Managing species, managing connections: Social‐ecological alignment in state forestry

Forests are shaped not only by ecological processes but also by the actions and interactions of those managing them. In state‐managed multifunctional forests, forest district managers play a central role in translating policies into practice. Although their actions are often situated and discretionary, it remains unclear how shared species drive collaboration, and how these interactions relate to perceived management effectiveness. Understanding these dynamics is critical for improving adaptive capacity and advancing social‐ecological system governance. We applied a social‐ecological network approach to examine patterns of horizontal collaboration among forest district managers in a German state forest company. We integrated spatial, ecological and social relational data to explore how collaboration aligns with species occurrence and how these dynamics relate to self‐reported management effectiveness. District managers are conceptualised as environmental street‐level bureaucrats, whose discretion and interactions shape governance on the ground. Our findings show that interactions are regionally clustered and shaped by spatial proximity and species co‐occurrence. Collaboration is selective rather than uniform, concentrating on species perceived as manageable, visible or politically sensitive, such as capercaillie, red deer, lynx and wolf. Managers more embedded in social networks report higher perceived effectiveness, indicating a possible relationship between collaboration intensity and self‐reported management capacity. Social‐ecological alignment appears to be driven less by shared species co‐occurrence and more by perceived relevance and institutional attention. Species that are politically sensitive or legally complex tend to attract more cross‐boundary collaboration, whereas less visible or routine management coincides with fewer interactions. This pattern reflects a selective form of alignment shaped by institutional priorities, societal expectations and situated managerial discretion. These insights highlight the need to account for informal relations and contextual factors in forest governance. Strengthening adaptive capacity may depend not only on formal networks but also on supporting flexible, trust‐based collaboration on ecologically and socially relevant issues. Governance is shaped by relations, perceptions and ecological realities, not policy alone. A relational perspective is essential for understanding and improving how forest governance works in practice. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.