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Biodiversity is the foundation of our lives. Yet we destroy ecosystems and drive species to extinction. Human-induced biodiversity loss does not yet receive sufficient public attention, although biodiversity is fundamental for dealing with global environmental crises. Effective communication of biodiversity-related knowledge is challenging but crucial and should contribute to evidence-based decision-making transparent to the public. It is essential to promote science communication on biodiversity, and to stimulate dialogue between science, policy, and society. We emphasize the role of science journalism in critically mediating the complexity of scientific knowledge and suggest Dos and Don'ts for scientists to guide biodiversity-related science communication.

The change in forest ownership structures, the resulting fragmentation of forest properties and restitution processes have led to the emergence of organizations in Europe that are able to deal with these challenges. Changes in the timber selling process due to decisions of the German Federal Competition Authority have led first to uncertain conditions for forest management cooperatives (FMCs) and their members in the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. In the course of this change, some FMCs have questioned their status quo while others have evolved under uncertain conditions. This paper aims to provide an overview of factors determining the further development of forest management cooperatives under uncertain conditions following the categories of actor-centered institutionalism (ACI). To be able to conduct a comprehensive political analysis of the changes taking place in the timber selling process, the ACI approach is used in conjunction with path dependency as the theoretical framework for this paper. Methodologically, it is based on a qualitative analysis of field protocols from four regional conferences in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, involving a total of 140 participants in 2017. The results highlight that individual actors, the economic and social capabilities of FMCs, the existing constellations and interactions determine further developments under uncertainty. Legal certainty and in some cases the withdrawal of the state determine positively the dealing with uncertain situations. Foresters and their direction essentially determine the development. Furthermore, FMCs highlight that the cooperation with municipal foresters has a positive impact that will help deal with uncertainty in the future. A clear interest of cooperation and long-standing relationships also determine further developments under uncertain conditions.

Using secondary literature and interviews, this paper examines forest discourses since World War II in four countries: Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Sweden. The national discourses often thematically coincide between the case countries, most prominently in the post-war endeavour to restore forest resources. This period was followed by diverging ideas and practices such as abandonment and fragmentation in Italy, resource conservation by stealth in Lithuania, multifunctionality in the Netherlands, and ongoing intensification in Sweden. Recently, the national discourses have been re-converging on the environment and the bioeconomy, albeit at different times and intensity. Overall, many national ideological battles follow the global meta-discourses, but linkages to these are much weaker for forestry practices.

Major land use changes such as deforestation and restoration influence water resources in agriculture–forest landscapes. Changes are observed in water flows, groundwater infiltration, water quality and rainfall. Interdisciplinary water–forest research has unravelled biophysical parts of the interplay that influences forest and water resources. In this Perspective paper, we propose an expanded interdisciplinary research approach to study water and policies in agriculture–forest frontiers. The approach differs in four important aspects from previous ones: (i) a conceptual ‘frontier’ understanding; an analytical focus on (ii) agriculture and (iii) policy–water linkages; (iv) empirical attention to northern and southern countries. The approach is put into practice with the “Pendulum” framework, with interventions and the agriculture–forest frontier oscillating over time between exploitation and restoration. Through the approach, a better understanding will be provided on the dynamic interplay of water and policies in oscillating agriculture–forest frontiers, with changing outcomes for people and environment.

How perceptions of the forest-based bioeconomy differ across country contexts and social groups is important as it opens possibilities for the development of more inclusive, locally and socially relevant bioeconomy policies and strategies. Therefore, this special section explores the social dimensions of the forest-based bioeconomy by focusing on discourses and perceptions of different actor groups in Europe. We introduce six articles that range from review and discursive approaches to consumer studies. The section adds to the existing literature by focusing not only on political decision makers, stakeholders, and experts but also on the public, media and students. Patterns in the presented discourses and perceptions can be identified but more is needed to validate these and respond to the question of representativeness.

