Make a Forest lecture program

28-05-2011

Place of event: Hilversum

On 28 May 2011, Jessica de Koning was invited to give a introductionary lecture on forest and forestry on the second Make a Forest lecture programme. Her presentation focussed on the idea that science should take care for its nature. Instead of only focussing and prescribing on what should be happening, she argued for a more involved approach in which science is more involved in the local situations and more importantly local people.

As people have been living in the forest for thousands of years, forests should not be analyzed in terms of trees alone. The forest is also constructed by humans and can also be seen as a collection of human agency and social relations. This social layer an indispensable part of researh on forestry and deforestation.The stories that come from these people shed a different, but just as important, light on the issue of forest management and conservation. 

 

The role of science in research on forests should therefore not only incorporate the focus on trees, deforestation, and biodiversity, but should also look at why local people do what they do. By overcoming its distant and prescribing image and becoming more emphatic and involved, forests science can give different, and perhaps more satisfying, explanations on what deforestation is and why it deforestation happens.