Change in Governance as Collective Learning Process

Organized by IDDRI, the Center for Philosophy of Law, the AgroParisTech-ENGREF, and the Regional Council of Lorraine, the International Symposium "Change in Governance as Collective Learning Process" will take place in Nancy from the 21st to the 24th of June 2009. This conference is organized within the framework of the RefGov project.

Problem Statement
Following the international dialogue linked to globalisation, the past 20 years are marked by an evident shift in the decision making procedures in all public sectors, including in forestry, with a change from government top-down regulations to interactions introduced by governance mechanisms. However, at the same time, the economic globalisation may have limited the real space of decision at both levels.
The intensity and quality of this progressive process of change work differently depending on social, cultural and political contexts, even if they have been triggered by the same global process. If the concepts and principles look well defined and shared in international statements, there is a huge gap between the discourse and it’s concrete implication. Policy formulation and implementation can be understood as a reflexive governance process, based on the interactions between different actors and stakeholders whereas their demands, positions, reactions and alliances are being permanently re-constructed through mutual learning and consequent adaptation. The way the changes emerge from this learning process, and the way this process determines changes in forest governance are addressed by this conference.

The presentations of plenary and parallel sessions are available for download: 

MONDAY, 22 JUNE

• Tom Dedeurwaerdere: Engaging with reflexive governance
• Tony Cheng: Community forestry programs and social learning. A comparative assessment in the United States 
• C.T.S. Nair: Learning and institutional transformation. The challenges for public sector forestry organizations in developing countries
• Catherine Tucker: Learning on governance in forest ecosystems. Examples and lessons from the CIPEC programme
• Alena Bleicher and Matthias Gross: Collective learning and hierarchical decision structure. Contradictory strategies to cope with the unknown? 
• Susana Aguilar Fernandez and Cristina Montiel Molina: New governance strategies for wildland fire management in Mediterranean countries
• Eeva Primmer: Networks as channels and conduits of learning in forest biodiversity conservation 
• Margaret A. Shannon: Governance for the 22nd century. Anticipating surprise and Planning for uncertainty through collective learning 
• Willi Zimmermann and Karin Ingold: How and why forest managers adapt to socio-economic changes. A case study analysis in Swiss forest enterprises 
• Irina Kouplevatskaya-Buttoud, Gérard Buttoud and Laurent Auclair: Learning to be resilient. reflexivity of the forest service and local elites to change in forest governance in Morocco
• Laura Secco, Davide Pettenella and Paola Gatto: Forestry governance and collective learning process in Italy. Likelihood or utopia? 

TUESDAY, 23 JUNE

• Irina Kouplevatskaya-Buttoud, Gérard Buttoud, Bill Slee and Gerhard Weiss: Barriers to institutional learning and innovation in the forest sector in Europe 
• Christian Gamborg and Peter Sandøe: Beyond ethical refinement: Four perspectives on the role of forest ethics as a basis for mutual learning 
• Olga Mashkina: Transition in forest governance in Russia: Learning from attitudes 
• Ning Li and Anne Toppinen: Does corporate responsibility matter in the global competition of the forest-based industry? 

WEDNESDAY. 24 JUNE - PARALLEL SESSION: FOREST ETHICS

• Lain Dare: Can forest certification effect positive social change within Australian plantation forestry? 
• Lei Wang: A multiple-stakeholder perspective to Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) in the forest industry 
• Olli Saastamoinen: Rates of return and responsibility. Considering moral issues in the downturn of the pulp and paper industry in Finland 
• Julius Chupezi Tieguhong and Janusz Zwolinski: Ethical dilemmas of protecting the forests in Central Africa
• Mathieu Cornélis and Jean-Thomas Cornélis: Public debate, collective learning process and soil-plant system expertise: When scientific knowledge become socially distributed
• Per Sandström and Camilla Sandström: Natural resource management - A case study of reindeer husbandry and forestry in Northern Sweden
• Jan-Erik Nylund: The value basis of forest use - beyond classical ethics 

WEDNESDAY. 24 JUNE - PARALLEL SESSION: POLICY ANALYSIS

• Dijana Vuletic and Silvija Krajter: Forest policy changes and actual needs of decision makers in Croatia
• Georg Winkel and Metodi Sotirov: An obituary for National Forest Programmes? An analysis on the strategic use of National Forest Programmes in Bulgaria and Germany
• Purabi Bose: Collaborative forest governance policy and management: Learning from India
• Liviu Nichiforel: Property rights distribution and entrepreneurial rent-seeking processes: A perspective of Romanian private forest owners
• Anna Lawrence, Bianca Ambrose-Oji and Amy Stewart: Public forestry = partnership? Learning through the British experience
• Meelis Teder, The changes in forestry governance and management of public forests in
  Estonia – a case for innovation study

WEDNESDAY, 24 JUNE - PARALLEL SESSION: REFLEXIVE GOVERNANCE

• Filippo Brun and Angela Mosso: Governance in mountain forests: the problem of minimum size of management units. The case of “forestry consortia” in Piedmont Region, Northern Italy
• Lloyd C. Irland: REDD: Governance Challenge 
• Enver Mapanda, Janusz Zwolinski, Mike McCall and George Theart: Local perspectives and dynamics of indicators of sustainable forest management in Tanzania 
• Ewald Rametsteiner, Saana Tykkä and Gerhard Weiss: Governing Innovation. National Research Agendas of the Forest-Based Technology Platform 
• Sabine Weiland: Reflexive Governance as Governance in the Public Interest 
• Sharif Ahmadiar: Learning Forest Leasing. Evaluation of an emerging Contract in Germany Forestry

POSTER SESSION

• Blas Mola-Yudego and David Gritten: Locating the frequency and concentration of forest conflicts. Preliminary results based on a systematic compilation of empirical cases
• Helena Mellqvist: Landscape ambassadors
• Blas Mola-Yudego and David Gritten: Communicating forest ethics: online course "ethical approaches to forest management"
• Senthil Kumar Sampath: The Forest Department and the new Tribal Right Act in Madya Pradesh, India. Learning at central and local levels