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The paper analyses stakeholder involvement and public participation in preparing Regional Forest Programmes (RFP) in Finland. Such programmes establish the outlines for regional forest management, setting targets and action plans for industrial timber use, non-wood production, recreational activities, and nature conservation in each region. Our analysis suggests that the RFP process has brought together a significant cross-section of actors who meet on a regular basis. Hence, it has become an institutionalised cooperation between key stakeholder organisations. It has facilitated information exchange and learning about issues pertaining to forest management practices, timber markets, and protection of biodiversity. Engaging the general public in the RFP process has, however, been mostly ineffectual. The process has also fallen short of the expectations to reconcile different perspectives and produce jointly accepted strategies. The biggest challenges lie in finding approaches to address conflicts constructively and to draw up a RFP that will contribute to actual changes in forest management activities.

Participation is seen as an important aspect of sustainable forest management (SFM). Especially important are the policy processes, where the effectiveness of the policy is determined by the commitment of the stakeholders to the selected policy. There are, however, different opinions as to what constitutes a successful participatory process. In this study, we analysed the stakeholder perspectives about proper participation process in Regional Forest Programme preparation in Finland using Q-methodology. We found four different perspectives: pragmatic consensus-seekers, reformers, expertise-oriented actors and participation sceptics. The pragmatists seek for consensus, but purely on traditional forestry issues. The reformers, on the other hand, wanted to introduce other aspects into the process and opposed the dominant position of the traditional forestry network in the RFP process. The expertise-oriented group was ready to discuss different aspects, but wanted to promote the power of experts. The sceptics wanted to allocate the minimum effort to participation. The results suggest that framing and organizing the process, reaching commitment, roles of different information, and the ways of taking into account the views of general public should be emphasized in future RFP's.