Multi-level Planning and Conflicting Interests in the Forest Landscape

This chapter describes and analyses overlapping planning structures and multi-level planning issues and how they affect current land use and management in the forest landscape. Forest land use in Sweden is based on a large proportion of privately owned forests with the primary purpose of producing timber for the forest industries. Nevertheless, the forests are also characterised by multiple uses and many stakeholders (economic as well as ecological and social) who express themselves and relate to forest management. In this chapter, we present a number of methods, both traditional and more recent, for managing multiple use of the forest landscape. These range from physical planning and the Swedish Right of Public Access to Natura 2000, forest certification, reindeer-husbandry plans, and scenario techniques.