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Forest landscapes are too complex systems for the actors involved in policy making, including experts, to predict the consequences of different management options and policy measures without the aid of modelling tools. Forest sector models and forest management Decision Support Systems (DSS) are two major types of modelling tools that can be used for providing model-based support to forest policy development. Regardless of the modelling tool, policy makers and other concerned actors need to be aware of the behavioral assumptions, or implications, of a scenario in order to proceed to an assessment of what it takes to achieve, alternatively avoid it. A unified method or even a unified understanding of this problem is as yet lacking among forest scenario analysts. This paper presents an approach to facilitate the definition and communication of behavioral assumptions, primarily in DSS-based forest scenario modelling. At the core of the approach is the Behavioral Matrix (BM), a way of structuring forest management specifications. A case study in southern Sweden is presented as an example.

Knowledge has been shown to be more effectively implemented in practice when produced in collaboration between researchers and other stakeholders as the co-produced knowledge is more likely to be accepted and found relevant. Knowledge co-production processes have however been found guilty of depoliticizing and hiding political struggles to the end of reinforcing existing unequal power relations and prevent broad societal transformation from taking place. From this perspective, knowledge co-production can come into conflict with participatory governance that focuses on the empowerment and capacity building of actors, social justice and advocacy. In this presentation I take a closer look at this conflictual perspective and propose a research focus on knowledge practices for exploring and analyzing participatory governance options for flood risk management (FRM) and disaster risk reduction (DRR). I do this by exemplifying and presenting a research design developed within the newly started PARADeS-project.The PARADeS-project is a research project led by German research institutions in close collaboration with partners in Ghana and with the overall aim to contribute to enhancing Ghana’s national flood risk and disaster management strategy. Co-production of knowledge is foreseen to take place in several workshops including collaborative modelling, scenario- and policy back-casting exercises. One of the planned project outputs is a concept of participatory governance in FRM and DRR based on the findings from a stakeholder analysis, a policy network analysis and a participatory assessment of different policy options.In this project context a research focus on stakeholders’ knowledge practices can be used to inform and improve the participatory governance concept and facilitate its implementation process. Knowledge is used by stakeholders as a powerful resource in suggesting certain policy options and convincing others of their necessity. Knowledge practices entail how actors use knowledge to argue, convince and make decisions. Through knowledge practices, stakeholders decide what knowledge to base decisions on and how to convince others of their position using that knowledge. What knowledge becomes accepted as legitimate in such interactions - often deliberative settings - can be decisive for the acceptability of any policy option. It is therefore important to study not only the different types of stakeholders and technical options for FRM and DRR, but the interaction between stakeholders and how they use information and co-create knowledge - the knowledge practices.Within the presentation I discuss the proposed research design for how to study knowledge practices and how to make use of these findings when going from research project and co-production of knowledge to a concept of participatory governance in flood risk management and disaster risk reduction in Ghana.

How perceptions of the forest-based bioeconomy differ across country contexts and social groups is important as it opens possibilities for the development of more inclusive, locally and socially relevant bioeconomy policies and strategies. Therefore, this special section explores the social dimensions of the forest-based bioeconomy by focusing on discourses and perceptions of different actor groups in Europe. We introduce six articles that range from review and discursive approaches to consumer studies. The section adds to the existing literature by focusing not only on political decision makers, stakeholders, and experts but also on the public, media and students. Patterns in the presented discourses and perceptions can be identified but more is needed to validate these and respond to the question of representativeness.

Changes in clearcut management over time were evaluated using aerial photographs taken between 1960 and 2010. Temporal changes were analysed in two different climatic zones in Sweden: a typical boreal forest zone (the coast of V&#228sterbotten County), and the hemi-boreal zone of southern Sweden (represented by Kronoberg County). The study covers the periods before and after the paradigm shift in Swedish forestry caused by the equalization of the production and nature conservation objectives specified in the first paragraph of the Swedish Forestry Act. Photographs were processed to determine clearcut size and shape and to register solitary retention trees and groups of retention trees. Small but significant changes in clearcut size were detected over time. The number of retention trees increased over time, a result that was also found in other studies using different methodologies. The results demonstrate that measurable structural changes have occurred in Swedish forests over the 25 years since the paradigm shift. Results from this study also show that digital detection of green tree retention could be a future complement to field inventory and monitoring.

