Social Agency in Alpine Communal Forests

Social Agency in Alpine Communal Forests Local actors’ interactions with communal forests and participation in communal forestry in the French and Swiss Alps Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde an der Fakultät für Forst- und Umweltwissenschaften der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg im Breisgau vorgelegt von Andréa Finger-Stich Freiburg im Breisgau April 2005 Dekan: Dr. Ernst Hildebrand Referentin: Prof. Dr. Margaret A. Shannon Korreferenten: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Oesten, Prof. Dr. Gérard Buttoud Abstract Given the vast amount of policy discourse claiming that participation of local communities is a condition for sustainable forest management, this research aims at understanding how local actors actually perceive - and interact with - their communally owned forests. Without predetermining whether there will be participation at local levels or predefining what participation should be like at this level, we have selected six Communes in the French and Swiss Alps. The selection criteria were that they have a substantial part of their territory covered with communally owned mountain forests and that they tend to have multiple forest-related uses. Besides country and region based institutional variation of the region selected (between the French Haute-Savoie and the Swiss cantons of Valais and Vaud), we chose Communes with varying socio- economic and land-use contexts, as well as according to demographic trends and the relative importance of the primary (farming and forestry), secondary or tertiary sectors (mostly tourism). Based on sixty-five semi-structured interviews, we first analyze local actors’ perceptions of the communal forests so as to crystallize different forest values and forest related conflicts. We estimate the relative importance of these values and conflicts, comparing results between the Communes, and between categories of actors, based on their occupation, their age and their gender. Describing twenty collective agency processes, we develop a typology based on who takes part, why and how. Then we compare these processes in their capacity to either reproduce or change social structures and their relative dependency or autonomy from state authorities. After exploring the background of the concept of ‘participation’ in democratic theory and in natural resources and forest policy making, we focus on micro-level social interactions and collective agency in communal forests. While taking a Grounded Theory approach for generating propositions based on a systematic qualitative interview analysis, we use insights from Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory, as well as from Michel Crozier’s strategic analytical methodology. We complement these with additional social theory concepts needed to address the cultural and ecological aspects of local social interactions with forests. Interpreting our results, we find that local social interactions and collective agency processes in relation with communal forests are correlated with various local actors’ values and with many of their expressed multiple land-use conflicts, but that they generally do not address forestry related conflicts. We notice important variations in perceived conflicts, values, and in the involvement of the actors according to their occupation, gender, age, and relationship with authorities. These findings provide insights about the power relations structuring local interaction systems. The grounded analysis of these variations leads us to distinguish an important cultural, economic, and political conflict line between urban and rural representations of the communal forest (livelihood versus quality of life), as well as between urban and rural strategies in local forest-related agency (local autonomy versus state control). Our research finds a strong relationship between the historical consolidation of state-led forestry institutions and concomitant erosion of common property institutions, and the impact of modernization on the place-making capacity of local actors interacting with their forest. The result of this research is a set of propositions regarding local agency in communal forests and local actors’ engagement in forestry, in the Swiss and French alpine region. These findings provide a better understanding of the local dimensions of participation in forestry. 