity of institutions and a slow pace of economic and political reforms is the major obstacle to implementing decisions regarding sustainable forest policy. A reconfiguration of social practices is required, as well as the development of capabilities and awareness raising amongst relevant stakeholders, to realize the problems, envision alternative futures, challenge existing institutions, shift power relations and create new norms, rules, and decision-making arrangements. The way towards sustainability in forestry largely goes through changing institutions, and a human dimension of institutional changes reflected in the uptake of social innovation

Is there a scope for social innovation in Ukrainian forestry?

Abstract Social innovation is recognised for its potential to turn societal challenges into opportunities and develop sustainable solutions for people and nature. We identify and examine challenges that Ukrainian forestry is facing and apply an “action arena” conceptual approach to explore whether and how social innovation can enhance the sustainable development of forestry. We develop a framework to analyse the reconfiguration of social practices by using research methods that focus on the use of documentation of the institutional contexts and interviewing forest policy experts, as well as stakeholder evaluation of the challenges and ways forward for Ukrainian forestry. We apply the Q-method to identify stakeholder attitudes and examine the role of people in the reconfiguring of social practices and promoting sustainable development of the forest sector. Implications for changing the rules of the game and institutional perspectives on forestry are identified, with examples of social innovation initiatives presented. Results show that to emerge, develop, and be transformative, social innovation must have supporting institutional conditions to create new norms, rules, and social practices. Relevant stakeholders need to envision alternative futures, reshape places, and become more actively engaged in decision-making processes. We identify the key directions for changing the rules of the game and the opportunities that social innovation has to offer

Reconstructive social innovation cycles in women-led initiatives in rural areas

Abstract Social innovations can tackle various challenges related to gender equity in rural areas, especially when such innovations are initiated and developed by women themselves. We examine cases located in rural areas of Canada, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, and Serbia, where women are marginalized by gender roles, patriarchal values, male dominated economy and policy, and lack of opportunities for education and employment. Our objective is to analyze five case studies on how women-led social innovation processes can tackle gender equity related challenges manifested at the levels of everyday practice, institutions, and cognitive frames. The analyses are based on interviews, workshops, literature screening, and are examined via the qualitative abductive method. Results summarize challenges that rural women are facing, explore social innovation initiatives as promising solutions, and analyze their implications on gender equity in the five case studies. Based on our results we propose a new concept: reconstructive social innovation cycle. It refers to is defined as cyclical innovation processes that engage women via civil society initiatives. These initiatives reconstruct the existing state of affairs, by questioning marginalizing and discriminative practices, institutions, and cognitive frames that are often perceived as normal. The new concept helps with to assessing the implications that women-led social innovations have for gender equity

Can social innovation make a change in European and Mediterranean marginalized areas?:social innovation impact assessment in agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development

Abstract Social innovation (SI) impacts are long-term changes that affect different dimensions of territorial capital (i.e., economy, society, environment, governance) for the territory in which SI occurs. Yet, systematic empirical evidence and theoretically sound assessments of the impacts of SI are scarce. This paper aims to fill the gap and assess the different aspects of SI’s impacts in European and Mediterranean areas that are characterized by marginalization processes. To assess the impacts of SI in marginalized areas, we use the evaluation framework developed within the Social Innovation in Marginalized Rural Areas (SIMRA) Horizon 2020 project and apply it to nine SI initiatives related to the fields of agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and rural development. Our findings show that SI produces cross-sectoral (societal, economic, environmental, and governmental) and multi-level impacts (on individuals, community, and society), which have improved the societal well-being, and contributed to the reduction of certain forms of marginality, mainly inside the territory in which SI occurred