International audience; Integrated forest management (IFM) can help reconcile critical trade-offs between goals in forest management, such as nature conservation and biomass production. The challenge of IFM is dealing with these trade-offs at the level of practical forest management, such as striving for compromises between biomass extraction and habitat retention. This paper reviews some of the driving factors that influence the integration of nature conservation into forest management. The review was conducted in three steps-a literature review, an expert workshop and an expert-based cooperative analysis. Of 38 driving factors identified, three were prioritised by more of the participants than any of the others: two are socio-cultural factors, identity (how people identify with forest) as well as outreach and education, and one is economic-competitiveness in forest value chains. These driving factors correspond to what are considered in the literature as enablers for IFM. The results reveal that targeted, group-oriented, adaptive and innovative policy designs are needed to integrate nature conservation into forest management. Further, the results reveal that a "one-size-fits-all" governance approach would be ineffective, implying that policy instruments need to consider contextually specific driving factors. Understanding the main driving factors and their overall directions can help to better manage trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and biomass production in European forests.

This article provides useful information for universities offering forestry programs and facing the growing demand for bioeconomy education. An explorative survey on bioeconomy perception among 1400 students enrolled in 29 universities across nine European countries offering forestry programs was performed. The data have been elaborated via descriptive statistics and cluster analysis. Around 70% of respondents have heard about the bioeconomy, mainly through university courses. Students perceive forestry as the most important sector for bioeconomy; however, the extent of perceived importance of forestry varies between countries, most significantly across groups of countries along a North–South European axis. Although differences across bachelor and master programs are less pronounced, they shed light on how bioeconomy is addressed by university programs and the level of student satisfaction with this. These differences and particularities are relevant for potential development routes towards comprehensive bioeconomy curricula at European forestry universities with a forestry focus. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01376-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

International audience; The overarching aim of this review paper is to investigate the involvement of experts, citizens, and participatory professionals in forest policy decision-making processes. Three interpretations of governance are distinguished to translate the idea of an orchestra to European (forest) policy making processes, referring to Frank Fischer's differentiation between a centralised state guided by administrative and policy experts on the one hand and deliberative governance driven by citizen participation on the other and a form of governance by participation professionals. The review included in total 81 research articles published between 1998 and 2015 addressing participation and expert involvement in forest policy. The results show that governance by participatory professionals is clearly visible in forest policy making processes in Europe mainly involving traditional groups as forest owners. Whether these participation professionals are engaged in a deliberative process with citizens remains unanswered. The results furthermore show a strong involvement of experts though the literature is rather silent as to how this steering of experts evolves in participatory forest processes. Finally the analysis shows that governance by citizen participation is rather neglected in forest policy processes in Europe. It is perceived as difficult to pursue, even at the local level. Therefore this article found nearly no empirical evidence for a socalled citizen's orchestra with the competence to self-align by deliberation. Instead citizens seem to be no part of the orchestra itself, but remain outside as part of the audience.

In 2005 and 2007 southern Sweden was hit by severe storms exposing the risks with current forestry focused on Norway spruce ( Picea abies ). The reforestation after the storms was largely conducted by private forest owners who were offered grants to support regeneration with broadleaves. The previous practices however remained largely intact, with spruce occupying 90% of the planted area. Based on qualitative interviews and applying the practice based approach this study investigates factors and motivations shaping forest owners choice of species. The analysis reveals that continued reforestation with Norway spruce was a result of path-dependencies of practices strongly supported by the species' superior profitability and a high browsing pressure on Scots pine ( Pinus sylvestris ). Risk awareness, consideration to forest aesthetics and curiosity were the main attitudinal drivers in favour of regeneration with other species than spruce. Our analysis reveals naturally regenerated birch ( Betula spp.) as a viable but previously overlooked pathway to increased species diversity.

