Forests are central to climate change mitigation, and there is consensus that climate transition efforts must be just. However, the “just transition” concept often functions as a boundary object, leading to ambiguity in its implementation. Statements of commitment to just transitions therefore require scrutiny as to what a just transition is meant to entail, what kind of justice transition policies seek to ensure, and how these ambitions are envisioned to be realised in practice. Yet, it is precisely this that is missing in the current academic literature, especially in the forest sector context. This study addresses this gap by analysing implicit and explicit justice expressions in the Paris Agreement, and EU- and Swedish climate-forest policy mixes, thereby providing empirical insights on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of just transitions in the forest sector. Using a newly developed framework that combines the policy mix concept with distributional, recognitional, and procedural justice dimensions, the analysis reveals shared narrow foci in just transition understanding, discrepancies between expressed just transition motivations, and inconsistent mechanisms for implementation across governance levels, thus risking stakeholder disengagement. The results call for explicit discussions in policy debate on how justice can be ensured in transition efforts in the forest sector across levels, regardless of the specific understanding of justice that is adhered to, and open societal debate on what a just transition ultimately ought to mean in a forest context. Furthermore, policy makers must take the step from ambiguous promises to concrete instruments to support forest stakeholders through the transition

To address the critical consequences of climate change and achieve the environmental goals of Agenda 2030, the former European Commission launched the European Green Deal. To enhance the sustainable use of forests, the flagship initiative – the EU Forest Strategy for 2030 – aims to mitigate climate change and halt biodiversity loss across Europe by leveraging the role of forests. As one of Europe's most forested countries, Sweden has a significant responsibility in meeting these targets. Our study examined the perspectives and positions of Swedish parliamentary parties on the strategy and upcoming regulations, emphasizing the socio-economic functions of forests and their protection, restoration, and enlargement. The arguments were analyzed using an argumentative analysis targeting three main strategies: the adversarial strategy, the dismissive strategy, and the accommodative strategy. This analysis shows whether a political party integrates, dismisses, or ignores the political issue in their agenda. The results show that most Swedish parties expressed explicit negative concerns, arguing that the strategy threatens national sovereignty and current forest management practices of rotational forestry. Left-wing parties and the Green Party tended to integrate the issue, right-wing parties were more likely to ignore or dismiss it, and centrist parties used all three strategies, leaning towards ignoring and dismissing. By understanding these differences, we can better anticipate the implications for current and upcoming regulatory discussions and how they might shape Sweden's stance on future EU policy developments.

Forest biodiversity can be retained by setting aside protected forest areas for nature conservation or by integrating conservation measures in managed forests. Societal demands towards forest ecosystem services have changed in favour of conservation ideas, and there is a move towards more participatory forest policymaking. This paper investigated the relation between participatory decision-making and forest management developments within twelve European countries. We assessed a) the development of integration and segregation of nature conservation in forest management and the wider forest landscape, and b) how different groups participate in forest-related policy and management planning. Methodologically, we combined natural and social science to explore if the link between the two could be assessed by means of a multi-expert and multi-disciplinary assessment. We concluded that, in the twelve studied territories, integration of nature conservation in forest management was the dominating paradigm, while there is a simultaneous increase in both the areas set aside for nature conservation and the felling to increment ratio. At the same time, there was a noticeable increase in the attention given to nature conservation aspects in the formulation of forest policy. However, the relationship between participation in forest policy development/implementation and integrating nature conservation into forest management was found to be complex. We proposed directions for future research in this domain.

Storage of carbon in forests is essential if net-zero targets are to be reached. This realisation has brought about a ‘climatisation’ of forest policy – i.e. climate change mitigation has become a major priority in an arena traditionally dominated by wood production and biodiversity conservation interests. Due to the urgent nature of the climate issue, climate change-related arguments have come to play a significant role in forest discourse. Here, we study climatisation in Swedish forest policy debates using interviews with national level policy actors and workshops with forest stakeholders. The goal of this study is to analyse how actors use legitimation strategies, specifically how climate change is used as an argument for various policy proposals. In the interviews with national policymakers, we find strong resonance with previously presented discourses in environmental governance literature. Actors with significant local knowledge often draw on global top-down discourses rather than on ideas associated with bottom-up environmental governance. Nevertheless, we observe a civic EU-sceptic discourse among forest landowners and politicians who express mistrust and confusion over increased top-down forest governance induced by, for example, the EU land use, land-use change and forestry regulation. We show how the legitimation strategies used by forest policy actors perpetuate global discourses and influence the policy position of the actors in this study. Since forests’ role in climate mitigation differs fundamentally between discourses, we suggest that forest policy should focus on finding common ground around local issues, rather than hoping for national win-win solutions.