This paper reviews the design of the international forest governance and policy, and analyses its impacts in addressing deforestation and forest degradation as global sustainability issues. Informed by literatures on international relations, regulatory governance of global commodity production, and international pathways of domestic influence, key arrangements are aggregated into six types, and mapped in terms of their main aims, instruments, and implementation mechanisms. Key analytical dimensions, such as the actors involved (state–private–mixed), the character of legal authority (legally binding–non-legally binding), and the geopolitical scope (global–transnational) helped to identify the potential and limitations of arrangements. They were assessed and compared in terms of their main pathways of influence such as international hard-law rules, cross-sectoral policy integration, non-legally binding norms and discourses, global market mechanisms, and direct access through capacity building. Our results reveal important challenges in the design and implementation, and in the pathways of influence, of the forest governance arrangements, including major inconsistencies with forest-adverse economic sectors. We conclude about the need for coherent international forest-related policy cooperation and integrative actions in agriculture, bioenergy, and mining to enhance the prospects of achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

This paper reviews the design of the international forest governance and policy, and analyses its impacts in addressing deforestation and forest degradation as global sustainability issues. Informed by literatures on international relations, regulatory governance of global commodity production, and international pathways of domestic influence, key arrangements are aggregated into six types, and mapped in terms of their main aims, instruments, and implementation mechanisms. Key analytical dimensions, such as the actors involved (state–private–mixed), the character of legal authority (legally binding–non-legally binding), and the geopolitical scope (global–transnational) helped to identify the potential and limitations of arrangements. They were assessed and compared in terms of their main pathways of influence such as international hard-law rules, cross-sectoral policy integration, non-legally binding norms and discourses, global market mechanisms, and direct access through capacity building. Our results reveal important challenges in the design and implementation, and in the pathways of influence, of the forest governance arrangements, including major inconsistencies with forest-adverse economic sectors. We conclude about the need for coherent international forest-related policy cooperation and integrative actions in agriculture, bioenergy, and mining to enhance the prospects of achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

International audience; The overarching aim of this review paper is to investigate the involvement of experts, citizens, and participatory professionals in forest policy decision-making processes. Three interpretations of governance are distinguished to translate the idea of an orchestra to European (forest) policy making processes, referring to Frank Fischer's differentiation between a centralised state guided by administrative and policy experts on the one hand and deliberative governance driven by citizen participation on the other and a form of governance by participation professionals. The review included in total 81 research articles published between 1998 and 2015 addressing participation and expert involvement in forest policy. The results show that governance by participatory professionals is clearly visible in forest policy making processes in Europe mainly involving traditional groups as forest owners. Whether these participation professionals are engaged in a deliberative process with citizens remains unanswered. The results furthermore show a strong involvement of experts though the literature is rather silent as to how this steering of experts evolves in participatory forest processes. Finally the analysis shows that governance by citizen participation is rather neglected in forest policy processes in Europe. It is perceived as difficult to pursue, even at the local level. Therefore this article found nearly no empirical evidence for a socalled citizen's orchestra with the competence to self-align by deliberation. Instead citizens seem to be no part of the orchestra itself, but remain outside as part of the audience.

International audience; The term bioeconomy has been generated as a new discourse in the environmental policy arena. This paper raises three questions: (i) are environmentalconcerns integrated in the political discourses of bioeconomy and, if so, to what extent?, (ii) in which way is the environment framedin the political discourses of bioeconomy?, and (iii) are environmental concerns considered in the political discourses on forest-basedbioeconomy? The theoretical framework of this paper builds on the cognitive approach of policy integration and on frame analysis. Theempirical research design is a comparative qualitative analysis of five different political bioeconomy discourses in the EU and four different EUmember states – Germany, Finland, France and the Netherlands – in general and in the forestry sector specifically. Results show a weak andmainly rhetorical integration of environmental concerns in political bioeconomy discourses. Three major environmental frames are identified:(i) The dominant frame of ‘Environment benefitting from economic growth’, (ii) the ‘Environment as a challenge’ and (iii) the less visible‘Environment as a standard’ frame. In general, these frames address the environment mainly as a challenge or something that needs to be safeguardedwith the help of the bioeconomy. With the exception of Finland, amongst the countries studied, forests plays only a minor role inbioeconomy discourses while environmental concerns in this strand of discussion are mainly focused on sustainability arguments in general.

