Translations of sustainable forest management in Brazil

Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) has gained traction across different environmental governance domains as a strategy to manage forest resources while maintaining various ecosystem services. Therefore, when implemented, SFM needs to respond to different aims, goals and interests across different social-ecological contexts. As such, the idea of SFM may be subject to a series of translations: across different scales of governance to specific implementation strategies on the ground. The goal of this research project is to understand, through an institutional lens, how SFM translations influence forest governance outcomes and practices in a local reality. The chosen case study is Caatinga biome, Northeastern Brazil, where important environmental governance issues, such as desertification, climate change, biodiversity and poverty become aggregated. First, the research explores how institutions linked to SFM are translated from the global to the Brazilian domestic scale of governance. Second, it analyses how institutions linked to SFM are translated according to the specificities of the social-ecological system of Caatinga biome in Brazil. Third, the research aims at understanding how local institutions in Caatinga biome become subject to a bricolage of processes, and to what extent these processes shape SFM practices on the ground.