The non-governmental organizations influence on forest sector in Poland and in Sweden

Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the influence of the Environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (ENGOs) on the forest sector by comparison between Polandand Sweden. Growing importance of NGOs in environmental and social issues in last decadeshas been also observed in forest sector. ENGOs could be considered as an important actor insolving and defining nature conservation and forest policy problems. Study was performedfrom December 2007 till January 2008, on a sample of 9 ENGOs from Poland and 7 ENGOsfrom Sweden, based on the interviews and surveys.The ENGOs pay much less attention to the actors which they consider as weak orneutral in terms of power in addressing forest-related problems (e.g. individual forest ownersand industry in Poland). Swedish and Polish ENGOs seek to address mainly the mostinfluential and powerful actors of forest sector: Government and State Forests (in bothcountries) and Industry (in Sweden). Instead of disposing of one, universal way of actingapplicable to all actors, ENGOs use specific actor-oriented strategies aimed at addressinggiven actor in direct (e.g. lobbying, dialogue with an actor) or indirect (e.g. influencing actorvia international institution or certification) way. ENGOs seek to avoid the reciprocalcompetition by diversification of their product (domain in which they specialize) and strategy(means they use). Swedish and Polish ENGOs point out the same main problems observed inforest sector: insufficient area of high nature value forests put under protection, followed bythe large number of problems related to the forest management in both countries. While allthe ENGOs agree that state-ownership of forest is the best solution for environmental andorganizational reasons, their perception of optimal forest land use (multi-functional orspecialized) form radically differs.