The use of forest information in timber sales planning – a case study in a Swedish forest-owning company

Interactions between value-creating activities are vital to increasing product value. Information sharing is a cornerstone of such interactions. For a forest-owning company with the primary objective to be leading in selling roundwood to forest industries, it appears therefore crucial that the sales people within a forest company have up-to-date knowledge about the forest in planning their sales, and that the forest knowledge is presented in a format that is suitable for them. To investigate if this is the case, a study was conducted at Sveaskog, a large Swedish forest-owning company. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with respondents from different levels in the organization. The results show that most sales managers did not directly use the knowledge about the forests when planning their sales; instead, they relied on historical data and had low trust in the knowledge presented in the tactical forest plan. The study pinpoints the organizational obstacles for using forest information in sales planning. These obstacles need to be addressed if more sophisticated information made available through new technology is to be utilized.     

Reprint of 'Are forest researchers only scientists? Case studies on the roles of researchers in Japanese and Swedish forest policy processes'

The aim of this study is to clarify the roles of researchers in forest policy development processes. Comparative case studies between Japan and Sweden were conducted. The research–integration–utilisation (RIU) model on scientific knowledge transfer was employed as a framework. Based on the RIU model, ‘scientist’, ‘integrator’, and ‘policy entrepreneur’ were defined as three hypothesised roles of researchers, discussed in conjunction with Pielke's ‘honest broker’ model. It was found that researchers played important roles, both as scientists and integrators in Japan. In Sweden, researchers played only the role of scientist. However, no researchers working as policy entrepreneurs were found in either country. These results indicate that the RIU model could work as a basis for the comparison between countries and the clarification of the roles of researchers in forest policy processes. The case study analysis also specified three additional topics for further discussion: (1) different types of science-based policy advice; (2) the relationship between power allies and consensus building; and (3) the reason why the roles of researchers differ between Japan and Sweden.     

Do forest policy actors learn through forward-thinking? Conflict and cooperation relating to the past,present and futures of sustainable forest management in Germany

Collaborative participatory policy approaches based on foresight methodology have recently been proposed as promising governance tools to achieve sustainability in general, and address and manage challenges of integrating competing demands on forest land use (e.g., timber production, nature protection, recreation) in particular. Their main argument is that participatory processes will bring policy actors together. Based on long- and short-term future-oriented thinking and actions, they will overcome their previous value-laden and interest-based conflicts through informed communication, deliberation, policy learning and mutual cooperation. But do policy actors learn when they are thinking, debating and shaping the ‘forest futures’ they want to achieve or avoid? To what extent are current beliefs, values, worldviews, and conflict structures projected onto the future? What are their impacts on policy learning today?This paper addresses these research questions from a knowledge-based perspective of relevant policy learning theories. We trace changes and stability in beliefs, values (perception) and behavior (cooperation/conflict) among the involved policy actors. We assess to what extent future-oriented thinking and discussions contribute to, or inhibit, policy learning today.Empirically, the paper is informed by three case studies of regional ‘forest futures’ processes in Germany. They include forest landscapes in Upper Palatinate and South of Munich in Bavaria, and the Black Forest National Park in Baden-Württemberg. They represent different cases in terms of levels of stakeholder conflicts, integrative/segregative forest land use approaches, and the rural/urban divide. The paper is based on a qualitative analysis of interviews and documents about past and future forest land use, and observation of participatory scenario-building and back-casting workshops during 2011–2014.In our analysis, we found that forest policy actors adhered to their pre-existing beliefs and remained divided in terms of present and future aspects of sustainable forest management. That is, we observed no substantial or only strategic policy learning among the involved policy actors. We explain these findings in terms of competing actors' belief systems and worldviews that lead to competing understandings and expectations of ‘forest futures’. We discuss our research against the theoretical propositions and in view of the state-of-the art. We draw conclusions relevant for scholars and policymakers interested in collaborative policy learning processes, and suggest possible topics for further research.     

