The International Forest Policy Meeting (IFPM5) was held in Helsinki in April 2024, bringing together researchers to discuss power, justice, and forest policy from a social science perspective.
Text: Network coordinator Maria Brockhaus and colleagues from the network Northern Network on Forest Policy Science
Forests serve as resources for timber, biodiversity, carbon storage, recreation, and cultural values, yet forest policies are shaped by complex power relations and cross-sectoral dependencies. Research plays a crucial role in exposing underlying structures, decision-making processes, and their consequences for both people and the environment.
A key question at IFPM5 was why decolonizing forest policy research is important. Keynote speaker Professor Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni emphasized the need to “rethink our thinking and unthink thinking” to avoid reproducing colonial power structures in research. Panelists from different continents reflected on how global trade patterns and colonial legacies influence forest policies and research, both historically and today.
The conference identified three main areas for understanding the need to rethink and decolonize forest policy research:
- Whose knowledge counts?
Panels highlighted how certain types of knowledge have been systematically marginalized. For example, in Finland, conflicts between Sámi reindeer herders and large-scale forestry projects illustrate how traditional knowledge is often subordinated to knowledge produced by scientists. Similar patterns exist in the Congo Basin, where local and Indigenous knowledge has been dismissed despite its historical importance in forestry. Sessions like “Forest Anthropology in Europe” discussed how knowledge hierarchies impact both policy and science globally. - Who defines what is counted, and who counts?
Power dynamics in how data is collected and used were a central theme. Historically, industrial forestry focused on measures related to timber production, with carbon sequestration as recent addition. Deforestation monitoring has received renewed attention (e.g., under the EU Deforestation Regulation, EUDR) and is part of numerous domestic and international policy agendas. Discussions emphasized that definitions—such as “what is deforestation?” and “what is traceability?”—are often controlled by power centers, influencing which data is collected and how it is used. - How do we count?
Methodological choices in research can create cognitive injustices. Discussions showed how technological advancements shape research questions, but much is lost in translating reality into data. For instance, panels exploring “old-growth forests” demonstrated how definitions of what is an old growth forest is shaped by available technology and data. Panelists discussed how such strategic use of data might then limit the ability to achieve the policy objective of keeping old growth forests standing.
With over 30 sessions, IFPM5 covered a wide range of topics, from Nordic and EU forest policy to colonial legacies in todays’ forest policies and practices around the globe. The conference also emphasized the importance of creating more equitable relationships between researchers and stakeholders, as well as between humans and nature.
IFPM5 underscored the need for forest policy research to critically examine its own assumptions, theories, and methods. Building on this conference, the discussion on how decolonized research can contribute to justice and sustainable policy-making continues, both in the Nordics and globally. A follow-up session is expected at the next IFPM meeting in 2026.