Let’s Talk about Swedish Forests: From Polarisation to Sustainable Transition / Snack om svenska skogar: Från polarisering till hållbar omställning - Theme, Pufendorf IAS

Theme at the Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies:
Swedish forests have increasingly become the subject of polarised debates. Many stakeholders praise efficient forest management for Sweden’s role as a major exporter of forest products. Others, however, criticise that Swedish forestry predominantly favours large-scale clear-cutting over alternatives like continuous cover forestry – at the expense of Sweden’s compliance with core environmental objectives and EU law.
When we talk about polarisation, we also talk about language, in the sense of emotionally motivated, strongly divergent and selective understandings of key terms like old growth-forests and goals like biodiversity. The socio-cultural and sustainability impacts of this selectivity can be profound since forestry touches upon existential questions for a wide array of Swedish stakeholders: from the state to industrial associations, family enterprises, Sami reindeer herders, civil society and research organizations. Such consequences may include discrimination and social conflicts or loss of biodiversity and cultural heritage.
Against this backdrop, the major objective of our Pufendorf Theme is to initiate ground-breaking research on the shape, manifestation and consequences of polarisation over Swedish forestry – and to investigate what strategies can alleviate polarisation to meet some of Sweden’s key environmental objectives.
To study the diverse dimensions of polarisation, our interdisciplinary team combines social science expertise on the role of language, individual emotions, structural violence and policy advice with sustainability impact expertise by ecologists, human and physical geographers. Together we build on the analytical framework and research platform of a Pufendorf ASG on Swedish land-use conflicts. We take this work further through a novel discursive and emotional analysis of Swedish forestry, a diversity of methods (from spatial analysis to emotional assessments and network analyses), and targeted recommendations for different stakeholder groups. With our fellow and invited guests, four world-leading experts on forest politics and economics, we further develop grant proposals for comparative studies on forest use and polarisation in an EU context.

Swedish forestry stands at a crossroad. While intensive forest management supports a strong export industry, growing concerns are being raised about biodiversity loss, sustainability, and compliance with environmental objectives. These conflicting views have led to increased polarisation – rooted not only in policy differences, but in the language and emotions shaping public and political discourse.
This Pufendorf Theme studies how polarisation around Swedish forests manifests, why it matters, and what can be done to move toward a more sustainable and inclusive dialogue. By integrating insights from environmental psychology, forest management, ecology, human and physical geography, and political science, the Theme explores how terms like "old-growth forest" and goals like "biodiversity" carry different meanings across stakeholder groups – from the forest industry and state agencies to local and indigenous communities, family forest owners, and civil society organisations. Moreover, the Theme examines potential consequences of this polarization, such as, e.g., silencing, and biodiversity loss.
Based on these insights, the Theme identifies new strategies for mediation and fairer and sustainable compromises. The team will also explore EU-level comparative studies, broadening the relevance and impact of their work.

Skogsbruket i Sverige är idag en balansgång mellan viktiga ekonomiska och ekologiska mål. Skogsdebatten i landet har blivit alltmer laddad och polariserad under de senaste åren. Å ena sidan finns de som förespråkar intensivt skogsbruk för att upprätthålla Sveriges roll som en ledande leverantör av skogsprodukter. Å andra sidan finns kritiker som menar att det svenska skogsbruket använder ohållbara metoder som storskaliga kalhyggen, vilket hotar artrika skogar och undergräver de nationella miljömålen, EU- och FN-lagstiftning.
Vårt Pufendorf Tema syftar till att analysera dessa inlåsningar i svenskt skogsbruk, deras drivkrafter och effekter, och identifiera möjliga hållbara skogsbruksalternativ och minska polariseringen. Vi fokuserar särskilt på debatten om hyggesfritt skogsbruk (CCF; ‘Continuous Cover Forestry’ ) som ett alternativ till traditionellt trakthyggesbruk med kalhyggen (‘Rotation Forest Management’).