Resilience through policy integration in Europe? Domestic forest policy changes as response to absorb pressure to integrate biodiversity conservation, bioenergy use and climate protection in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse how and why domestic forest policies in Europe have responded to pressures to integrate biodiversity conservation, climate and bioenergy policies. We use content analysis of documents and interviews to analyse change and stability in domestic forest policy goals, instruments and practices in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden over time. We find that decision-makers in forest policy and practice responded to pressure to integrate biodiversity into forestry through four different types of policy change outcomes and processes. Depending on the context, these responses included layering, drift, conversion and/or replacement. In all countries, the forest policy changes were driven by (partly shifting) coalitional politics and changes in external conditions. Domestic forest policy regimes shifted from ‘timber production’ towards ‘multifunctional’, ‘sustainable forest management’ or ‘biodiversity’ primacy, and then back to ‘timber harvesting’. Forest policy also integrated bioenergy and climate change policies in order to minimise pressure by EU and national biodiversity policy sectors and to enable ‘timber harvesting’ (re-)turns in forest policy. We conclude that policy integration processes and the shifts in forest policy they contain refer to a sectoral resilience, that is, the ability of forest policy to react to, minimise, and absorb pressures to integrate biodiversity conservation policies.