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Forest ownership is changing in Europe. Reasons include recent institutional changes in Eastern Europe, changing lifestyles of non-agricultural owners and afforestation. At present, 7 there is little comparative analysis across Europe, and the implications that these changes 8 have for forest management and for the fulfilment and redefinition of policy objectives have 9 not been addressed systematically. This paper has been developed in the framework of a 10 European research network on forest ownership change, based on conceptual work, 11 literature reviews and empirical evidence from 28 European countries. It aims to provide an 12 overview of the state of knowledge, to discuss relevant issues and provide conceptual and 13 practical foundations for future research, forest management approaches, and policy making. 14 In particular, it discusses possible approaches for classifying forest ownership types and 15 understandings of "new" forest ownership. One important insight is that the division into 16 public and private forests is not as clear as often assumed and that an additional category of 17 semi-public (or semi-private) forms of forest ownership would be desirable. Another 18 recommendation is that the concepts of "new forest owners" vs. "new forest owner types" 19 should be differentiated more consciously. We observe that, in research and policy practice, 20 the mutual relations between forest ownership structure and policies are often neglected, for 21 instance, how policies may directly and indirectly influence ownership development, and 22 what different ownership categories mean for the fulfilment of policy goals. Finally, we 23 propose that better support should be provided for the development of new, adapted forest 24 management approaches for emerging forest owner types. Forest ownership deserves 25 greater attention in studies dealing with forest policy or forest management.

Despite the fact that the institutional environment is acknowledged to influence the implementation of regional adaptations of forest management to climate change, there are few empirical studies addressing the institutional factors and opportunities of adaptation. Using Ostrom's institutional analysis and development framework, we aimed to identify: (1) the critical and distinctive characteristics of the forest resource and institutional context that may determine how climate change-adaptive forest management measures are implemented and (2) the opportunities for implementing the planned adaptation measures. The analysis is performed on ten European case study regions which differed in many resource-dependent factors, policy arena factors and incentives for changes. The main factors influencing the adaptation are the ownership pattern, the level of policy formation and the nature of forest goods and services. Opportunities for adaptation are driven by the openness of the forest management planning processes to the stakeholders participation, the degree to which business as usual management is projected to be non-satisfactory in the future, and by the number and nature of obstacles to adaptation. Promoting local selfgovernance mechanisms and the participation of the Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

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In the framework of a broader political economics approach, this paper intends to enhance the understanding of the role of rent-seeking practices in the delineation of clear property rights in forestry. The research background is provided by the institutional changes occurring in the Romanian forestry sector as a consequence of the transition period and the accession to the European Union. The entrepreneurial approach to rent-seeking requires clarifications of the perspective under which private forest owners are analysed in order to position this study within ongoing discussions regarding the role of rentseeking and its social impact. The conceptual framework employed distinguishes between rents resulting from entrepreneurship in conventional production functions and rents resulting from institutional entrepreneurship. A typology of entrepreneurial rent-seeking is developed for further understanding of the effects resulting from changes in the institutional setting of property rights. Using a qualitative approach, in the form of a case study, the research reveals perspectives of Romanian forest owners regarding barriers to production inherent in the current distribution of rights. Despite the extent of perceived profit-seeking barriers, owners' entrepreneurial rent-seeking actions intended to change property rights in their favour appear limited and constrained. Hence, identified hypotheses regarding the institutional context dependency of entrepreneurial rentseeking provide the basis for the future empirical identification of the role of institutional entrepreneurship within the forest production system.