Clash or concert in European forests? Integration and coherence of forest ecosystem service–related national policies

This paper compares how forest ecosystem service–related policies are integrated in different national European forest governance contexts. Efforts to achieve policy integration at the EU and national levels are often described in terms of limited success. Our analysis of forest, energy/bioeconomy, climate, and conservation policies suggests that notions of progress or failure merit careful assessment. Combining theories of policy integration (PI), environmental policy integration (EPI), and policy coherence, we argue that integration outcomes depend on the combined effects of the degree and nature of PI, EPI, and multilevel coherence in the context of the prevailing forest governance system. The nature of the interdependencies, specifically anticipated synergies, and the scope of FES-related climate objectives, are crucial. Realizing the range of FES-related objectives entails safeguarding objectives not synergistically aligned with economic aims. Failures to safeguard biodiversity and regulating and cultural ecosystem services in the process of integration may have far-reaching consequences.

Funding: This work was conducted as part of the ERA-Net Sumforest Project “POLYFORES” (Grant Agreement 606803). The related research was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism (BMNT) [grant 101201/1], the Ministry of Economy and Business of the Spanish Government (project code PCIN- 2017-050), German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) [grant number 2816ERA03S], the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS, Dnr. 2016-02111). The Russian study was carried out within the framework of CEPF RAS’ state assignment (No. 121121600118-8).