Observation

This case study focuses on smart forest projects using remote sensing, ubiquitous computing and supply-chain monitoring technologies to understand how forests are observed and governed for resource extraction.

Observational technologies of tracking and tracing specifically configure, as well as propose, ways of acting on forests.¹ Technologies and techniques for observing deforestation mobilize and legitimate distinct actors to address this problem, while multiple other actors are often excluded from these same sites of social–political relevance and action.

Observation is further entangled with strategies such as transparency² and auditing,³ which are proposed as ways to better manage the problem of deforestation but that also present distinct limits to the actors and practices that might be involved in evidentiary techniques. The analysis of observational technologies and networks is a key area of study for understanding how forests become a global environmental problem through specific observational practices, as well as the social–political effects of these environmental data practices.

We have undertaken a case study in the Netherlands that investigates the use of biodiversity monitoring technologies. We have also looked at observation technologies in the form of Fire Tech in Chile and aerial monitoring technologies for monitoring land rights and land use changes in India.