Balancing tension in the Swedish forested landscape: Measures to overcome complicity

The forested landscape, ‘home’ to foresters, hunters and outdoor explorers and a space for environmental protection, is a complex and ever-changing entity. It is embedded in imaginations of the forest as a moral and... [ view full abstract ]

The forested landscape, ‘home’ to foresters, hunters and outdoor explorers and a space for environmental protection, is a complex and ever-changing entity. It is embedded in imaginations of the forest as a moral and physical escape and fortitude, but is also a foundation for resource extraction juxtaposing contradictory understandings regarding stewardship. As a constellation comprising places, animals, humans, ideas, business, regulations and technologies, wildlife management becomes a dynamic ‘meshwork’ (Ingold 2011) of specific spatial, socio-cultural, economic and political arrangements, as well as ecological constraints and opportunities. These arrangements, or different frameworks of meaning and rationales of action, advocate the need for wildlife management to reconcile goals and interests. With departure in social anthropological theory-building on perceptions and values of the local environment and the tensions arising from different resource use, the current study explores the conditions that create and sustain the management of the forested landscape, and the kinds of relations and subjects resource management produce. The study has utilized qualitative research methods including semi-structured interviews and participant observation to investigate the negotiation of tensions and the seeking of mutually acceptable outcomes and working relations on the side of state-regulated collaborative measures. Aligned with previous research the study points to the need to address temporal and symbolic interactions, representations, properties and qualities, and how these cultivate, shape, diffuse and contest systems of meaning. The study highlights how contrasting purposes, values and representations – as held by forestry entrepreneurs, wildlife managers and hunters – run through contemporary wildlife and forest management. In a field engaged with encounters, the microcosms of wildlife management and associated visions of landscape must continually be discovered to transcend spoken and silent complicity, discomforts and contradictions.