Paper short abstract:

The paper takes a closer look at the state-forest relationship in Poland and explores how these dynamics contribute to the creation of green frontiers. Focusing on planting rather than cutting, it offers an analysis of the power relations inscribed and embodied in nature management activities.

Paper long abstract:

The paper takes a closer look at the state-forest relationship and explores how these dynamics contribute to the creation of green frontiers. It uses the example of the Polish state and Polish forest discourses to analyse how and when the state creates discourses about the forest to serve its current objectives and policies. Tracing the historical approaches of the Polish state(s) to forest restoration practices, the paper looks at past actions since 1918 through which the Polish state has restored the forest to trace the discursive practices of forest nationalisation. Combining historical perspectives with contemporary discussions of forest restoration linked to the European Union initiatives (Biodiversity Strategy, Forest Strategy) and global institutions, the text offers an analysis of the power relations inscribed and embodied in nature management activities. Focusing on planting rather than cutting, and restoring rather than deforesting, the article describes the use of environmental governance policy tools to maintain power over discursive and material actions in relation to the landscape by states and/or international institutions. It also introduces and discusses the concept of green frontiers (Konczal, 2022; Konczal&Asselin, in preparation) – areas where nature conservation is pushed out to marginal areas, that, as a result, become constructed as “nature refuges” firstly by policies and political decisions and secondly by material actions that are outcomes of these policies. This article is embodied in a forest anthropology perspective.