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Araos, Francisco, Jaime Cursach, Florencia Diestre, Joaquin Almonacid, and Wladimir Riquelme Maulén. “Community Sentinels. Methodology Guide for Community Participatory Monitoring.” Citizen Science Laboratory, Los Lagos University. 2021. https://qesclimatejustice.info.yorku.ca/files/2022/07/Guía-Metodológica-Inglés-2022-1.pdf?x57905.

Barron, Dominique, and Anna Dent. “Affordable, Accessible, and Easy-to-Use: A Radically Inclusive Approach to Building a Better Digital Society.” Promising Trouble. May 2024. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/61b777e69d4a594596081bcc/t/6656ebaff3caf658b862537a/1716972464862/AFFORDABLE-ACCESSIBLE-EASY-TO-USE-FINAL.pdf.

British Academy. “The Justice Dimensions of Extracting Energy Transition Metals from the Pacific.” July 2022. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/4200/Just-transitions-justice-dimensions-extracting-energy-metals-pacific.pdf.

British Academy. “Space for Community: Strengthening our Social Infrastructure.” January 2023. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/4536/Space_for_community_strengthening_our_social_infrastructure_vSUYmgW.pdf. 

British Academy. “Understanding the Role of Place in Environmental Sustainability: A Summary of Insights from Where We Live Next Commissioned Research.” March 2023. https://doi.org/10.5871/where-we-live-next/role-of-place-in-environmental-sustainability.  

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Climate Outreach. “Supporting Public Engagement on Climate Change – A Guide for Grant-makers.” October 2023. https://climateoutreach.org/reports/public-engagement-philanthropy/.

Coldicutt, Rachel, and Anna Dent. “The Case for Community Tech.” Promising Trouble. September 2022. https://www.powertochange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PTC_3912_Community_Tech_Report_FINAL-1.pdf.

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Food and Agriculture Organization, International Labour Organization, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. “Occupational Safety and Health in the Future of Forestry Work.” 2023. https://doi.org/10.4060/cc6723en.

Gabrys, Jennifer. “Smart Forests and Data Practices: From the Internet of Trees to Planetary Governance.” Big Data & Society 7, no. 1 (February 2020): 1-10. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720904871.

Gabrys, Jennifer, Michelle Westerlaken, and Yuti Ariani Fatimah. “Actually Existing Smart Forests: A Proposal for Pluralizing Eco-Technical Worlds.” In the special issue, “The Forest Multiple: Composing and Digitalizing Wooded Worlds,” Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice (July 2024): 1-23. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/26349825241264393.

Gabrys, Jennifer, Michelle Westerlaken, Danilo Urzedo, Max Ritts, and Trishant Simlai. “Reworking the Political in Digital Forests: The Cosmopolitics of Socio-technical Worlds.” Progress in Environmental Geography 1, nos. 1-4 (December 2022): 58-83. http://sage.cnpereading.com/paragraph/article/?doi=10.1177/27539687221117836.

Gilman, Michele. “Democratizing AI: Principles for Meaningful Public Participation.” Data & Society. September 2023. https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/DS_Democratizing-AI-Public-Participation-Brief_9.2023.pdf.

Kitson, Nikki, and Matt Wilson. “Mobile Technology for Participatory Forest Management.” GSMA. 2021. https://www.gsma.com/solutions-and-impact/connectivity-for-good/mobile-for-development/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Mobile_Technology_for_Participatory_Forest_Management_Web_Singles.pdf.

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Martin, Adrian, David Brown, and Janet Fisher. “Socially Just Landscape Restoration in the Scottish Highlands.” The Just Scapes project. May 2023. https://cdn.sanity.io/files/wql58zs5/production/2cdd7578a31dc0a353323dca2f811c38c4cde15b.pdf.

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Lewis Hood, Kate, and Jennifer Gabrys. “Keeping Time with Digital Technologies: From Real-Time Environments to Forest Futurisms.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 42, issue 2 (February 2024): 252-274. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02637758241229896.

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Ritts, Max, Trishant Simlai, and Jennifer Gabrys. “The Environmentality of Digital Acoustic Monitoring: Emerging Formations of Spatial Power in Forests.” Political Geography 110 (April 2024): 103074. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103074.

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Urzedo, Danilo, Michelle Westerlaken, and Jennifer Gabrys. “Digitalizing Forest Landscape Restoration: A Social and Political Analysis of Emerging Technological Practices.” Environmental Politics 32, no. 3 (July 2022), 485-510. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2022.2091417.

Westerlaken, Michelle. “Digital Twins and the Digital Logics of Biodiversity.” Social Studies of Science 54, no. 4 (March 2024). https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127241236809.

Westerlaken, Michelle, Jennifer Gabrys, and Danilo Urzedo. “Digital Gardening with a Forest Atlas: Designing a Pluralistic and Participatory Open-Data Platform.” PDC '22: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2022 2 (August 2022): 25-32. https://doi.org/10.1145/3537797.3537804.  

Westerlaken, Michelle, Jennifer Gabrys, Danilo Urzedo, and Max Ritts. “Unsettling Participation by Foregrounding More-Than-Human Relations in Digital Forests.” Environmental Humanities 15, no. 1 (2023): 87–108. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-10216173.

The Smart Forests project is led by Professor Jennifer Gabrys and is part of the Planetary Praxis research group based in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Sociology. The project is principally funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The project investigates the social-political impacts of the digital technologies that increasingly govern, manage and monitor forests worldwide, and asks how forests are remade by these technologies. Crossing science and technology studies (STS) and digital media studies, the research into digital technologies has followed themes of observation, participation, datafication, automation and optimisation, and regulation and transformation. Through exploring how various smart forest technologies impact social, political and ecological relations, the project ultimately seeks to suggest possibilities for more equitable digital and environmental policy and practice. 

For more information on the Smart Forests project or to delve into the stories, examples and interviews mentioned in this report, visit https://atlas.smartforests.net and https://smartforests.net.

To watch the short film about the Smart Forests project, visit https://smartforests.net/smart-forests-film.

To read Logbooks about Smart Forests, visit https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/logbooks.

To listen to the Smart Forests Radio podcast, visit https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/radio.

To explore the Smart Forests Map, visit https://atlas.smartforests.net/en/map.

You are also invited to contribute relevant material to our Atlas if you would like to sign up as a contributor. More information is available at https://atlas.smartforests.net.

Smart Forests materials are free to use for non-commercial purposes (with attribution) under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

To cite this report: Hamilton-Jones, Phoebe, Jennifer Gabrys, Michelle Westerlaken, Yuti Ariani Fatimah, Trishant Simlai, and Noel Chung, Community-led Forest Technologies: A Smart Forests Interim Report (18 February 2025), https://publications.smartforests.net/en/community-led-forest-technologies.

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