Contested emergency:five gaming strategies between environmental and economic science-policy-society coalitions

Abstract The Greek word nomos is usually taken to mean a law or a convention governing human conduct. The concept has been developed to understand social and economic order comprising three aspects: appropriation, production and distribution. In the present paper, I focus on appropriation and define it as the knowledge claims being made and circulated in science-policy-society interactions. Three general rationales are identified: the linear (speaking truth to power), the co-production of knowledge (making sense together) and the post-truth (inventing facts for friends). The objective of the present paper is to examine how the environmental coalition has attempted to ease the problems of climate change and biodiversity loss and how the economic coalition has responded to these strategies as well as how both coalitions have used the three science-policy-society rationales. I will identify and discuss five game-theory inspired strategies that the environmental coalition has used as well as outline some examples on how the economic coalition has responded to the knowledge claims by the environmental coalition. The knowledge claims are not static but rather evolve dynamically in interactions between competing coalitions. This highlights the relevance of the recent idea that actors working at the science-policy-society nexus need to consider their opponents and tailor their knowledge claims not only based on science or on their own objectives but also in a way that counters and anticipates the opposite coalition’s knowledge claims and decisions. Based on the analysis, I propose that the interactions between environmental and economic coalitions can be understood as a “Contested Emergency”. This paper highlights the relevance of knowledge claims in shaping the complex landscape of environmental governance and the challenges for movement towards a post-fossil future. The knowledge claims regarding the contested emergency end up grounding certain visions of future spatial orders and imply fundamentally different possible nomoi ranging from sustaining the status quo build on economic growth through technological solutions to radical transformative measures seeking to avoid social-ecological collapse

’The site strikes back’: multi-level forest governance and participation in northern Finland

Abstract New forms of environmental governance are implemented with promises associated with more flexible and participatory decision-making. However, resistance towards these ways of doing decisions occurs also in relation to forests in northern Finland. This thesis seeks to explain this resistance and to discuss how participation in the context of multi-level environmental governance can be enhanced. A combination of anthropological fieldwork methods and concepts from environmental politics is used to create a bottom-up research strategy to examine forest governance. Based on theme interviews, planning documents and press releases of various actors, this thesis identifies problems for hybrid forest governance modes, which combine State, market, and civil society actors in decision-making processes. Based on selected topical case studies regarding state-owned commercial forests in Inari, Forest Lapland, Muonio, and Liperinsuo three different governance modes are identified: a State-based mode with a participatory dimension and two ‘pressure’ modes taking place via market-based campaigns of environmental NGOs and local protests. Concerning the protected areas, namely Malla Strict Nature Reserve and the Pallas-Ylläs and Oulanka national parks, one governance mode is identified as taking place on the vertical park managements – international conservation agencies – local resource users axis. A major explanation for resistance towards the different governance modes is that decision-making processes neglect site-specifics. Related problems include missing stakeholders, lack of site-specific discussions in planning processes, generalised concepts used in standardisation practices, engagement of ‘faraway’ stakeholders in decision processes, and lack of transparency. As a result, ‘the site strikes back’ responses, i.e. pressure campaigns, protests, opposition, and rumours have emerged. In order to mitigate resistance, this thesis proposes ways to enhance participation and deliberation in forest governance. However, the utility of these suggestions is challenged by polarised views and a lack of trust between the different parties. Finally, hypotheses explaining resistance towards decision-making are formulated. Also, contributions to environmental anthropology are outlined, and further questions relevant for research on environmental governance are posed.Tiivistelmä Uudet ympäristöhallinnan muodot lupaavat parempaa kansalaisosallistumista ja joustavuutta päätöksentekoon. Kuitenkin näitäkin hallinnan muotoja vastustetaan myös Pohjois-Suomen metsiin liittyen. Tässä väitöskirjassa pyritään selittämään vastarintaa metsien hallintaa kohtaan valtion omistamissa talousmetsissä ja suojelualueilla. Väitöskirjassa yhdistetään antropologisia kenttätyömenetelmiä ja ympäristöpolitiikan käsitteitä. Pohjaten teemahaastatteluihin, suunnitteludokumentteihin, lehdistötiedotteisiin ja www-sivuihin tämä väitöskirja määrittää ongelmia hybrideille hallinnan ja päätöksenteon muodoille, jotka koostuvat valtioon, markkinoihin ja kansalaisyhteiskuntaan liittyvien toimijoiden vuorovaikutuksesta. Pohjaten ajankohtaisiin metsäkiistoihin Inarissa, Metsä-Lapissa, Muoniossa ja Liperinsuolla kolme erilaista hallinnan muotoa erotellaan: valtiovetoinen hallinnan muoto, johon kansalaisyhteiskunta linkittyy osallistavien prosessien kautta sekä kaksi ”painostusmuotoa”, jotka koostuvat ympäristöjärjestöjen markkinapohjaisista kampanjoista sekä paikallislähtöisistä protesteista. Mallan, Pallas-Ylläksen ja Oulangan suojelualueisiin liittyen määritellään yksi hallinnan muoto, joka muodostuu puistojen hallinnoista, kansainvälisistä suojelutoimijoista sekä paikallisista luonnonkäyttäjistä. Näitä hallinnan muotoja yhdistää se, että niiden kohtaama vastarinta johtuu paikkakohtaisen päätöksenteon puutteista. Ongelmat liittyvät päätöksentekoprosesseista puuttuviin intressiryhmiin, suunnitteluprosesseissa käytyjen keskustelujen yleisluonteisuuteen, yleispätevien käsitteiden käyttöön standardoimisprosesseissa erityisesti suojelualueilla, läpinäkyvyyden puutteeseen sekä kaukaisten toimijoiden osallistumiseen paikallisiin päätöksiin. Näiden ongelmien seurauksena paikkakohtaisuutta ei huomioida riittävästi hallinnassa, mistä seuraa ’paikan vastaisku’ protestien, huhujen, vastustuksen ja kampanjoiden muodossa. Vastarinnan syntymistä voitaisiin ehkäistä parantamalla osallistumista ja neuvottelua, joskaan parannusehdotuksetkaan eivät ratkaise luottamuksen puutteeseen ja osapuolten näkemysten napaistumiseen liittyviä ongelmia. Väitöskirjassa luodaan hypoteeseja, jotka selittävät ympäristöhallinnan kohtaamaa vastarintaa. Lisäksi väitöskirja tarjoaa antia sekä uusia tutkimuskysymyksiä erityisesti ympäristöantropologialle

