Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
• Learning through evaluation reveals barriers and bridges for forest multifunctionality. • Qualitative and quantitative data identify core patterns and driving transition factors. • In spite of five decades of efforts, landscape planning failed to materialise. • Negative effects of intensified forestry on preferred landscape values. Even-aged forest management is criticised for negative impacts on natural and cultural values, and on value chains dependent on multifunctional forest landscapes. We identify barriers and bridges supporting the development of multifunctional forest landscapes. Examining five decades of projects aimed at landscape planning in the Swedish Tiveden forest massif, we selected the initiative Collaboration Tiveden for learning through evaluation. Using document reviews, expert interviews, focus groups and participatory observations, we mapped efforts from the period 1969–2023 encouraging forest multifunctionality. Following the selected collaborative initiative from 2016 to 2023 we collected qualitative and quantitative data. Content analysis using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, and validation using independent data, identified patterns and core driving factors associated to efforts supporting transition from industrial forestry to forest multifunctionality. We identified 11 efforts towards landscape planning. However, in spite of intensified forestry, increased need for protected areas, and pressure from tourists, landscape planning failed to materialise, and alternatives to even-aged forest management was restricted to demonstration sites and not scaled up. Qualitative and quantitative data demonstrate negative effects of intensified forestry on preferred landscape values. Nevertheless, branding using wilderness and narratives of multifunctionality support rural nature-based tourism. However, pressure from tourism on nature increased. Polarisation among actors hampers collaborative learning. Multifunctional forest landscapes require several different forest management systems and landscape planning. This requires learning about multiple forest values, and different forest owners’ and users’ preferences. While learning through evaluation is important, evidence-based mapping of states and trends of material and immaterial landscape values is not easily accessible, or ignored. Legacies of even-aged forest management are resistant to change.
Angelstam et al. (Wed,) studied this question.