Learning from practices — implications of the “practice based approach” for forest and environmental policy research

With the book publication “Forest and Nature Governance — A practice based approach” (Arts et al., 2013, Eds.) the Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group of Wageningen University, The Netherlands demonstrates its high aspirations of developing a new research approach. This article aims at discussing the methodological and conceptual contributions of the book to the field of forest and environmental policy research and proposes perspectives for further developing this methodological approach. It finds the “practice based approach” being an innovative, theoretically sound concept, which is able to produce valuable and “thick” empirical results. The approach is also found offering a plethora of possibilities to link up to analytical policy research. Yet, the approach will require further elaboration, especially on questions regarding the role of definitions, its contribution towards explaining social phenomena, and concerning the use of normative orientations in some of the empirical cases. The future challenges of the approach lie in either moulding a niche for further developing it independent from other schools, or in influencing mainstream approaches through theoretical innovations or surprising empirical results.     

Despite failure: The emergence of “new” forest owners in private forest policy in Wisconsin,USA

Abstract

Similar to other industrialized countries, the USA has experienced a significant increase in the number of non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners as well as shifts in the values held by these owners. This study examines the motivations of predominantly new ex-urban forest owners interested in forest management in pursuing collective action through participation in the now out-of-business Sustainable Woods Cooperative (SWC). While common elsewhere, forest landowner cooperatives in the USA are an anomaly. Through a case-study design that depended primarily on semi-structured interviews, it was found that SWC members were motivated to join SWC as it was an attractive alternative to (1) the typical timber sale scenario that often places the forest owner at a disadvantage, and (2) the primary government tax incentive program. SWC represents a shift towards owners playing a greater role in shaping forest practices and markets, which is generally absent in the USA. It also suggests that new ex-urban forest owners, who are found in most industrialized countries, will seek to reshape the forest policy arena to meet their values and objectives. As such, this study provides insights for others in understanding the potential changes wrought by the changing characteristics of forest owners.     

The Austrian domestic forest policy community in change? Impacts of the globalisation and Europeanisation of forest politics

The interest intermediation system has always attracted the attention of forest policy scientists. However, research on this subject has focused on the national level, despite the fact that forest issues are increasingly prominent on international and European agendas, both in the EU and the Pan-European Process on the Protection of Forests in Europe. Accordingly, the impacts of the globalisation and Europeanisation of forest policy and the peculiarities of multi-level policy processes have not been sufficiently taken into account. This article examines how international forest politics and the integration of national actors in the EU multi-level system of joint decision-making affect national actor constellations. To this end, I draw on the advocacy coalition framework to depict the Austrian forest policy network and its actors’ dispute on forest certification, as well as on hypotheses and empirical results of multi-level governance scholars and on my own preliminary results to investigate the likely effects of the evolving EU forest policy. The discussion provides some hypotheses and indications that national forest policy networks might be subject to significant change.     

“Smart regulation”: Can policy instrument design solve forest policy aims of expansion and sustainability in Flanders and the Netherlands?

The current study investigates with a multiple case study the relation between instrument design and policy success. The conclusion is that the instrument mix matters. The Flemish interventionist approach, which focuses more on traditional instruments, was not as effective as the Dutch stimulating approach, which uses a broad pallet of social and economic instruments, including many new environmental policy instruments. It is conspicuous that the government remains the most important regulator in all cases, although the importance of surrogate regulators is growing. Mostly the government is needed to stimulate or even create such surrogate regulators. Therefore, the government has a key position to decide which regulatory tasks will be transferred to surrogate regulators. This is currently restricted to capacity-building and certification.     

Managing information in forest policy networks: Distinguishing the influential actors from the “postmen”

What differentiates the influential actors imposing information as salient from a “postman” who redistributes it is the main question of this research. Complete network analysis has been conducted in 8 European countries including 421 actors. Determinants differentiating influential actors from “postmen” in general information arena are: a) to be capable of achieving single strategy (by not having to be confronted with strong internal individual potentials, namely members with considerable strengths), b) to be free of dogmatism, c) to have powerful cooperators, and d) to employ appropriate expertise, characterized by objectivity- and specialty-based legitimacy. Determinants differentiating influential actors from “postmen” in scientific information arena are: a) to gain the trust, b) to intend cross-sectoral cooperation, c) to be a scientific institution, d) (or) to be an interest group, and e) to employ appropriate expertise characterized by credibility. Scientific institutions (universities and research units) are not so distinct in scientific information compared to non scientific participants. Internal resources related to member strengths or qualifications, or external consulting do not make significant difference on the salience or “postman” role. Extensive expertise does not favor the salience or “postman” role in scientific information. Salience of appears to be power-dependent.     