Governance of forested landscapes must account for multiple interests and perspectives through public and stakeholder participation. In the context of Swedish forestry, participation has mainly been implemented as a top-down venture, without adequate integration of all interests. Linking local interests to national policy-making through participatory action research and future-oriented methodologies has not yet been tried in Sweden. We develop and implement a participatory action research model with the objectives to (i) facilitate a discussion among local stakeholders about their common future in relation to their forested landscapes and, (ii) to connect the local level with the national, institutional level. First, local stakeholders are brought together to create commonly desired visions in case studies of two forested landscapes in Sweden. Second, national policy-makers are engaged in a discussion on how to achieve the locally-desired visions. The ability of the two-step participatory action research model to achieve these objectives is then evaluated based on norms of Communicative Action and criteria of participatory planning. The results demonstrate the positive opportunity to engage local stakeholders in a constructive discussion about their common future, but also show some practical constraints of participatory methods, in particular the risk of institutional authorities disregarding local knowledge and claims.

The oak-dominated woodlands and forests of northern Europe have experienced dramatic declines due to agriculture, urbanization, and conifer-dominated production forestry. These losses have had a substantial negative impact on biodiversity due to the large number of forest species which depend on oak and the environments oak-dominated forests provide. Production oak stands may serve as a means of supplementing or complementing the habitat provided by the limited remaining natural oak remnants in this region. Here we evaluate the extent to which oak plantations in temperate southern Sweden provide habitat and resources for bird communities, by surveying and contrasting the bird species composition and diversity found in mature and young production oak stands (5 and 8 replicates respectively) and protected oak-dominated remnant forests (5 replicates). The mature production stands possessed a bird community partially overlapping in bird species composition, and comparable in species richness (34 species) to that found within protected oak forests (39 species). Furthermore, the production oak forests surveyed hosted threatened or near threatened bird species, including black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius), goldcrest (Regulus regulus), starling (Sturnus vulgaris), and yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella). Though production oak forests cannot replace the habitat provided by protected oak forests, these stands do appear to provide conditions consistent with the habitat and resource requirements of a diverse cross-section of bird species in this region, including species of substantial conservation concern. Production oak forests thus have the capacity to make a positive contribution to biodiversity conservation, as well as providing a diverse range of goods and services to society.

International audience; The term "orchestration" is predominately used in relation to studying or practicing music. Recently the term has also been used to describe the automated coordination and management of complex computer systems in order to make their service-oriented architecture and provisioning more efficient. Both terms conceptualize a process of different elements working together in an aligned way. This special issue addresses as well the question of how 'elements' work together, focusing on European forest governance and on the orchestration of stakeholders and experts in forest governance.

Small-scale forestry builds upon interactions among local stakeholders. Forest management entails multiple social situations such as consultations or cooperative engagements between owners and forest professionals. Successful social endeavours rest on positive social capital as operationalised via trust. Based on qualitative in-depth interviews with forest owners, managers and other forestry stakeholders, this study explores how trust influences the social relationships in a local context of Southern Swedish forestry. Most strikingly, the analysis reveals large differences in owners' trust towards twomajor actors: the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA) and the forest owner association (FOA) Södra. Permanence of personnel, a client-based approach, and personal features of SFA's local forest officer lead to strong local anchoring and high trust towards SFA. Södra proved to be a trustful partner in the aftermath of calamities; however its industrial priorities seem to erode owners' trust. The empirical findings of this study demonstrate the importance of recognising personal relationships and the catalysing role of bonding social capital in order to understand the local forest management situations. Our results are useful for forestry organisations and policy-makers willing to comprehend the local context and implement best practices in small-scale forestry

