Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Irish forests' history and contemporary framing, examining how grass-roots afforestation resistance today is often understood through a land use policy and forest science lens that fails to account for ongoing acts of rural exclusion and control.

Paper long abstract:

Forests and land control in rural Ireland have a long history wherein external forces and their social and economic priorities have worked to curate a rural aesthetic and behavior. In this, marginal agricultural lands and their inhabitants have been a consistent target: first for deforestation and later for afforestation. Through British colonial extraction, Irish wood was historically used as raw material, cleared for agriculture, and removed to expose Irish rebels. However, during the 20th century, a prior focus on deforestation shifted toward a targeted afforestation campaign, resulting in forest expansion from an estimated one percent of the total national area, to closer to eleven percent today. Growth over the last century is the product of a sustained national effort to be less reliant on imported wood products while simultaneously building a forest industry from the ground up by creating a resource that has not existed in abundance for centuries. Despite the shift between forest contraction and expansion, forests remain a focus of policies that reshape rural regions and exclude rural residents. This paper explores Irish forests' history and contemporary framing, examining how grass-roots afforestation resistance today is often understood through a land use policy and forest science lens that fails to account for ongoing acts of rural exclusion and control. Ultimately I argue that the ways local problems with afforestation are officially framed not only mute local voices but draw attention away from more systemic issues like how afforestation contributes to a wider accumulation strategy and reworks the property relationship.