Der Forst- und Holzsektor ist ein wichtiger Baustein der Biookonomie. Die nordeuropaischen Lander sehen die Ressource Wald und die starke Forstindustrie als wesentlichen Faktor fur die Entwicklung einer wettbewerbsfahigen, bio-basierten Okonomie und haben den Begriff „forstbasierte Biookonomie“ gepragt. Ob eine forstbasierte Biookonomie in anderen Teilen Europas, in denen der Forstsektor politisch und wirtschaftlich eine geringere Rolle spielt, ebenfalls moglich ist, bleibt jedoch unklar. Zwar ist die Forst- und Holzwirtschaft in Deutschland ein wichtiger Wirtschaftszweig, im Vordergrund der Diskussion steht jedoch eine technologie-fokussierte „lignozellulosebasierte Biookonomie“, die insbesondere auf chemische und biotechnologische Prozesse abzielt. Anhand eines akteurszentrierten Vergleichs der Biookonomie in Deutschland und Finnland fokussiert dieser Beitrag auf die politische Dimension der forstbasierten Biookonomie. Konkret fragen wir dabei nach den Akteuren, die an einer forstbasierten Biookonomie beteiligt sind und nach ihren Uberzeugungen und Visionen hinsichtlich der Biookonomie. Der Vergleich der beiden Lander ermoglicht uns auf Lucken in den Netzwerken hinzuweisen und damit gleichermasen die Moglichkeiten und Grenzen einer forstbasierten Biookonomie auszuloten.

Forests and forest-relevant policies in Europe face a wide array of challenges in a rapidly changing world. Issues such as Brexit, the new European Parliament and European Commission, and the recent European Green Deal proposal are certain to affact policymaking, as are the as-yet unknown impacts of the coronavirus /COVID-19). A new science-policy study from EFI provides a timely look at forest governance in Europe, and offers insights into the potential way forward. Many of the forest-relevant policies currently in place have been targeted towards 2020, and while a final evaluation of their achievements is not yet possible, a look into the future is essential. Forest products and services are increasingly an inherent and integrated element of many other sectors, ranging from energy to food production to conseravtion and public health. This wide range of sectors and multiple interests, at different levels, leads to a complex multi-sectoral governance system. For example, within the EU, negaotiations are currently ongoing on post-2020 EU policies on agriculture and rural development, biodiversity, climate, industry, food security, circular economy and new legislation on sustainable finance. All of them, and the EU Green Deal in particular, will have an important influence on forest-related decision-making processes. A strategic and coordinated policy direction will be required after 2020, not least to support the implementation of globally agreed policy targets such as the SDGs, the Paris Climate Agreement and CBD. In the global policy arena, trade developments related to eg China, Russia and Northamerica will also have important implications for the European forest sector. This report reviews significant developments in the forest governance framework including EU and international developments, and discusses how coordination in other policy areas than forests can to to policy integration. Based on evidence from a literature review, stakeholder interviews and workshop results, it outlines several potential pathways for future fore policymaking in Europe.

Climate change causes changes in forests, their ecological functions and ecosystem services. Many of these changes will negatively impact people, plants, animals and micro-organisms that depend on forests. SDG 13 aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change and drive adaptation actions. Current commitments are insufficient to reach the Paris Agreement goals of restricting warming to less than 2oC and increasing resilience of vulnerable communities. Better forest and land management can contribute up to 20 per cent of the Paris goals, while increasing community and ecosystem resilience, and help bridge this gap. Strong synergies between SDG 13 and forests can drive investment in sustainable forest management, forest restoration and forest conservation. However, achieving these synergies is challenged by unsustainable forest exploitation and pressures to develop land for agriculture, urban areas and infrastructure. Maximising potential synergies between forests and SDG 13 requires long-term finance and local collaboration, but currently only 3 per cent of climate finance is dedicated to forest actions, and much less is used for local implementation. Improved forest management and conservation can be achieved through more efficient use of the finance, increased investment from public and private sectors and stronger commitment to local actions.