Service logics and strategies of Swedish forestry in the structural shifts of forest ownership: challenging the “old” and shaping the “new”

ABSTRACT

Sweden is one of the most forested countries in Europe, and it has one of the highest shares of productive forest. Production in forestry is largely reliant on the private non-industrial forest owners, who own half of the forest land. As in many countries, however, forest ownership is changing towards a higher extent of urban, female or non-forestry-background owners. This poses a challenge for the forestry services sector, mainly forest owners’ associations and companies, but also broadly the sector at large. By exploring the sales and marketing processes, this paper analyses the service logics and strategies of Swedish forestry under changing forest ownership, drawing on an interview study covering all the large actors in the Swedish forestry sector. The study illustrates an increased focus of forestry organizations on services from a strategic and managerial perspective, in customer-oriented relationship development and in value creation and sales processes, specifically in order to manage “new” forest owners and the demand of forest industries. The results highlight the domination of service logics associated with timber production and the challenges for the service market and the provision of diversified services to forest owners.     

Forest governance and sustainability pathways in the absence of a comprehensive national forest policy — The case of New Zealand

A ‘pathways’ and ‘framings’ approach derived from Leach et al. (2010) is used to examine forest sustainability policy in New Zealand. The country has had no comprehensive forest policy since the 1990s and indeed no longer a forest service or its equivalent. Instead ‘forest’ preservation, policy, and monitoring functions are carried out by the Department of Conservation, Ministry of Primary Industry and Ministry of Environment. Exotic plantation forests have themselves been sold off to the private sector and some aspects of planting and harvesting are regulated by the Resource Management Act. Even in this Neo-Liberal setting, and similar to Leach et al.'s work in completely different contexts, policy responses have tended to be oriented towards ‘stability’ and ‘resilience’ types of forest sustainability. Three forest sustainability pathways are evident, directed towards preservation of indigenous biodiversity, economic development without adverse environmental impacts, and monitoring of environmental quality. In some ways the current ‘New Zealand forest governance model’ is an improvement on its predecessor but it seems unlikely to be mobile in a policy sense, resting as it does on the existence a relatively large area of indigenous forest and a large exotic plantation resource where the latter provides all timber needs.     

A short history of Dutch forest policy: The ‘de-institutionalisation’ of a policy arrangement

Over the past thirty years, forest policy in the Netherlands has almost entirely been integrated into nature policy. This process of ‘de-institutionalisation’ is surprising in view of widely accepted theories of institutional stability and ‘path dependency’. The process is investigated in this paper along the four dimensions of the policy arrangement approach: discourse, power, rules and actors. It is argued that a discursive shift, moving the focus from production forest to ‘forest as part of nature’ and fuelled by a number of underlying factors, lies at the heart of the process. In concordance with this shift, advocates of timber autarky lost power in favour of ‘nature advocates’. A more diverse set of actors became involved in forest policy, also reflecting a more general trend in Dutch politics towards greater openness and the erosion of neo-corporatist rules. Thus, changes in all four dimensions of the policy arrangement worked into one direction. This may explain the unusually quick and radical ‘de-institutionalisation’ of Dutch forest policy.     

Do commercial forest plantations reduce pressure on natural forests? Evidence from forest policy reforms in Uganda

This paper investigates if and how the establishment of private commercial forest plantations in degraded forest reserves can conserve natural forests in Uganda. It uses difference-in-difference and decomposition analyses on household data collected from intervention and control villages in the neighborhood of forest reserves. We find that commercial forest plantations are weakly effective in conserving natural forests. The reduction in forest use is unevenly distributed across households depending on location and resource endowments such as farmland and livestock. The results suggest that the conservation effectiveness can be enhanced by complementary interventions that change characteristics that reduce forest use, such as more education for forest users.     

Climate change impacts on stand structure and competitive interactions in a southern Swedish spruce–beech forest

