Sustainable Forests? : values, perceptions and expectations among three stakeholder groups in the light of the Swedish bioeconomy transition

Abstract: This research investigates different perspectives on the current forest bioeconomy investments in the north of Sweden. The research takes its stance from a broad definition of the concept of diversity, transecting both social and natural science, in its attempts to answer the thesis question: What suggested changes in forestry and forest governance follow from different visions of the bioeconomy transition, and what impacts do these have on aspects of diversity in the north of Sweden? The research is conducted in the light of the National Forest Program, which is currently being developed for the government through a series of working group processes, where a transition from a dependency on fossil fuel towards bioeconomy is highlighted as one of the driving motives behind the program. The study embraces an agroecological, holistic approach, as it attempts to capture the biological, socio-economic, and cultural implications that changes in forest governing resulting from the bioeconomy transition might entail. To reflect a variety of trajectories for how the bioeconomy might affect the forest and its users, the study takes a qualitative stance, and zooms in on three interest groups with different stakes in forest governance and potentially different visions for the bioeconomy transition. The interest groups included are reindeer herders, forest owners and forest researchers. The perspectives of these groups are then placed in a wider frame of Swedish forest policy and governance, where possible implications for forest diversity are being discussed. The research concludes that a number of dichotomies can be observed, within both forest governance and the interviewed stakeholder groups, as it comes to forest values, perceptions and expectations. These mainly concern how the concept of sustainability is interpreted, the degree of multifunctionality in future land use, and the extent to which personal relationships to forest were seen as relevant for the professional perspectives on the same. In the conclusions, some suggestions for consideration in the policy-making process surrounding the National Forest Program are given.