We discuss the management of trees and forests through the lens of “landesque capital.” A theoretical point of departure is how landesque capital accumulates through a process that relies on both the ‘work of nature’ and the ‘work of people.’ This approach highlights the importance of undertaking a critical analysis of labor investment and its landscape legacies in relation to ecological processes, social dynamics, and political economy. Empirically we draw on the case of smallholder production of coffee and annual crops in southwestern Ethiopia. We show how both the production (generation and maintenance) and destruction of forests in the study area are largely shaped by processes of landesque capital accumulation and discuss the importance of analyzing how people contribute to produce forests to meet production goals in contrast to the ubiquitous notion of humans as a solely destructive force of change in forest ecosystems.

我们通过“风景如画的首都”的角度讨论树木和森林的管理。一个理论上的出发点是，地道资本如何通过既依赖于“自然工作”又依赖于“人的工作”的过程来积累。这种方法强调了对劳动力投资及其与生态过程，社会动态和政治经济有关的景观遗产进行批判性分析的重要性。根据经验，我们以埃塞俄比亚西南部小农生产咖啡和一年生作物为例。