Abstract. This paper investigates the endurance of a national forest management
programme in Burkina Faso called Chantier d'Aménagement Forestier (CAF), which focuses on the participatory sustainable production
of fuelwood and is widely supported by international donors despite
evidence of its shortcomings. We analyse the surprising persistence of the
CAF model as a case of the territorialisation of state power through the
reproduction of “political forests” – drawing on the work of Peluso and
Vandergeest (2001, 2011). Analysing some the shortcomings and incoherencies
of the model, we bring to light the role of non-state actors in the
reproduction of the CAF as a “political forest”. We show that informal
regulatory arrangements have emerged between state and non-state actors,
namely merchants and customary authorities, over the production of fuelwood.
We call these arrangements “fuelwood territorialities” because they have
contributed to keeping the CAF's resource model unquestioned. With fuelwood
territorialities, we draw attention to the role of non-state actors in the
reproduction of “political forests”, that is, the process of state
territorialisation through forest governance. This analysis helps clarify
how certain areas, such as the CAFs, keep being officially represented as
“forest” even though they are dominated by a patchwork of fields, fallows, and
savannahs and do not have the ecological characteristics of one.
Perception of Civil Servants on the Devolution of Central Government’s Affairs to Local Governments - Focusing on National Forest Management -