For forest sustainability and vulnerability assessment, the landscape scale is considered to be more and more relevant as the stand level approaches its known limitations. This review, which describes the main forest landscape simulation tools used in the 20 European case studies of the European project “Future-oriented integrated management of European forest landscapes” (INTEGRAL), gives an update on existing decision support tools to run landscape simulation from Mediterranean to boreal ecosystems. The main growth models and software available in Europe are described, and the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches are discussed. Trades-offs between input efforts and output are illustrated. Recommendations for the selection of a forest landscape simulator are given. The paper concludes by describing the need to have tools that are able to cope with climate change and the need to build more robust indicators for assessment of forest landscape sustainability and vulnerability. The INTEGRAL project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No. 282887. http://www. integral-project.eu/. Moreover, financial support by the Transnational Access to Research Infrastructures activity in the 7th Framework Programme of the EC under the Trees4Future project (No. 284181) for conducting the research is gratefully acknowledged. This research has also received funding from the European Union H2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 691149 (SuFoRun). Researcher Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo was supported by a “Ramon y Cajal” research contract from the MINECO (Ref. RYC-2013-14262) and has received funding from CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya. This paper could be achieved thanks to support of EFIATLANTIC donors: Conseil regional d’Aquitaine, Ministère de l’agriculture et de la forêt.

Today, multiple-use (or multifunctional) forestry is one of the main concepts guiding European forestry. While there is wide acceptance of the overall concept, here is a lack of coherence in definitions, policies and practices. Such outcomes indicate that multiple-use forestry (MUF) may contain the essential properties of a “boundary object”, i.e. something that is robust enough to conceptually unite different interests, but at the same time is flexible enough to encompass different practices in line with local needs and conditions. This study sets out to explore the conceptualization and implementation of MUF as a boundary object, examining the overall trends at an international level, and scrutinising the national specifics in three case countries: Lithuania, the Netherlands and Sweden. The review of international literature finds no consensus on what MUF is, beyond combining two or more forest functions or uses. The case countries show widely different approaches to conceptualizing and implementing MUF, not least in terms of spatial scales for integrating or segregating various functions. The analysis indicates that we should not expect instrumentation of MUF toward uniform guidelines to shape forestry practices throughout Europe. Rather it will continue to serve the profession as a boundary object that serves as a mediating concept between various interests while being inclusive of a wide set of forestry practices.

While sustainable forestry in Europe is characterized by the provision of a multitude of forest ecosystem services, there exists no comprehensive study that scrutinizes their sensitivity to forest management on a pan-European scale, so far. We compile scenario runs from regionally tailored forest growth models and Decision Support Systems (DSS) from 20 case studies throughout Europe and analyze whether the ecosystem service provision depends on management intensity and other co-variables, comprising regional affiliation, social environment, and tree species composition. The simulation runs provide information about the case-specifically most important ecosystem services in terms of appropriate indicators. We found a strong positive correlation between management intensity and wood production, but only weak correlation with protective and socioeconomic forest functions. Interestingly, depending on the forest region, we found that biodiversity can react in both ways, positively and negatively, to increased management intensity. Thus, it may be in tradeoff or in synergy with wood production and forest resource maintenance. The covariables species composition and social environment are of punctual interest only, while the affiliation to a certain region often makes an important difference in terms of an ecosystem service’s treatment sensitivity info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Global efforts to decrease dependence on fossil fuels have increased interest in bioenergy production. One source of bioenergy is fast growing deciduous tree species, such as hybrid aspen ( × Hämet-Ahti). The majority of research on hybrid aspen which assesses biodiversity implications, has however primarily focused on agricultural lands as the reference condition. This has resulted in a substantial gap in our knowledge regarding the biodiversity implications of replacing production forest types with hybrid aspen, a form of reforestation taking place in northern Europe. In this study we address this knowledge gap by comparing the avian biodiversity of young hybrid aspen and spruce ( L.) plantations of similar age, the latter being the most prevalent forestry alternative in in southern Sweden. We found that hybrid aspen stands had higher bird species richness and abundance as well as a distinct community composition compared to the spruce stands. We suggest that the most likely driver was the greater structural and tree species complexity in the aspen stands, provided for by the fenced exclusion of ungulates from the regenerating hybrid aspen stands. Our results indicate that at least during early stages of regeneration, and in comparison to the dominating production forest type in the region, hybrid aspen stands can support relatively high levels of bird diversity, and a bird species composition more closely associated with broadleaf habitat types requiring restoration in this region.PopuluswettsteiniiPicea abies