Understanding consistencies and gaps between desired forest futures: An analysis of visions from stakeholder groups in Sweden

Abstract

Conflicting perspectives on forests has for a long time challenged forest policy development in Sweden. Disagreements about forest futures create intractable deadlocks when stakeholders talk past each other. The purpose of this study is to move beyond this situation through the application of participatory backcasting. By comparing visions of the future forest among stakeholder groups, we highlight contemporary trajectories and identify changes that were conceived as desirable. We worked with four groups: the Biomass and Bioenergy group, the Conservation group, the Sami Livelihood group and the Recreation and Rural Development group; in total representatives from 40 organizations participated in workshops articulating the groups’ visions. Our results show well-known tensions such as intrinsic versus instrumental values but also new ones concerning forests’ social values. Identified synergies include prioritization of rural development, new valued-added forest products and diversified forest management. The results may feed directly into forest policy processes facilitating the process and break current deadlocks.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-015-0746-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Scientific Forest Management Practice in Nepal: Critical Reflections from Stakeholders’ Perspectives

“…Since diverse stakeholders with their different interests and orientation are engaged to attain forest protection and production objectives as specified by particular forest policy/regulation/guidelines [39], a systematic approach is needed to understand their multiple stakes on such policies and actions. Earlier studies [4,[39][40][41][42][43][44] have suggested and/or applied different theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches while assessing the stakeholders in the forestry and natural resource management sectors. Despite the differences in specific objectives and levels of analysis of those frameworks, interests, power of influences and the position of the stakeholders in designing and implementing forest policies have remained the key common factors as bases for stakeholder analysis.…”

“…The ultimate aim is to identify the powerful actors to assess their roles and perspectives. Likewise, the participatory backcasting approach [42] attempts to envision the future of forestry from the stakeholder's perspectives, but the bases of stakeholder identification are again the same (i.e., interests, roles and the influences of such stakeholders). Hence, we applied the triple-perspective typology (TPT) of stakeholder theory [44,45] to assess the evolution of SciFM and its implementation, considering interests, management orientation, level of engagement and relationships among the stakeholders as key factors.…”

Values held by Swedish primary school students towards forest ecosystems and the relevance for a nature’s contributions to people approach

“…In the context of Swedish forests, the conflict of use values has been studied in terms of divergent stakeholder perspectives and use preferences (Haugen 2016;Nordén et al 2017). Youth perspectives have only recently been explored in this context and focussing only on university-age students (Sandström et al 2016). This presents an opportunity not only fill a research gap but also to consolidate and develop knowledge of this stakeholder group, particularly in light of intergenerational equity as presented here.…”

Opportunities for Integrated Landscape Planning – the Broker, the Arena, the Tool

“…The diverse values provided by forests in the Swedish northern inland have been described by, for example, Sandström C. et al (2011Sandström C. et al ( , 2016, Svensson et al (2012), and Sténs et al (2016). Historically, the municipality has been highly dependent on timber production.…”