(1) Background--The key state-owned forest areas are unique regions formed under the specific historical periods and special development strategies, and the reform of their governance system is crucial to ecological protection, sustainable development and social well-being in the new era. Although the reform of the state-owned forest areas has lasted for many years, there are still some problems such as dysfunctional institutional reform, stagnant industrial development and imperfect livelihood guarantee. (2) Methods--Taking Yichun Forest Industry Group in Heilongjiang Province as an example, this paper integrated resources, systems and social capitals into the analysis framework, and used the method of multiple case studies to compare and analyze the two reform modes of complete integration of the government and enterprises with the incomplete integration of the government and enterprises. The reform mechanisms and realistic dilemmas in the process of separating the government from enterprises were explored by setting SES (Social-ecological System) key variables in eight typical cases extracted from the four forestry bureaus. (3) Results--First, although the two reform modes of separating the government from enterprises had their own characteristics, in general, the reform of separating the government from enterprises led to the reshaping of the institutional environment and the changes in the authorities and responsibilities of the local governments and forest industry enterprises. However, the deep-rooted "system of units" and the deepening of path dependence limited the smooth implementation of the reform. Second, the reform process of separating the government from enterprises was externally influenced by the completeness of the supporting policies for reform, and internally constrained by the resources allocation rights, relative discourse rights and interdependence of the actors and governance systems, which affected the action stages by affecting the allocation mechanism of the reform costs. Third, the separation of the government from enterprises involved multiple stakeholders, including the government, enterprises, employees, etc., which would inevitably lead to the reconstruction of interest relations. In the post-reform period, it also faced the dilemmas such as unclear boundaries of the government and enterprises functions, insufficient support of the reform-related supporting policies, and difficult balance in the resettlement of the forest employees, which restricted the release of reform dividends. (4) Conclusions and Discussions--First, the local governments need to adjust their roles and responsibilities from those of administrators in the past to those of market regulators and service providers. At the same time, we should establish the value concept of overall co-governance and shape a mature cooperative governance structure. Second, since the reform of separating the government from enterprises affects the action stages of the local governments and forest industry enterprises, it is necessary to reasonably determine the sharing mechanism of reform costs and coordinate funding channels. For the public services undertaken by the enterprises in the transitional period, the government can share the relevant costs by purchasing socialized services. Third, after the separation of the government from enterprises, the forest workers have changed from the original "unit people" to enterprise employees. In the face of the rapidly changing development situation, the forest employees should continue to carry forward the forest industry spirit of hard work and daring to venture, actively face the market, go to the market and integrate into the market, constantly learn new vocational skills, and create "gold mountains and silver mountains" through diversified channels while managing and protecting the "clear waters and green mountains". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]