In recent decades, collaboration has become a common policy instrument in public administration, both internationally and in Sweden. Inspired by scholarly literature on collaborative governance, the aim of this study is to analyze the crucial role of public administration in the design and implementation of collaborative governance. Drawing on several years of research on Swedish forest policy and governance, our work is based on extensive empirical material, including 88 semi-structured interviews, observations, written comments from open public consultations and actors, enacted policy documents, open public hearings and a survey. Our results confirm that factors related to process design strongly affect the outputs and outcomes of collaboration in public administration. We assert that public officials should meticulously design and adapt the collaborative process during its initiation and progress, according to the policy problem and actors' incentives and motivations to participate. However, despite good intentions by public officials, the overarching priorities and contextual factors governing the policy area must be set by elected decision makers at an early stage to establish democratic accountability and high levels of policy legitimacy and acceptance. A major implication for public administration is that the increasing use of collaborative governance may be highly inefficient if it is difficult for participants to draft shared objectives and provide intended outputs because of low levels of trust, and different interpretations of knowledge and norms. Finally, in contentious policy areas, such as forest policy, political priorities must sometimes be set by elected decision makers rather than through collaborative processes.

Biodiversity conservation and economic profit from forests can be combined by various land-sparing and land-sharing approaches. Using a semi-structured survey, we evaluated support for scenarios representing contrasting conservation strategies in a managed boreal forest landscape. Land-sparing approaches were supported by the conservation organisation, regional administrations and the forest company, mainly motivated by the benefit for biodiversity based on ecological theory. Land-sharing approaches were supported by one recreational organisation, some municipalities and the forest owners’ association, mainly motivated by the delivery of ecosystem services. Stakeholder groups using certain ecosystem services had motivations that we related to an anthropocentric mindset, while others focused more on species conservation, which can be related both to an anthropocentric or an ecocentric mindsets. Forest conservation planning should consider stakeholders’ preferences to handle land-use conflicts. Since reaching consensus among multiple stakeholders seems unfeasible, a combination of land-sparing and land-sharing approaches is probably the best compromise.

The forest is attributed a key role in a green societal transition. Even though the climate benefits of the forest are already significant, the forest's contribution must further increase according to the Paris Agreement. In the interdisciplinary project Route to Paris, we investigate the potential of Swedish forests to contribute to a climate-neutral society. The research program is based on close collaboration with stakeholders who want to participate in developing innovative concepts that can stimulate climate-smart forestry. This work is intended to provide an initial overview of the research that the project will encompass and lay the groundwork for dialogue among stakeholders.

Inspired by collaborative governance theory, this study analyzes the process dynamics, outputs, and perceived impacts of a collaborative initiative launched by the Swedish government in 2014. It draws on extensive empirical sources related to the Swedish government's efforts to develop and implement a National Forest Programme (NFP) from 2014 to 2021. These sources include semistructured interviews, observations, public consultation comments, records of meetings and public hearings, reports from dialogues, and enacted policy documents. The results show that the collaboration initially provided a space for joint deliberation and capacity building on complex and contentious issues related to current land use. However, the final programme endorsed by the government in 2018 failed to initiate ambitious proposals on several key issues raised by participating actors, offering little indication of priorities and policy instruments to address fundamental gaps in current policy goals and their implementation. Consequently, the case reveals that it was not sufficient, and perhaps not even desirable, to address existing conflicts and policy problems in a comprehensive collaborative setting run by the Government Offices. The paper concludes with key insights for research on collaboration and suggests ways to move forward with policy designs that integrate multiple and competing policy goals in contested areas.