Forest policy and management are subject to various and often conflicting demands, which internationally have led to distinct policy responses and related management paradigms. These range from a strong focus on commodity production complemented by economic rationalities – e.g. focusing on plantations – to community-based or social forestry approaches highlighting local participation and stakeholder engagement, to a focus on ecosystem services and conservation. A major challenge involves the potential orientation of the overall forest policy and management paradigm either towards integrating manifold demands more or less evenly across an area, or towards dividing the land base into forest areas with different management priorities. The specific reconciliation and integration of both sides of the spectrum have been at the centre of scientific and political discussion on forest policy and management for several decades. In this context, the “German model” of integrative and multifunctional forest management has received international attention. It is regarded as an example for integrating diverse (societal and ecological) demands into a timber-production-oriented management approach. At the same time, the model's primary focus on timber production has been criticised by some. In this paper, we analyse the political dimension of the German model by tracing the birth and evolution of the so-called LÖWE programme, a much noticed governmental forest management programme in the German state of Lower Saxony. LÖWE has frequently been presented as a particularly successful example of multifunctional forestry. We first assess the specific societal and political circumstances that led to the establishment of the programme 20 years ago. Subsequently, we assess its political function in forest policy debates about various demands on Lower Saxony's public forests. We show that the evolution of the programme can be interpreted in two distinct but non-exclusive ways. On the one hand, LÖWE was a strategic success story for the Forest Service because it aligned (and also appeased) conflicting demands in line with the changing political priorities. On the other hand, it also embodied a learning process towards environmental policy integration. By underlining LÖWE as an example of the German model of integrative multifunctional forest management, we reiterate the strategic importance of this model in the German context and also highlight future challenges and related research needs.

The aim of this paper is to understand if analytical theory as used in forest policy analysis can contribute to explaining how global media reports about a contested issue like forest conservation are framed. It therefore takes an actor and interest-based approach on framing. The empirical study is based on 129 media articles on forest conservation published in international print media, TIME and International Herald Tribune between 1990 and 2004. The results indicate that journalists are in a prime position: on the one hand, dominantly framing problems and, on the other hand, acting like a gatekeeper deciding on the visibility and standing of other actors. In their framing, journalists have assigned the role of causers mainly to the political-administrative system (PAS) and enterprises and the role of the helper as well to the PAS but furthermore to NGOs and individuals. Attention paid to media stars addressing forest conservation issues appears as a strategy to increase the news value of the articles. Except for journalists, actors with standing use the chance to present themselves in the role of helper only to a limited extend and they make even more seldom use of the speaker position to point towards a specific causer.

This paper explores whether and how frames used within different sectors in Sweden concerned with bioenergy from forest products are driven by environmental objectives. It complements existing research on environmental policy integration (EPI) in bioenergy policies of political-administrative Swedish sectors by conducting a frame analysis of articles published in three journals in Sweden that represent the energy, agricultural and forestry sectors. Ten frames that were used consistently across the three sectors in the time period from 2001 to 2010 were identified. Environmental rhetoric, one of the prerequisites for EPI, was identified; however, it plays only a secondary role given that bioenergy frames focus mainly on economic objectives, presenting bioenergy as a means of increasing profitability.

International audience; The term "orchestration" is predominately used in relation to studying or practicing music. Recently the term has also been used to describe the automated coordination and management of complex computer systems in order to make their service-oriented architecture and provisioning more efficient. Both terms conceptualize a process of different elements working together in an aligned way. This special issue addresses as well the question of how 'elements' work together, focusing on European forest governance and on the orchestration of stakeholders and experts in forest governance.

