Format/Structure

Roundtable: about 6 speakers discuss their work in connection to the theme of the panel, plus one discussant.

Long Abstract

It’s been 24 years since Reginald Cline-Cole and Claire Madge published ‘Contesting Forestry in West Africa’. Since then, a range of political, economic, cultural and environmental dynamics have been shaping the political ecologies of West African forests. These dynamics intersect with interlocking socioecological crises, which are though planetary, unfold with differentiated effects across West Africa. For instance, West African forests have become a strategic target of transnational alliances between conservation, climate, finance and development actors working with states to drive large-scale restoration and conservation initiatives. As these forests get valorized anew, extractive activities and conservation coexist, even as we see a tendency towards the privatization of forest commons and instances of militarization. Local communities with their local and transnational allies negotiate and defend their interests with increasing sophistication and visibility.

Yet, the dynamics, relationships, practices, and values that shape West African forests are far more complex. The peopled pasts of these forests attest to centuries of use and stewarding by local African communities. These forests also reflect diverse historical legacies of agriculture, trade, wars, slavery, disease, even as they have been central to struggles over livelihoods, energy, resources, land, and territory through pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial times. These complex histories reveal West African forests as social and political archives of values, practices, and relationships among a wide range of actors operating across scales.

Bringing together these threads that link the past and present of West African forests raises important questions about the struggle for their future – questions which political ecologists have been exploring. This roundtable brings together scholars to discuss political ecology ‘stories’ from recent and ongoing research across the region to illuminate the diverse ways in which forest socioecologies in West Africa are being (re)shaped and how more just and sustainable forest futures might be envisioned and attained.

This Roundtable has 11 pending paper proposals.
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