It is believed that European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) will increase its competitive ability at its northern range margin in Scandinavia due to climate change. In mixed old-growth forests of beech and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) at Siggaboda nature reserve (southern Sweden), stand structure characteristics were sequentially recorded in the years 2004, 2005 and 2007 as well as growth in stem diameter using tree-coring analyses. Using these measurements, we studied the effects on stand dynamics of an extreme storm event (2005 “Gudrun” hurricane), drought and heat (mid-summer 2006, spring 2007) and subsequent bark beetle attacks on spruce (growing season 2007), overlaid with warming tendencies. The storm, which caused disastrous damage in many stands nearby, had comparatively little impact on the structure of the spruce–beech stand. All together, only 32 trees (19 spruces, 10 beeches, 3 other species) per hectare were thrown or broken mainly in the leeward direction (NE) or impacted by secondary damage by uprooted neighbour trees; this represents 7% of the total tree number and 11% of the growing stock. Diameter and height structure did not change significantly. However, the 2006 drought and the 2007 attack of biotic agents changed the stand structure and composition strongly due to the death of about 19% of the dominating older spruce trees that accounted for 35% of total stand volume. This resulted in a considerable increase in beech’s contribution to stem number (4% increase) and wood volume of the living stand (7% increase). A comparison of diameter growth of beech and spruce during the periods 1894–1949 and 1950–2005 showed a distinct decrease in growth superiority of spruce during the last 50 years. These results support the idea of a northward migration of European beech as a nemoral tree species in Sweden, due to a higher tolerance to the abiotic and biotic threats accompanying climate change and an increased competitive ability compared to boreal tree species Norway spruce.     

Nutrient release from litter and humus in coniferous forest soils—a mini review

In northern coniferous forests nutrient release from litter occurs primarily in late stages of decomposition when mainly extensively lignified parts remain. An important regulating factor in these stages is the turnover rate of lignin and related compounds. Two factors which influence the decomposition rate of lignin are 1) nitrogen concentration which retards decomposition and 2) concentration of celluloses which increase the turnover rate. The amount and composition of humus which is formed may be dependent on the initial lignin concentration of the litter, which in its turn varies among species. These results from studies in northern coniferous forests are discussed in an ecosystem context.     

The use and non‐use of economics and mathematics in forest economics. The Swedish experience 1876–1976

The paper surveys Swedes’ contributions to forest economics during a period of hundred years starting in 1876, when Carl‐Gustaf Holmerz's book “Studies in Forest Surveying”; was first published. This contains the correct solution to the problem of when to cut down an evenly aged forest stand, but the so‐called Swedish “profitability war”; could not be avoided. Gustaf Cassel's, Gunnar Myrdal's, Bertil Ohlin's, Sven Petrini's, and Thorsten Streyffert's contributions are discussed, as well as an until recently unpublished contribution by Knut Wickseil. The paper also shows how slowly the methods of positive economics were introduced in forest economics in comparison with the normative OR‐methods, and that econometric techniques have also been sparsely applied. A few outstanding exceptions are pointed out, e.g., the Ruist‐Svennilson estimates of timber supply functions published in 1949.     

Comparison of harvesting and business activities of non-shareholders and shareholders in a forest common in Västerbotten,Sweden

Abstract

Swedish forest commons are collectively owned and managed by shareholders who always also own other forest holdings. The majority of them are non-industrial private forest (NIPF) owners. The objective of this study was to assess differences, with respect to harvesting intensity and related business activities on their individually managed forest properties, between non-shareholders and shareholders in a Swedish forest common. Forest commons are intended to promote local agriculture and forestry and to serve as a model for forestry activities. On this basis, the hypotheses examined in this study were that the shareholders’ harvesting and business activities, as well as their contributions to the local economy, are greater than those of non-shareholders. An apparent difference between shareholders and non-shareholders was found, but it was unexpected since non-shareholders undertook more harvesting and business activities than shareholders, and contributed more to the local economy through taxes. Since no evidence was found for a significant difference between the two categories in their potential to undertake forestry activities, one provisional conclusion is that the outcome is partly due to differences between the institutional frameworks in which shareholders and non-shareholders operate and the impact of these frameworks on incentives to maximize forest production.     

Wild boar rooting in a northern coniferous forest – minor silviculture impact

European wild boar (Sus scrofa) is expanding northwards beyond its preferred habitat of broadleaved forests. We studied wild boar habitat use in a northern coniferous forest, and noted whether their rooting damaged roots, thereby influencing timber quality and forest regeneration (n = 562 rootings). Overall, the animals selected older spruce (Picea abies L.) forest of higher soil fertility with sparse field vegetation for rooting. During winter, they rooted more in pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forest on lower soil fertility, possibly because the lichen cover can easily be removed even on frozen ground. Average size and depth of rootings were 6 ± 0.6 m² and 10 ± 0.2 cm, respectively. Rooting occurred on <1% of the area and caused negligible damage to roots of trees with commercial value. Because the wild boar mainly rooted in older forest, rootings will do little to improve germination of seeds by scarification of the top soil layer.