Trustful relations : a perspective on trust in actor relations in forestry

This work has proposed, exemplified and discussed an existential perspective on trust in actor relations in forestry. The background that has caused the inquiry into social relations is the changes that are taking place in forestry to re-organise practices towards the intent of sustainable forest management. This concept emphasises an ideal democratic form of organisation that is based on co-operation and participation between all forestry actors. Organised in this way, the quality of relations between the involved actors is important and this accentuates the need to understand the shaping of social relations. Trust became the central concept of the inquiry because of the importance it has for the type of civic social relations that are strived for in sustainable forest management.

To come to grips with the different understandings of trust, a literature survey was undertaken. The result of this survey is presented in the second chapter. Here different understandings of trust are presented relative to the understanding of human being they assume. A continuum between rational and interpretive understandings of being is used. When seeking to organise forestry based on an intent to secure co-operation between a wide diversity of interests, an interpretive understanding of being, which contains the necessary sensitivity to different ways of being, was found most appropriate to the forestry situation.

Since the interpretive tradition, however, mainly consisted of philosophical works on trust that were not directly applicable to the analysis of actors' relations, the third chapter of this work develops an existential account of trust that can be used to analyse trustfulness in actor relations. The proposed account

In the fourth chapter the proposed existential account of trust is exemplified by applying it on the case of developing standards for sustainable forest management certification in a co-operative effort under the auspices of the Forest Stewardship Council in Denmark. As a miniature example of the more general process to establish sustainable forestry based on co-operation, this case seemed well suited for an analysis of actor relations. The analysis of the case elucidated the many different ways of seeing that were involved in the process, and illustrated how this diversity posed a challenge to the establishment of trust in the relationship between the actors and to the effort of reaching a solution that was meaningful to all involved parties.

In the fifth chapter it has been discussed more generally in what way the aspects that are elucidated by the existential perspective are of relevance to the quest in forestry to organise practices relative to the intent of sustainable forest management. It is emphasised that the perspective's sensitivity to both social structure in the form of existential worlds at different levels of generality and to actors' being-in, is helpful to a situation in which the desire is co-operation between many actors with different perspectives on forestry, shaped by different frames of reference. The chapter also emphasises the importance of being sensitive to shared structural characteristics at a more general level, like a general 'trust in numbers,' 'entitlement' and increased societal differentiation, that may obstruct the successful implementation of co-operation in forestry.