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Private forest owners' involvement in forest management has been frequently examined through the attitudes, values, beliefs, objectives and motivations associated with owning and managing forestland. Owners' views on forest management do not always align with those of policymakers who believe forest owners do not actively manage their forests. However, empirical studies on forest owners' conceptualisations of forest management are scarce. To determine how private forest owners in Europe conceptualise forest management, a survey (n = 1,140) was undertaken in seven European countries (Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania). The owners were asked to indicate their level of agreement with 19 pretested statements defining forest management on a five-point Likert scale. Classification and regression trees were used to explain the major factors that influenced owners' conceptualisations. Owners primarily conceptualised forest management as preserving forests for future generations and considered "a good business opportunity", "an opportunity to earn additional money" or a "source of subsidies" less important. Their understanding of forest management as a mixture of forest maintenance, ecosystem stewardship and economic activity does not match with alleged policy makers' views. Property size, age and Eastern/Western countries were the most relevant predictors of definitions of forest management. Small-scale forest owners from Western Europe considered ecosystem orientation more important, while owners from Eastern Europe considered economic aspects and forest maintenance more important. These differences might be associated with the socio-political system dynamics in Europe in the 20 th century and changing values in postmodern society. Policymakers must be aware of the different forest management paradigms among forest owners in Eastern-Central and Western Europe when designing European forest policies.

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The concept of ecosystem services (ES) is being increasingly applied in environmental governance and science. To safeguard key ES in changing and complex social-ecological systems such as treeline areas, we need to (1) map key ES in different types of treeline landscapes, (2) identify the stakeholders benefiting from and threatening ES, and (3) examine how ES could be governed more sustainably. We explore these questions in European treeline areas by using quantitative and qualitative social science techniques to analyse responses from a survey of local scientific experts in 20 altitudinal and polar treeline areas in 15 European countries. In contrast to the prevalent consideration of treeline areas as a single type of a socialecological system, we show that European treeline areas can be divided into two types that significantly differ in the delivery of ES. Our analyses allowed us to categorize stakeholders according to their benefits from and threats to ES; ''Green key players'' formed the most numerous group, while smaller number of stakeholder groups was categorized as ''Harmless crowd'', ''Occasional stressors'', and ''Risky users''. However, behaviour of stakeholders is very much site-specific. Of 595 pairs of stakeholders analysed, we found \5 EU-wide ''Allies'' and ''Opponents''. Recommendations for improved governance include adjusting governance instruments to specific problems in divergent treeline systems and creating participatory structures where stakeholders better interact with scientists and can genuinely influence management decisions.