Forest crisis narratives: Illegal logging, datafication and the conservation frontier in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains

Environmental crisis narratives escalate around the world. Their production and consequences demand scholarly attention. Drawing on analytical tools of political ecology highlighting long-term historical developments, this article examines shift to a new narrative conservation in forestry, which displaces older structures state forest management. In particular, we explore emergence unfolding illegal logging, escalated Romania last thirty years. Based research digital sources, interviews fieldwork, analyze contents narrative, way it produced heroes villains, its entanglements with processes datafication, criminalization, surge violence. We argue that (1) genealogies can be understood relation frontier-specific deregulation re-territorialization, generate acute struggles for control legitimacy; (2) logging unravells as media spectacle surrounding data by plurality non-state actors (3) attempts curtail emphasis law, surveillance criminalization posits one step short militarization, fuelling trends global environmental law enforcement securitization conservation.