Governing multiple-use forests as commons and the capability approach. The case of forestry and the Sami reindeer herders in Sweden

Forest governance requires addressing interdependencies and conflicts among heterogeneous use( r )s. Many scholars have hailed the commons as an institutional solution for managing resources that serve as inputs for many outputs, are potentially shareable yet subject to congestion, and are indivisible. However, these arguments are mostly framed in terms of incentive compatibility and efficiency, with little concern for social valuation, power, and justice. The capability approach to justice offers a useful analytical framework to address this gap and establish a normative foundation for governing multiple-use forests as commons. This paper offers a conceptual combination of the two literatures. In the framework, non-excludability and collective choice arrangements acquire normative significance. They respectively sustain the entitlement component of the capability to benefit from the forest and convert it into valuable functionings, and the capability to function as equal citizens and co-design rules for mutual use on equal terms with others. Thus, the framework provides a normative foundation to the commons as a governance model for multiple-use forest landscapes and serve as an evaluative tool for institutional and policy arrangements seeking to balance overlapping and competing claims. When applied to the conflict between Sami reindeer herders and the forestry sector in Sweden, the framework supplies an additional normative argument for guaranteeing Sami reindeer herders with (i) the entitlement for the capability to benefit from the forest, which entails freedoms as well as negative and positive claim-rights, and (ii) the capability to co-design rules for mutual use on equal footing with the forestry sector. • Forest governance requires managing interdependencies between use( r )s. • A two-fold argument to combine the commons and the capability approach is presented. • Non-excludability requires access to the capability to benefit from the forest. • The conceptual framework serves as both an informational and an evaluative tool. • Access to the forest is a meta-capability for Sami reindeer herders.