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Smart forests and data practices: From the Internet of Trees to planetary governance

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Authors

Abstract

Environments are increasingly becoming technologized sites of data production. From smart cities to smart forests, digital networks are analyzing and joining up environmental processes. This commentary focuses on one such understudied smart environment, smart forests, as emerging digital infrastructures that are materializing to manage and mitigate environmental change. How does the digitalization of forests not only change understandings of these environments but also generate different practices and ontologies for addressing environmental change? I first analyze smart forests within the expanding area of smart environments, and then discuss five digital practices that characterize smart forests. Based on this analysis, I suggest that forests are not only becoming highly digital environments but also that forests are transforming into technologies for managing environmental change. Smart forest interventions therefore expand the scope of what could count as a technology, especially in the context of data-oriented planetary governance.

Description

Keywords

Commentary, Smart environments, smart forests, environmental data, environmental change, data practices, planetary governance

Journal Title

Big Data & Society

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2053-9517

Volume Title

7

Publisher

SAGE Publications
Sponsorship
H2020 European Research Council (866006)