Negotiating responsible forestry: forest owners’ understanding of responsibility for multiple forest values

ABSTRACT

The governance trend toward decentralization, which implies transfer of responsibility to market actors to voluntarily respond to socio-environmental issues, is evident in forest policy. Parallel to this trend, mandatory environmental legislation circumscribes forest owners’ scope of action. Drawing on the example of Sweden and based on qualitative interviews, this study examined how non-industrial private forest owners understand and construct their responsibility for multiple forest values in an ambiguous policy situation. By juxtaposition of the concepts of governmentality and discursive negotiation of responsibility, the study contributes insights into not only how people are governed but also how they express dissent or resistance. The results of this study clearly elucidate that individuals are never fully controlled by discourse and that responsibilization of individual forest owners cannot guarantee a certain outcome. Additionally, the study contributes some insights into the predicament of being simultaneously addressed as an autonomous, capable actor and subject to direction and mandatory rules.

KEYWORDS:

• Forest policy
• forest values
• governmentality
• responsibility
• Sweden

Acknowledgments

This paper was written as part of the interdisciplinary program Future Forests financed by Mistra—the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and Umeå University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In this paper, when talking of responsibilization, I specifically refer to the transfer of responsibility from the state to private actors to voluntarily respond to socio-environmental issues (Shamir 2008). Responsibility can mean different things depending on the context, and it can also be imposed by different means. Mandatory regulation incorporates rules formally backed by sanctions. At the same time, these rules have normative functions. For a detailed discussion of responsibility and environmental governance, see Pellizzoni (2004) and Löfmarck, Uggla, and Lidskog (2017).

2. Four times a year the SFA publishes the magazine SkogsEko, which the Agency describes as an ‘important source of information and a tool for advisory services’ (SFA 2015, 49). SkogsEko is distributed to all owners of at least 5 ha of forest.

3. Sample questions related to each theme: (1) What do you think about the Swedish forest policy? What do you think of the balance between production and environmental goals in forest management? What is your view of the Swedish Forest Agency and the way it addresses these two goals?; (2) what does the forest represent to you? What values do you attach to your forest? Can these values conflict with one another? If so, how do you address such conflicts?; (3) what are your primary responsibilities as forest owner? What is your time frame in your forest management? What is your understanding of biodiversity and the role of the forest in biodiversity? What is your understanding of social and cultural forest values? and (4) what is your view of forest companies? What is your view of other forest owners? What is your view of environmental organizations? Has anyone expressed opinions regarding your forest management?

4. The majority of the interviewees (14 of 16) had inherited their forest, which is common among non-industrial private forest owners.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was written as part of the interdisciplinary program Future Forests financed by Mistra—the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, the Forestry Research Institute of Sweden (Skogforsk), the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and Umeå University.

Notes on contributors

Ylva Uggla

Ylva Uggla is a professor of Sociology. Her research focuses on regulation and management of environmental risks. Central questions concern the relation between politics and science, and the handling of uncertainty in decision-making.