Can’t Climb the Trees Anymore: Social Licence to Operate, Bioenergy and Whole Stump Removal in Sweden

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of how the social licence to operate (SLO) of the Swedish forest industry has been developed over time. For many decades, the SLO has been implicitly operating, shaped by dominant discourses of the day. We can see these SLOs through the agrarian, industrial and post-industrial era. During this era, a focus on bioenergy has seen whole stump removal become a more mainstream practice. This practice gained increasingly widespread acceptance when framed as a necessary response to climate change. However, research has identified problems associated with whole stump removal, including decreased biodiversity, nutrient removal, soil acidification and mechanical soil preparation threatening soil carbon stores. In light of these recent developments, this paper examines the role of knowledge production and accepted discourses in the creation and maintenance of an industry’s SLO. By providing an overview of key legislative changes in the history of forest management alongside data from surveys and interviews with key industry stakeholders, we explore the changing nature of the industry’s SLO and the potential conflict that arises when new scientific knowledge and discourses emerge, challenging accepted standards of behaviour and require us to re-examine and renegotiate the terms of an existing SLO.

Keywords:

• Sweden
• Forest Industry
• Social Licence to Operate
• Stump Removal

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Emeritus Prof. Jan-Erik Nylund, SLU and Henrik von Hofsten, Skogforsk, for their insight and Dana Bradford and Lygia Malzoni Romanach of CSIRO for their review comments on a preliminary draft of this paper.

Notes

1 SFS 1974:1025 (Swedish law 1025 of 1974).

2 In Sweden, you must notify the Forest Agency of fellings and other removals. The Forest Agency is supposed to evaluate the notification and the area that you are working in and provide feedback if necessary. Often, the Forest Agency does not have the capacity to evaluate all notifications and simply does not provide any feedback, allowing the proposed work to go ahead as notified.

3 Slash is comprised of branches and other woody debris left in the forest after logging activities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Peter Edwards

Peter Edwards is an adjunct researcher in International Forest Policy in the Department of Forest Products, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.

Justine Lacey

Justine Lacey is a research scientist (philosopher) exploring how we make and justify our decisions about natural resources in the Science into Society Group, Division of Earth Science and Resource Engineering, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Brisbane, Australia.