New times in old forests: How the past matters in European forest science

Abstract

This article tracks changing conceptions of time in European forest science over recent decades, and accounts for how they can affect forest conservation and management. Through semiotic analysis of 62 peer-reviewed articles published in ecology and forestry, we (1) characterize the temporal features of old European forests as they evolve over our study period (1997–2017), and (2) trace how new and changing temporalities in forest science have reconfigured what constitutes a problem for conservationists and managers. We describe in particular how two articulations of forest time and forest management—Forest Continuity and Forest Maturity—have evolved, identifying the emergence of two new temporalities in old forest science. Over the study period, changing conceptions of forest pasts have increasingly led to consider forests as complex and evolving ecosystems from which humans cannot be excluded.