Community-led Forest Technologies: A Smart Forests Interim Report

The Smart Forests research project has found that the proliferation of digital technologies in forests across the globe is having profound social and political impacts on forest communities.

“Smart” digital technologies are frequently deployed to manage, monitor and transform forests to meet environmental targets and deliver ecosystem services. These emerging forest technologies include remote sensors, GPS, camera traps, eco-acoustics, digital twins and drones used for tree planting.

The Community-led Forest Technologies interim report sheds new light on forest technologies’ hitherto understudied social and political impacts. Among the findings, the report reveals how digital technologies can cause shifts in environmental governance. Big Tech has become increasingly involved in environmental monitoring and management in recent years, from WhatsApp to deliver fire warnings to communities to geospatial tools for monitoring biodiversity.

The report outlines how digital technologies impact community ways of seeing and inhabiting forest worlds. Remote observation tools (such as those used to monitor carbon) can reinforce dominant views of forests and how they should be identified and valued. Likewise, species monitoring devices may better detect some species over others, leading to an inevitable prioritisation. Smart forest technologies’ distinct ways of seeing and sensing can obscure pluralistic, local and Indigenous understandings of forest processes if not carefully designed and deployed.

Moreover, the report suggests that uneven distribution of technologies and resources can create or perpetuate inequalities within and between communities. The report describes how, when only a select few forest communities are given the tools and assistance to identify and monitor illegal deforestation, illicit logging activities can be displaced into surrounding forest areas where other communities cannot access the same technologies and resources.

The report further explores how digital technologies can alter or intensify existing power dynamics between states, technologists, NGOs and communities. Notably, wildlife monitoring devices, such as drones and camera traps, can operate as tools for state surveillance of forest communities. For example, in Uttarakhand, India, the state deploys digital devices to surveil and intimidate Van Gujjar communities, some of whom have been forcibly removed from their traditional lands. Conversely, these technologies can empower communities to make land rights claims.

These technologies can offer ways for communities to care for and protect their forest lands, as seen in Bujang Raba in Indonesia, where communities have been protecting diverse tropical rainforests through a carbon monitoring scheme. At the same time, these devices can convert forests primarily into carbon stores, rather than more complex social-cultural milieus.

Crucially, forest technologies can help develop national and international forest networks, share culture, stories and education, and share information on topics such as ecology or fire prevention techniques. Digital forest technologies can also create livelihood opportunities and offer new engagements with forests.

After following the social and political impacts of forest technologies, the report draws together a series of proposals for how these technologies can create more just and thriving worlds. These strategies seek to ensure diverse, community-led approaches to forest technologies can be effectively designed, implemented and supported.

The Smart Forests research project promotes engagement and discussion among communities, publics, policymakers, industries and NGOs as the users, regulators, funders and developers of these devices and infrastructure. You can access the report and delve into the recommendations here.

This report has been created using a book generator designed and developed by Sarah Garcin. Full credits are available in the report.