EU influences on ASEAN forest management: collective solutions or divergent narratives?

As two key trading and political partners, the European Union and the Association for Southeast Asian Nations cooperate on a complex range of issues today, including a mutual concern for the environment and attention to climate change. One key environmental issue is the future of forests: both the EU and ASEAN have rich forest histories and continue to trade extensively in timber and non-timber products, and both share a concern for how to manage the future of this vital planetary resource. Today’s forest agreements and declarations, including those between the EU and ASEAN, make frequent reference to the concept of ‘sustainable forest management’ (SFM). This article examines the origins of this concept, the Western, colonially derived, neoliberal and anthropocentric norms it embodies, and its ability both to foster and hamper greater forest cooperation between these two regions. Adopting a Decolonial Ecofeminist approach in order to investigate the multidimensionality of SFM, this article charts the various ways in which a particular discourse of forestry has emerged between the EU and ASEAN to enhance ‘green diplomacy’ or to perpetuate ‘green colonialism’.