Paper Short Abstract:

This paper discusses how sustainable forest management practices and proposals are penetrating local forms of organisation and how local actors in marginal areas are activating and organising themselves out of a growing concern and direct or indirect experience of natural disasters such as wildfires

Paper Abstract:

The degradation of ecosystems in the context of the climate crisis, where the frequency of natural disasters is increasing, 'restoring nature' and sustainable forest management are becoming emerging paradigms that take the form of new 'green' laws and funding, and show the increasing mixing of politics with the science of resilience and adaptation.

Catalonia is increasingly affected by forest fires of growing magnitude. The Vall de Lord case study allows us to observe how 'nature-based solutions' (or rather technology-science-nature), where forests are often seen as strategic green infrastructure, penetrate local forms of organisation through extreme events and science-based narratives of environmental crisis.

On the other hand, this tendency towards catastrophe can give rise to local processes of creating collective practices and memories where the way the forest was, is and can be is discussed anew, bringing together feelings of resignation as well as hope, responsibility and the right to give new life to an area that is endangered partly because it is forgotten and not experienced.

Thus, I discuss how, in an increasingly uncertain future, the transformation of the forest and its technification contribute to the patrimonialisation of nature, which leads to a greater emphasis on its intangible values and the prioritisation of strategic areas, resulting in an unequal distribution of rural development opportunities. On the other hand, I discuss how landowners and other local actors in marginal areas are activating and organising themselves out of a growing concern and direct or indirect experience of natural disasters.