Multi-stakeholder collaboration in Russian and Swedish model forest initiatives : adaptive governance toward sustainable forest management?

摘要

Building the adaptive capacity of interlinked social and ecological systems is assumed toudimprove implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM) policies. One mechanism is collaborativeudlearning by continuous evaluation, communication, and transdisciplinary knowledge production. TheudModel Forest (MF) concept, developed in Canada, is intended to encourage all dimensions of sustainableuddevelopment through collaboration among stakeholders of forest resources in a geographical area. Becauseudthe MF approach encompasses both social and ecological systems, it can be seen as a process aimed atudimproving adaptive capacity to deal with uncertainty and change. We analyzed multi-stakeholderudapproaches used in four MF initiatives representing social–ecological systems with different governanceudlegacies and economic histories in the northwest of the Russian Federation (Komi MF and Pskov MF) andudin Sweden (Vilhelmina MF and the Foundation Säfsen Forests in the Bergslagen region). To describe theudmotivations behind development of the initiative and the governance systems, we used qualitative openendedudinterviews and analyzed reports and official documents. The initial driving forces for establishingudnew local governance arrangements were different in all four cases. All MFs were characterized by multileveludand multi-sector collaboration. However, the distribution of power among stakeholders ranged fromudclearly top down in the Russian Federation to largely bottom up in Sweden. All MF initiatives shared threeudmain challenges: (a) to develop governance arrangements that include representative actors andudstakeholders, (b) to combine top-down and bottom-up approaches to governance, and (c) to coordinateuddifferent sectors’ modes of landscape governance. We conclude that, in principle, the MF concept is audpromising approach to multi-stakeholder collaboration. However, to understand the local and regionaluddimensions of sustainability, and the level of adaptability of such multi-stakeholder collaboration initiatives,udempirical studies of outcomes are needed. To assess the adaptive capacity, the states and trends of economic,udecological, social, and cultural dimensions in actual landscapes need to be linked to how the multistakeholderudcollaboration develops and performs over the long term.