2 CONTENTS Introduction 10 I. Expanding our understanding of ‘political participation’ 13 A. Participation in the context of democratic policy making 13 B. Various agents’ interests in participatory natural resources management 16 C. The blurred line between normative and descriptive research on participation 23 II . S ociological theories on social action and social conflict 28 A. Social action from the perspective of structuration theory 29 B. Social conflict theory for analyzing collective forms of action 29 C. Additional concepts, notably culture and ecosystems 41 D. An integrated social theoretical framework for analyzing local social agency 52 III. Site selection, methods of interview, and data analysis 56 A. Thematic and territorial selection of alpine Communes 56 B. Interview methods for listening to the actor in “place” 69 C. Data analysis inspired by grounded theory 73 IV. Communal profiles 75 A. Vacheresse 76 B. Nancy sur Cluses 78 C. Châtel 81 D. Leysin 83 E. Rossinière 86 F. Vollèges 89 V. Local actors’ perceptions of communal forests 91 A. Social categories structuring the analyses of the interviews 93 B. Conflict analysis 97 C. Value analysis 135 D. Integrating conflict and value analyses 153 VI. Social agency concerning communal forests 161 A. Local interactions shaping communal forestry 161 B. Who takes part, why, and how in collective agency processes 167 C. A typology of collective agency in relation with communal forests 206 VII. Place and time bound social agency with communal forests 214 A. Local agency – actors making places ‘local’ 214 B. Divergent interests of rural and urban actors - conservation as the core conflict 228 C. From the commons to the communal forest – the State in local forest interactions 232 VIII. Learning about local agency in communal forests A. Local agency for meaningful, democratic and sustainable forestry 239 B. Limits in the theory, the methodology and the findings 243 C. Enabling social agency with communal forests 249 Bibliography 257 Appendix 271 3 List of Tables and Figures : Tables Table 1: Information on the interviewees 94 Table 2: Informants by identity number, age, occupation, residency, type of interview 95 Table 3: Multiple land use conflicts by Commune 98 Table 4: Forestry conflicts by Commune 101 Table 5: Multiple land-use conflicts by occupation and Commune 104 Table 6: Forestry conflicts by occupation and Commune 105 Table 7: Conflict frequency according to occupation and Commune 112 Table 8: Total multiple land-use and forestry conflicts by sector 115 Table 9: Conflicts by gender, age and Commune 118 Table 10: Conflicts by themes and gender 119 Table 11: Conflicts by age 122 Table 12: Relation between age and gender 124 Table 13: Wood commission 168 Table 14: Pastoral landowners’ association 170 Table 15: Affouage 174 Table 16: Four Banal 177 Table 17: Label Nature 180 Table 18: Communal Strategic Plan 185 Table 19: Six main cases of collective agency processes 190 Table 20: Secondary cases of collective agency processes (French Communes) 195 Table 21: Secondary cases of collective agency processes (Swiss Communes) 198 Table 22: A typology of collective agency in relation with communal forests 208 Table 23: Collective agency in the selected Communes by agency type 209 Table 24: Integrating collective agency with the perception analyses 215-216 Table 25: Perceptions of communal forests by type of actors 228 Table 26: Strategies related with communal forests by type of actors 229 Figures Figure 1: Participation processes as systems of action 53 Figure 2: First selection of the Alpine transboundary region 60 Figure 3: 20 Communes with above average surface of communally owned forest 62 Figure 4: Total forest cover by Commune and area of forest owned by the Commune 63 Figure 5: Selection criteria and process 66 Figure 6: Six Communes in the selected regions of Vaud, Valais and Haute-Savoie 67 Figure 7: Localization of the 6 Communes selected as case study sites 68 Figure 8: Territorial data for the final selection of six Communes 69 Figure 9: Distribution of actors by occupation 96 Figure 10: Multiple land-use conflicts by Commune 99 Figure 11: Forestry conflicts by Commune 102 Figure 12: Forestry conflicts in the French and Swiss samples 102 Figure 13: Multiple land-use and forestry conflicts by Communes 103 Figure 14: Conflicts by countries 103 Figure 15: Conflicts by occupation in Châtel 106 Figure 16: Conflicts by occupation in Nancy sur Cluses 107 Figure 17: Conflicts by occupation in Vacheresse 108 Figure 18: Conflicts by occupation in Rossinière 110 Figure 19: Conflicts by occupation in Vollèges 111 Figure 20: Conflicts by occupation in Leysin 112 4 Figure 21: Total conflict actors / sectors 114 Figure 22: Conflicts by occupation (F) 114 Figure 23: Conflicts by occupation (CH) 114 Figure 24: Multiple land-use conflicts and occupation in the French and Swiss samples 115 Figure 25: Forestry conflicts and occupation in the French and Swiss samples 116 Figure 26: Conflicts by gender (Total) 120 Figure 27: Conflicts by gender (CH) 121 Figure 28: Conflicts by gender (F) 121 Figure 29: Conflicts by age groups (CH) 125 Figure 30: Conflicts by age groups (F) 125 Figure 31: Conservation conflicts by Commune 126 Figure

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