The Political Ecology of the Ecosystem Approach for Forests

This paper discusses the politics of the Ecosystem Approach and especially the role of state forestry institutions. To date, most political analysis of ecosystem approaches has focused on their role in international negotiations, or as a means of implementing the Convention on Biological Diversity (Hartje et al., 2003). There has, however, been comparatively little attention to the influence of politics at the national and sub-national level, and in particular to the ways that the ecosystem approaches are defined scientifically, with whose participation, and with access to which type of knowledge. This paper seeks to highlight these factors by discussing the potential ways in which state forestry institutions can influence the formulation of an ecosystem approach, and how localized politics can lead to variations in forest policies between different countries and contexts.