Ulrich Schraml

Between legitimacy and efficiency: The development of forestry associations in Germany

In many countries, forestry associations represent an important forest policy tool for overcoming the problems that often arise with small forest ownership. In Germany associations are established for economic reasons as well as for reasons pertaining to governance. For over 100 years there has been discussion concerning the suitability of various organisational models. Of the wide spectrum of possible organisational forms, only a few variants have been used as of late. These are often accredited as being inefficient with regard to the extent to which they fulfil their intended functions. This paper researches the reasons for various assumptions made of neo-institutionalism with regard to the establishment and survival of forestry associations. The analysis is based on public and scientific debate of this topic. It gives an overview of the political discussion that has taken place over the last few decades as well as the current state of related scientific literature. It can be shown that, aside from issues related to the efficiency of associations in the fulfilment of duties, the impact that associations have with regard to legitimising the engagement of other actors and their supply of resources is also relevant.

Forestry or “The Art of Flying Blind”. Sustainability in an Era of Global Change

Sustainable development has become the most important normative landmark for international environmental policy. In the realm of forestry, the fact that governments, organizations, and business have discovered this concept marks the renaissance of an identical desire for benevolent forest use back in the eighteenth century. Today sustainable forest management (SFM) is still the leading principle in forest management.

Does background matter? Disciplinary perspectives on sustainable forest management

Although sustainable forest management (SFM) has become increasingly popular during recent decades, approaches towards it are still imprecise and lack consistency. Within this “chaos”, scientists are increasingly expected to further develop the concept across disciplinary boundaries, including normative statements relating to the future. However, we assume that disciplinary boundaries in the construction of SFM still exist due to prevalent interests and political intentions within scientific communities. Therefore, our aim is to analyse and explain qualitative differences in the construction of SFM between forest sciences and other sciences within contemporary scientific literature. To this end, we conduct a qualitative analysis of 44 papers about SFM using a conceptual framework based on the work of the sociologists of science Robert K. Merton and Bruno Latour. Results of this literature review indicate that 1) qualitative differences in the construction of SFM between forest sciences and other sciences do exist e.g. in terms of typical issues addressed; 2) these differences can be explained by the fact that scientists are embedded in the particular social context of scientific communities with their reward systems; and 3) forest scientific media is of high importance within both forest and other sciences for the reproduction of knowledge about SFM.

The nameless counterpart: a reconstruction of the experiences of private forestry extension officers with their clients

The changes to the forest ownership structure of small private forests in recent times have opened up an intensive field of research throughout Europe. Most of the studies completed to date adhere to the classic survey model and describe the behaviour and attitudes of forest owners. The research presented in this article analyses the changes to small private forests with the aid of data collected from focus groups comprised of forestry extension officers in Germany. Through the reconstruction of the experiences gleaned by the consultants, it was possible to describe the manner in which they characterise their clientele, and the changes they have observed, against the backdrop of changes occurring across rural areas. The consultants’ strategies for describing forest owners are presented. The orientation pattern presented by the extension officers is compared with the urban orientation of forest owners’ model developed by social scientists.