IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v42y2010i9p2078-2092.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Green Lungs: Good Firewood, Healthy Air, and Embodied Forest Politics

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Henne

    (Anthropology and International Studies, Dept 3431, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Drive, Laramie, WY 82071, USA)

Abstract

In southern Chile a coalition of environmental, labor, and municipal leaders is rolling out a novel approach to environmental regulation. The National Firewood Certification System provides a seal of approval to firewood that is produced and sold according to standards of sustainability, transparency, and quality. Firewood certification is distinct from Fair Trade, organic, or other market-based programs to the extent that it blurs the lines between nature conservation (preserving native forest) and public health (improving indoor air quality, controlling urban smog). Certification's advocates are explicit about leveraging the public health dimension of ‘good’ (ie clean, dry) firewood to promote ‘good’ (ie sustainable, conservationist) management of native forest; they are quite literally networking lungs to forests. I had come to Chile to study forest certification in a very different register— an international NGO certifying million-hectare plantations for the global pulp market. The local and provisional quality of the firewood program made for a striking contrast, but not as striking as the immediacy and physicality of the product: the firewood itself. As I hacked and wheezed in front of my woodstove, as I considered that I was perhaps exposing my family's lungs to carcinogens and acute respiratory infections, I came to see the consumer–producer networks of certification in a different light. This paper examines firewood certification as a market-based social movement and as a visceral experiment in creating environmental consciousness. My ethnographic perspective is informed by heat, smoke, and aching lungs.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Henne, 2010. "Green Lungs: Good Firewood, Healthy Air, and Embodied Forest Politics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(9), pages 2078-2092, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:9:p:2078-2092
    DOI: 10.1068/a42265
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a42265
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a42265?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Julie Guthman, 2004. "Back to the Land: The Paradox of Organic Food Standards," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(3), pages 511-528, March.
    2. Newsom, Deanna & Bahn, Volker & Cashore, Benjamin, 2006. "Does forest certification matter? An analysis of operation-level changes required during the SmartWood certification process in the United States," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 197-208, December.
    3. Taylor, Peter Leigh, 2005. "In the Market But Not of It: Fair Trade Coffee and Forest Stewardship Council Certification as Market-Based Social Change," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 129-147, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rafael, Gabriel C. & Fonseca, Alberto & Jacovine, Laércio Antônio Gonçalves, 2018. "Non-conformities to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards: Empirical evidence and implications for policy-making in Brazil," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 59-69.
    2. Olga Malets, 2017. "Recursivity by Organizational Design: The Case of the Forest Stewardship Council," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(3), pages 343-352, September.
    3. Alessandro Arrighetti, 2009. "Market Imperfections and Fair Trade," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    4. Ron Johnston & Brian Grabbatin, 2013. "Reviews: Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities, Rent from the Land: A Political Ecology of Postsocialist Rural Transformation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(2), pages 485-488, February.
    5. Lindsay Naylor, 2014. "“Some are more fair than others”: fair trade certification, development, and North–South subjects," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 273-284, June.
    6. Carlsen, Kirsten & Hansen, Christian Pilegaard & Lund, Jens Friis, 2012. "Factors affecting certification uptake — Perspectives from the timber industry in Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 83-92.
    7. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.
    8. Agni Kalfagianni, 2014. "Addressing the Global Sustainability Challenge: The Potential and Pitfalls of Private Governance from the Perspective of Human Capabilities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 122(2), pages 307-320, June.
    9. E Melanie DuPuis & Daniel Block, 2008. "Sustainability and Scale: US Milk-Market Orders as Relocalization Policy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(8), pages 1987-2005, August.
    10. FabianG. Neuner, 2020. "Public Opinion and the Legitimacy of Global Private EnvironmentalGovernance," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(1), pages 60-81, February.
    11. Zahir Dossa, 2012. "Cooperatives: A Development Strategy? An Analysis of Argan Oil Cooperatives in Southwest Morocco," Euricse Working Papers 1229, Euricse (European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises).
    12. Anne Tallontire & Maggie Opondo & Valerie Nelson & Adrienne Martin, 2011. "Beyond the vertical? Using value chains and governance as a framework to analyse private standards initiatives in agri-food chains," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(3), pages 427-441, September.
    13. Muradian, Roldan & Pelupessy, Wim, 2005. "Governing the coffee chain: The role of voluntary regulatory Systems," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(12), pages 2029-2044, December.
    14. Alex Nicholls & Benjamin Huybrechts, 2016. "Sustaining Inter-organizational Relationships Across Institutional Logics and Power Asymmetries: The Case of Fair Trade," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(4), pages 699-714, June.
    15. Muhammad Bello & Awudu Abdulai, 2018. "The use of a hybrid latent class approach to identify consumer segments and market potential for organic products in Nigeria," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 190-203, March.
    16. McCaffrey Sara Jane & Kurland Nancy, 2014. "Who defines “local”? Resistance to harmonizing standards in ethical markets," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 191-219, April.
    17. Joni Valkila & Anja Nygren, 2010. "Impacts of Fair Trade certification on coffee farmers, cooperatives, and laborers in Nicaragua," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 27(3), pages 321-333, September.
    18. Van Gossum, Peter & Arts, Bas & Verheyen, Kris, 2012. "“Smart regulation”: Can policy instrument design solve forest policy aims of expansion and sustainability in Flanders and the Netherlands?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 23-34.
    19. Rieple, Alison & Singh, Rajbir, 2010. "A value chain analysis of the organic cotton industry: The case of UK retailers and Indian suppliers," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 2292-2302, September.
    20. Stefano Ponte, 2008. "Developing a ‘Vertical’ Dimension to Chronic Poverty Research: Some Lessons from Global Value Chain Analysis," Working Papers id:1743, eSocialSciences.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:9:p:2078-2092. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.