Environmental injustice in the political forests of Romania

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the postsocialist transformations of Romania's political forests through the lens of the environmental justice approach. We do so by examining how environmental injustices are intertwined with the postsocialist processes of land reform, the emergence of conservation narratives, and the reconfiguration of political power throughout this period. We draw on data collected through semi-structured and expert interviews, local ethnographies and various case studies conducted across three research projects from 2016 to 2024. We contend that the precariousness of forest work, the deepening of firewood dependency, and the gendered and racialized experiences of injustice faced by many forest-dependent groups highlight a need to move beyond the recognition versus redistribution dilemma in environmental justice literature. Our analysis reveals that injustices are exacerbated by structural dynamics, suggesting that complex complicities at play in the political forests blur the lines between victims, perpetrators, and harms.