Coordinating and implementing multiple systems for forest management: implications of the regulatory framework for sustainable forestry in Sweden

Abstract

The complexity of multi-level governance is well illustrated by forest management in one of Europe’s large forested states, Sweden. Deregulated government policies emphasize ‘freedom with responsibility’, largely expecting the forest sector to determine ways in which policy goals and legal requirements are reached. In relation to this, Sweden has become one of the countries with the largest share of forests certified by third-party organizations, such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), in accordance with specific environmental and social criteria. This multi-level case study draws on official documents and semi-structured interviews to analyze Swedish forest governance; specifically, the impact of multiplicity and complexity of environmental considerations on agreement over goal coordination, implementation, and evaluation for feedback and accountability. This contributes to previous research by analyzing interactions between state regulation and certification at multiple levels.

Keywords:

• accountability
• environmental considerations
• forest governance
• forest policy
• implementation
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to the anonymous reviewer and the Associate Editors for valuable feedback.

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council Formas through the Smart Tree Retention research program [grant no. 215-2009-569].

Notes

^1. The large-scale forest companies interviewed for this study included Sveaskog, SCA Skog and Holmen Skog. All of the major forest companies are FSC-certified and some are also PEFC-certified, whereas the one forest-owner association (Norra Skogsägarna) is PEFC-certified only. Approximately 24,000 forest owners are registered in the county (Swedish Forest Agency, 2013b), but our study did not target small-scale forest owners because they are not certified according to the FSC in this region. We also did not include governmental authorities because they are not stakeholders in private certification organizations.

^2. The importance of timber production was also put forward in 2008, when the Swedish government launched an inquiry into the feasibility and potential benefits of conducting intensive forestry in some parts of Sweden (Lindkvist et al., 2012). Another topic of current debate is whether it is increasingly possible, in some instances, to undertake less intensive forest operations in the form of ‘Continuous Cover Forestry’ (CCF) (Swedish Forest Agency, 2012d).

^3. The Polytax inventory monitors progress toward production and environmental protection in connection with regeneration fellings (final fellings). Each year, a random sample of sites reported to the Agency are visited either prior to felling and one growing season directly after felling, or during the fifth or seventh growing season after felling (Swedish Forest Agency, 2012b).