Fraser, Alistair
(2003)
A Forest of Contradictions:
Producing the Landscapes of
the Scottish Highlands.
Antipode, 35.
pp. 95-118.
ISSN 0066-4812
Abstract
While total global forest cover is decreasing, in many parts of the world forests are on the rebound.
Uncritical examinations of this phenomenon credit the benign diffusion of capitalist development
for this “forest transition.” More critical readings of this question—including green Marxian and
poststructuralist approaches—might conclude something very different, however. In this paper,
we explore the question of expanding forest cover, using the case of the Scottish Highlands, where
forestland has tripled since the 1920s, in an attempt to critically explain regional land-cover
change. Drawing upon historical sources and Scottish Executive and Forestry Commission data,
we examine the specific environments currently forming in the Highlands under conditions of
economic change. We conclude that two divergent forestry practices and ecologies have been
formed in the wake of economic restructuring: those geared towards industrial production and
those targeted at consumption through ecotourism. We conclude, therefore, that capitalism’s
spatial fix to declining industrial power in the region is an inherently ecological one that takes the
form of “schizophrenic forestry,” in which forest expansion leads to the rise of degraded
monocultures alongside “pristine” sites of conservation.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Forest; Contradictions;
Landscapes;
Scottish Highlands; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Geography |
| Item ID: |
8800 |
| Depositing User: |
Alistair Fraser
|
| Date Deposited: |
12 Sep 2017 11:52 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Antipode |
| Publisher: |
Wiley |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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