Woodland neglect as social practice

The ‘under-management’ of forests is a long-standing challenge for forest policy in Europe and North America. In policy and research arenas it is most frequently explained via reference to individual land-managers’ decisions made on the basis of calculations of economic cost and benefit: a manifestation of the ‘attitudes’, ‘behaviour’, ‘choice’ paradigm. This paper seeks to challenge this analytic perspective by considering ‘under-management’ through the theoretical lens of social practice theory. Drawing on extensive qualitative data from the UK, it describes a deep-rooted practice of woodland neglect that is apparent in the ways land-managers understand woodlands, interact mentally and physically with them, and in the technology associated with them. The emergence of the UK’s woodfuel sector is used as an opportunity to consider management change from the perspective of practice. The paper finishes by considering the implications of a practice of woodland neglect for theory and forest policy, noting the importance of social and technical innovation for practice change.