#Metsätiede2025
Afternoon parallel session of the Human-Forest Relationship Research Club
Forests are and have been a crucial part of societal changes — both directly and indirectly — and this remains the case in the current era of ecological crisis and sustainability transitions. In this context, forests are ascribed multiple critical roles and functions, aimed at mitigating biodiversity loss and climate change, as well as tackling broader issues of unsustainability in societal operations. Meanwhile, the critique towards the forest sector is getting strong, and forests and their use are facing great and partly conflicting pressures. Our relationships with forests are undergoing a profound transformation at the moment.
Societal relationships with forests shift and are reconfigured over time and across various spatial levels, while the cultures existing in the society and affecting those relationships live and change. Different individual and collective forest relationships, including the relationships between different actors that shape individual relationships, as well as the understandings and valuations tied to them also transform. Agency and relationships between different actors, especially power relationships with conflicts included in them are, thus, inseparable parts of the societal transformation. These social and cultural relationships create layers in forests, intertwining with different dimensions of a temporal continuum.
During the afternoon session of the Human–Forest Relationship Research Club at the Forest Sciences’ Day, we will explore the layered nature of forest-related relationships in the context of societal transformations.
Presentations of the Human–Forest Relationship Research Club’s afternoon session will address e.g., the following questions:
- What kinds of social, regional, and temporal layers can be found in forests and in human–forest relationships and the relationships between different actors shaping them?
- How do these different layers and their associated relationships become visible and transform in the context of broader societal shifts and transitions, especially during the current sustainability transition?
- What kind of power relationships and layers affecting current societal transformation can be found in forests and forest relationships?
Programme
| 13.15- | Mitä uudistava kestävyys voisi olla suomalaisessa metsien käytön kontekstissa? (In Finnish) | Panu Halme1,2,3, Jani Hohti 1,2, Claudia Kovács4, Paloma Hannonen3, Anna Härri4, Martta Nieminen, Johanna Haapala3, Sari Kuvaja5. 1University of Jyväskylä, Department of Biological and Environmental Science; 2University of Jyväskylä, Resource Wisdom Community, 3Luontoa Oy; 4Aalto-university, Department of Management Studies; 5Third Rock Finland Oy |
| Kommentit kertovat päivälehden lukijoiden metsäsuhteista (In Finnish) | Anneli Jalkanen | |
| Metsäalan toimijoiden näkemyksiä suomalaisesta julkisesta metsäkeskustelusta (In Finnish) | Tutta Oittinen, Annukka Näyhä, Venla Wallius; The Jyväskylä University School of Business and Economics | |
| High school forestry students’ views on future forestry- exploring human forest relationships and transition pain (In English) | Ann Grubbström, Stina Powell, Sara Holmgren; Department of Urban and Rural Development, Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences | |
| 14.30-15.00 | Coffee break | |
| 15.00- | Aluskasvillisuus metsän kokemisessa (In Finnish) | Tuulikki Halla, Harri Silvennoinen, Philip Chambers; Department of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland |
| Kerroksellisuus puuhuoltoketjun työhyvinvoinnissa (In Finnish) | Hanna-Riitta Kymäläinen1, Marja Kallioniemi 2, Janne Kaseva3, Esa Katajamäki4; 1University of Helsinki, Department of Agricultural Sciences; 2Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), Bioeconomy and the environment; 3Applied Statistics, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke); 4Statistic services, Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) | |
| “Why Wood You” – a survey on the impact of wood on wellbeing in the built environment and the multifaceted cultural values shaping human perceptions (In English) | Valter Huttunen1, Hinata Tanigawa1, Jouni Pykäläinen2, Tuula Jyske3; 1University of Helsinki, 2University of Eastern Finland, 3Natural Resources Institute Finland, | |
| Final discussion |