Merging social equity and conservation goals in IPBES

Abstract Article impact statement: Social equity can be enhanced in IPBES work to promote its positive impacts on conservation and local people.

Embracing policy paradoxes:EU’s Just Transition Fund and the aim “to leave no one behind”

Abstract With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda, UN Member States pledge “to leave no one behind” and “endeavour to reach the furthest behind first”. The EU Just Transition Fund (JTF) was designed to meet these policy objectives. It is one of three pillars of the Just Transition Mechanism, aiming at fair delivery of the European Green Deal and reducing adverse social and economic impacts of the transition towards a climate-neutral Europe. We examine the formulation of the JTF Regulation, from January 2020 until July 2021 and analyse seven topics of importance during the JTF formulation. Based on the results, we identify and discuss four paradoxes related to governance scales, offsetting exclusion, equity illusion, and eligibility criteria. The paradoxes arise from tension between the all-inclusive objective to leave no one behind, and selective affirmative actions, seeking to reach the furthest behind first. Results of the analysis enabled us to put forward plausible strategies to embrace these policy paradoxes to offer important lessons learned for the JTF and also to future policies that seek to leave no one behind

Reindeer herders as stakeholders or rights-holders?:introducing a social equity-based conceptualization relevant for indigenous and local communities

Abstract The stakeholder concept has dominated academic discussions for a number of years and has functioned as a normative guide for natural resource management. However, there are at least three characteristics in stakeholder approaches: (1) all-inclusivity; (2) prioritization of economic interests; (3) ahistorical view on rights, which risk continued marginalization of indigenous people and the practitioners of traditional livelihoods despite of the intention to nurture indigenous and local participation by acknowledging them as stakeholders. We propose, in the context of natural resource governance, to address these biases by recognising indigenous and local traditional livelihood practitioners as rights-holders. We examine in turn: (1) how to conceptualise rights-holders in governance through a social equity perspective (2) why indigenous and local traditional livelihood practitioners should be considered as rights-holders instead of stakeholders, and (3) some of the implications and tensions associated with considering traditional livelihood practitioners, including both indigenous and non-indigenous groups and individuals, as rights-holders. We illustrate and examine these questions in a case study of reindeer herding in Finland. In Finland, today, reindeer herding is practiced by both Sámi and Finn herders and, based on a social equity perspective, both groups can be considered rights-holders if we acknowledge reindeer herding as a traditional livelihood practice. As traditional livelihood practitioners, herder have their whole way of life at stake and ultimately depend on access to land. In addition, herders have (had) detailed systems of customary rights preceding effective state-based governance in the north. Such institutions are particularly pronounced for Sámi reindeer herders but are applicable to both groups. Our conceptualisation of rights-holders thus recognises herders as categorically different from stakeholders, whose stakes are typically economic. It provides an incentive to increase the efforts of recognizing and treating herders as rights-holders in land use governance and thereby addresses some of the apparent gaps when it comes to implementation of indigenous rights and rights to participation in environmental governance. In this essay we also discuss differences in rights between Sámi and ethnic Finn reindeer herders and some of the conceptual and practical tensions that arise as a consequence of our approach. We conclude that efforts to recognise and reframe herders as rights-holders rather than stakeholders in land use governance are important and a potential tool to increase social equity of land use for reindeer herders

