Social impacts of, and challenges for, local ownership in the forest sector

There is a longstanding interest in rural sociology about the role of local ownership in generating social and economic development within rural communities. In the last ninety years, local ownership of forest product mills has increasingly given way to extra-local ownership, making communities more vulnerable to rapid decline if a corporate owner decides to close down a mill. One alternative vision advocated by current social movements, such as anti-globalization or anti-corporation movements, is to return control to a local context, toward the corresponding goal to increase local control over livelihoods, resources, and markets. Local ownership is viewed as one means of securing local control. By studying local ownership as an alternative to absentee ownership, achieved through six local buy-outs, I assess the benefits of local ownership to six Canadian communities in terms of their ability to exercise greater control over a mill and/or land base and community development. My dissertation explores the social impacts of, and challenges for, local ownership over forest product mills and forest license through three papers. Using a data set from a larger research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), my dissertation focuses on three guiding research questions: (1) How does the nature of local ownership interact with the social consequences of local ownership? What are the social impacts of varying distinctions of local ownership on community sustainability? (2) What are the social impacts of community corporations, as one type of local ownership? (3) What is the nature of the community learning achieved through local buy-outs? How does the context of local ownership build community capacity through community learning?; The three papers provide support for the hypothesis that community sustainability is a step closer via local buy-out initiatives. This is achieved through increased local governance and accountability, innovative social and ecological approaches to management and by a greater distribution of benefits (social justice) that occurs while initiating and maintaining local buy-outs.