Transnational Networks and the Adoption of Model Forests in Argentina

GUTIÉRREZ, RICARDO A.; GABAY, MÓNICA; ALCAÑIZ, ISABELLA

San Martín

Congreso; XIV Congreso Nacional de Ciencia Política; 2019

SAAP

How are international environmental ideas adopted locally? We answer this question by examining the adoption and development of the model forest idea in Argentina since the late 1990s. The concept of model forest was born in Canada in 1991 as the brand name of a new national program aimed at promoting the building of local-level governance processes and arrangements for sustainable forest management. The idea soon started travelling worldwide thanks to the Canadian international cooperation agencies? initiatives and became a benchmark of UN programs. Argentina was an early adopter of the model forest idea: in 1996 the Argentine Secretariat for the Environment signed a letter of intent with the International Model Forest Network. As a result, six model forests formed throughout the country between 1998 and 2008. We argue that transnational networks of bureaucrats, advocates, and stakeholders help explain how natural resources governance programs travel across countries. We distinguish more technical-driven adoptions from societal-driven ones, as a function of existing levels of conflict. We expect technical-driven adoptions to take place in contexts of lower levels of conflict and societal-driven adoptions in contexts of higher levels of conflict. This paper is a first step in a broader project that compares the adoption and evolution of community-based forests in Latin America.