Forest governance : International, EU and National-Level Frameworks

This paper aims to describe the international and national legislative, regulative and normative framework that can be seen as affecting forest use. In total, these include among other things directives on a European Union (EU) level (that are brought into law nationally); supporting regulation, and the large normative framework often on an international level that has become binding through state ratification. In addition, norms such as environmental and social measures in certification are agreed upon voluntary by forest companies, and then controlled by third parties. In total, this entire framework is referred to in this paper as “forest governance”, where governance is seen as the way in which actions in a sector (here, forest use) are steered from multiple levels and by multiple actors. Whereas one usually thinks perhaps of the Forest Code as steering forest use for a forest manager, the entire framework is thus much larger and much more complex: few people would today, for instance, argue that certification or Natura 2000 environmental protection does not have an effect on the individual forest owner, although most may not be aware of the larger and developing array of EU directives that are implemented into Swedish national legislation and impact for instance zoning around watercourses and the like. Forest governance is thus an important factor for all forest use.In this preliminary version of the paper, a focus has been placed on forestry as a forest use, even if some mention is included also of environmental protection and reindeer husbandry. Beyond these, a number of other forest uses of course exist. The description of forest governance on different levels in this paper will start from the international and EU level to describe how non-domestic areas impact Sweden, to then proceed to national level. The paper is mainly based on a literature survey of published literature as well as legislation. The international and EU level frameworks have previously been reviewed by several authors, in particular the work of Kankaanpää and Carter (2004), the Agriculture and Forestry Special Report from European Climate Change Program Working Group II (ECCP WGII, 2006) and most recently Glück et al (2009). Where not otherwise mentioned, this report draws upon these resources as well as from the websites of the various international organizations, conventions and the European Commission. This report extends previous discussions and provides some preliminary discussion of the degree of success of some of these policy efforts. On national level, the description of the national system is mainly based on legislation, including the Forestry Act, Environmental Code, and to some extent the Planning and Building Act and Reindeer Husbandry Act