Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests

Forests are increasingly thought of as a crucial instrument to combat a host of climate change associated stressors and threats such as soil erosion, atmospheric CO2, and heat stress. As such, forests have become enrolled in seductive progress stories of envisioning future climate change mitigation...

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Main Author: Irene van Oorschot
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione 2025-02-01
Series:Tecnoscienza
Subjects:
Online Access:https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/18873
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author Irene van Oorschot
author_facet Irene van Oorschot
author_sort Irene van Oorschot
collection DOAJ
description Forests are increasingly thought of as a crucial instrument to combat a host of climate change associated stressors and threats such as soil erosion, atmospheric CO2, and heat stress. As such, forests have become enrolled in seductive progress stories of envisioning future climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this article, I trace how these seductive visions are materialized in practices of planning and planting new forests. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with practising foresters in the Dutch National Forestry Agency, this piece tries to tell smaller, unheroic understories of new forests in the making. In so doing it creates the necessary empirical and conceptual space to attend to the way multiple temporalities become implicated in the making of “forests for the future”. Tracing the agencies of legal infrastructures, the rhythms of seasonal plant life and human labor, the intrusion of climate change, and the speculations on future multispecies becoming that characterize these practices of planning and planting, this piece highlights how temporalities matter to the way we think and practice our response-abilities in times of ecological crises.
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publisher University of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione
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spelling doaj-art-e4dbae8cbae842c4b54bd79cf40506b22025-02-11T16:26:00ZengUniversity of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filosofia e ComunicazioneTecnoscienza2038-34602025-02-011528310210.6092/issn.2038-3460/1887317235Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable ForestsIrene van Oorschot0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7965-3861Erasmus University RotterdamForests are increasingly thought of as a crucial instrument to combat a host of climate change associated stressors and threats such as soil erosion, atmospheric CO2, and heat stress. As such, forests have become enrolled in seductive progress stories of envisioning future climate change mitigation and adaptation. In this article, I trace how these seductive visions are materialized in practices of planning and planting new forests. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with practising foresters in the Dutch National Forestry Agency, this piece tries to tell smaller, unheroic understories of new forests in the making. In so doing it creates the necessary empirical and conceptual space to attend to the way multiple temporalities become implicated in the making of “forests for the future”. Tracing the agencies of legal infrastructures, the rhythms of seasonal plant life and human labor, the intrusion of climate change, and the speculations on future multispecies becoming that characterize these practices of planning and planting, this piece highlights how temporalities matter to the way we think and practice our response-abilities in times of ecological crises.https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/18873temporalityclimate changeenvironmental policyforestsmultispecies theorizingresilience
spellingShingle Irene van Oorschot
Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
Tecnoscienza
temporality
climate change
environmental policy
forests
multispecies theorizing
resilience
title Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
title_full Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
title_fullStr Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
title_full_unstemmed Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
title_short Forest Futures in the Making: Legal Infrastructures and Multispecies Speculation in Planning Climate-Adaptable Forests
title_sort forest futures in the making legal infrastructures and multispecies speculation in planning climate adaptable forests
topic temporality
climate change
environmental policy
forests
multispecies theorizing
resilience
url https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/18873
work_keys_str_mv AT irenevanoorschot forestfuturesinthemakinglegalinfrastructuresandmultispeciesspeculationinplanningclimateadaptableforests