Matching societal knowledge demand, research funding and scientific knowledge supply:trends and co-creation dynamics around reindeer management in Finland

Abstract Matching knowledge Demand, research Funding and knowledge Supply (DFS) is important in order to enhance societally and policy relevant research, target funding appropriately and enhance the connectivity between science, policy and society. The DFS field around reindeer management in Finland offers a fertile case study to examine interconnected and complex trends as well as the relations between herders’ and policymakers’ knowledge demand, ministerial funding and independent supply of knowledge by science. We identify matches and mismatches between the DFS in a case study of reindeer management in Finland across ten inductively identified themes and in time scales of 2000–2009 and 2010–2018. The main finding was that, during the latter period, the DFS matched significantly better than in the earlier period. In order to explain this, we identify and discuss five alternative and legitimate co-creation dynamics that explain how the DFS is organizing around the reindeer management in Finland. The five dynamics represent variations in the co-creation approach, fit to varying situations, which can inform of alternative ways to better match the DFS around reindeer management, and they are also applicable in other contexts

Beliefs in conflict:the management of Teno Atlantic salmon in the Sámi homeland in Finland

Abstract The subarctic Teno River is one of the most significant spawning rivers for Atlantic salmon in Europe. In 2009, research indicated that the Teno salmon stock was in a weak state, and concern about the future of Atlantic salmon in the Teno River arose on both sides of the river, in Finland and Norway. In 2017, the governments ratified the new Teno fishing agreement (Teno Fishing Act 2017). The agreement aimed to reduce the fishing volume by 30%, and the new regulations concerned all users, including the indigenous Sámi, other locals, tourists, and fishing entrepreneurs. This triggered concern and anger in the Sámi community and among other locals generally. The dispute raised a question concerning the management of Teno salmon. We conducted a Q inquiry with 43 statements, covering aspects of interest, knowledge, management, and policy needs related to Teno salmon. We hypothesised that the key reason for the management tensions lay in how scientific and traditional knowledge fitted administrative knowledge requirements. By using self-organising maps (SOMs), four webs of beliefs emerged from the data: traditional Sámi fishing; salmon protection; equal economic opportunity; and evidence-based decision-making. We also further analysed the statements according to how they reproduced diverging and similar beliefs. We discuss the identity-related struggle, rights, and stakes and the underlying issue of confidence and respect

Nature-based solutions as more-than-human art:co-evolutionary and co-creative design approaches

Abstract Nature-based solutions (NbS) are mostly seen as engineering approaches to meeting challenges of human societies under ecological stress, while also nurturing biodiversity. We argue that given the accelerating speed of environmental change, NbS design for biodiversity recovery cannot be informed by past or current conditions but must create evolutionary potential for yet unknown future biodiversity. The objective of our paper is to reconceptualizing this creative role of NbS design as artwork, building on John Dewey’s pragmatist aesthetics. We suggest that in emphasizing the aesthetic dimension of NbS, triggers, mechanisms and affordances can be harnessed that activate the co-creative potential of both humans and non-humans for cooperation, resilience, and future biodiversity. We build on recent developments, both practical and experimental, in interspecies art and design and locate these in the two dimensions of co-creation and co-evolution. As a result, we distinguish three categories of NbS as artwork, transformative art, interspecies art and exaptive art, present their main features and give some illustrations of how they may regenerate the current ways to approach and design NbS

Myths on local use of natural resources and social equity of land use governance:reindeer herding in Finland

Abstract Previous literature on social equity has focused on procedure, distribution and recognition related to land use governance. We propose novel approach to examine social equity by following ideational turn with an aim to explore globally used and locally persistent myths that (mis)inform governance in practice and effect on the three dimensions of social equity for reindeer herding in northern Finland. We take synthetizing approach and elaborate and employ a comparative cognitive mapping method to classify the reviewed literature according to its linkage to the three dimensions of social equity, and type of relationship (utilizing, questioning, contextualizing) to the examined four myths. The myths of “tragedy of the commons”, “non-human wilderness ideal”, “noble savages”, and “majority will constituting democracy” are persistently used in land use governance mainly because they provide justifications for furthering particular interest. Yet, these myths are also widely questioned due to the problems that their employment produces for reindeer herders. Furthermore, the background assumptions of the myths are often somewhat problematic. We discuss reinterpretation of these myths revolving around 1) a holistic approach, 2) considering non-indigenous local people as noble savages, 3) problems of melding herders as a stakeholder group similar to other groups, 4) steps from majority democracy towards self-governance, 5) whether social equity can be bought, and 6) biocultural diversity. These reinterpretations can inform land use policy and governance also beyond the case study. Therefore, critical view on the explanatory and constitutive powers of myths should be part of the portfolios to achieve social equity