ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces the multi-faceted relationships among energy resource use, community practices, and the legal regulation of forests. It highlights the complex meanings of 'legality' in contexts where forests have been subject to processes of neoliberal economic restructuring, while being enmeshed in the everyday life of local people. The chapter argues that resources from forests are key elements of the constitution and experience of intra- and inter-community relations in instances where fuelwood accounts for an important part of the energy mix. It addresses the marginalization of the pathways through which neoliberal regulation has been implicated in the micro-level articulation of forest policies. The chapter explores some of the main academic debates on the neoliberalization of forestry, and its relation to community-based processes. It also highlights the diverse and recombinant economies. It is little known that the management of natural resources – including forests – in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia was legally regulated from the nineteenth century.