Responsible Action as Embedded in Knowledge Practices: An Analysis of Forest Biodiversity Protection

Abstract

Following the global concern for the loss of biodiversity, biological knowledge has become a central tool in environmental governance. Science studies has addressed the data-driven nature of biodiversity protection and explored various aspects of it, ranging from knowledge infrastructures to engagement of various social groups in knowledge production. This article focuses on how this knowledge is applied in forestry, one of the most threatening socio-economic practices to biodiversity. Drawing from a case study in Finland, carried out as an ethnography of forestry expert practices, I analyse how biodiversity has been institutionalised in forestry operations. Responsible action and pro-environmental behaviour are much debated topics in environmental governance literature. Here the focus is on how they are articulated and enacted as embedded in the expert practices. The practices and techniques of identifying and locating the biological values are thus not viewed as resources for decision making but as performative of the partnerships in environmental governance, shaping the roles of science, corporations, government and civil society. These partnerships and power relations are constituted by the uncertainty of biological knowledge and the instability of biological objects travelling between the realms of science, administration and economy.