Politics increasingly introduces initiatives supporting a shift toward a bioeconomy aiming at a society relying strongly on renewable biological sources while achieving economic growth efficiently and sustainably. However, the agenda of bioeconomy comprises different “shades of green,” in the sense that different actors stress different aspects of the concept, when embracing it in communication. This conceptual paper aims to present policy and socioeconomic theoretical frameworks and research areas relevant for a more holistic understanding of the bioeconomy concept applied to the forest sector, and identify a core set of potential contributions from social sciences for enhancing the bioeconomy in the forest sector. The paper focuses on studies within policy analysis, economics, and business administration disciplines. Thus it presents diverse disciplinary perspectives on the forest sector in a bioeconomy. Furthermore, innovation and sustainability have been identified as issues relevant to be approached across these disciplines. Politics increasingly introduces initiatives supporting a shift toward a bioeconomy aiming at a society relying strongly on renewable biological sources while achieving economic growth efficiently and sustainably. However, the agenda of bioeconomy comprises different “shades of green,” in the sense that different actors stress different aspects of the concept, when embracing it in communication. This conceptual paper aims to present policy and socioeconomic theoretical frameworks and research areas relevant for a more holistic understanding of the bioeconomy concept applied to the forest sector, and identify a core set of potential contributions from social sciences for enhancing the bioeconomy in the forest sector. The paper focuses on studies within policy analysis, economics, and business administration disciplines. Thus it presents diverse disciplinary perspectives on the forest sector in a bioeconomy. Furthermore, innovation and sustainability have been identified as issues relevant to be approached across these disciplines.

Over the previous decades, forest policy has been affected by social, ecological and economic changes. Traditionally forest policy is understood as addressing forest and forest management issues st...

A great variety of partially conflicting perspectives exist in discussions on forests in a changing climate. These perspectives vary according to the actors affected by and involved in the discussion. The mass media has the power to attach a specific meaning to an issue that an audience may subsequently use as a frame to discuss and interpret this issue. This applies in particular to those issues that cannot directly be experienced, such as climate change. The ability to attach meaning to an issue may be seen as a form of discursive power, with different actors competing for the opportunity to present their interpretations of problems in the media. This paper aims to identify those actors with standing in the media discussion on one issue, namely forests and climate change and how they have influenced the framing of this issue in the media. Using a quantitative analysis we investigated 394 articles on forest and climate change published in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter between 1992 and 2009. The result shows an increasing discussion of the issue over the last 18 years which broadly correlates with events in the international climate policy arena. We found that scientists and politicians have a dominant standing in the media discussion and that the framing of the forest-climate change nexus has resulted in abstraction and depoliticizing of the issue.

SUMMARY Community-based forest groups (CBFGs) were developed in eastern and southern Africa based on the assumption that natural resources are best managed by the communities who depend on them. However, many CBFGs have not met expectations due to internal weaknesses and external obstacles. This study describes the current status of CBFGs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia; identifies drivers and barriers for developing CBFGs; and generates insights about how barriers are best addressed. The report combines case studies of 11 CBFGs and a verification workshop. Several factors suggest that the development of CBFGs in the region has been positive, including a high membership; strong commitment; basic operational skills; the growth of local, regional and international markets; and infrastructure improvements. Impediments to CBFG success include inappropriate registration of the organisations, insecure access rights, weak leadership and organisational capacities, limited resources, weak market ac...

International forest and environmental governance processes assume that ideas and concepts surrounding biodiversity at the international level will be made accessible at a national level so that they can be easily adopted by national forest and environmental policy arenas. One prerequisite for a seamless implementation of these ideas and concepts is a common definition of specific problems at different political levels. Different perceptions mirrored by media reporting on problems at different political levels may affect the implementation of policies that must be carried out at a national level, even if decisions concerning this implementation are made at an international level. Using the illustrative case of human–tiger interaction, this article shows how national and international media reporting differ in their framing of a particular problem. Based on a theoretical framework consisting framing and media selection theory, and on initial empirical observations, the article recommends blueprints for future in-depth research on the relationship between media framing and policy at different political levels. This case study is based on quantitative content analysis of reports on tiger–human interaction published between 2005 and 2010 in an international newspaper and a national one from Bangladesh. Our example shows that the selected national newspaper frames the tiger as a threat to the livelihood and well-being of local people, whereas the international newspaper stresses biodiversity and climate-change related aspects of human–tiger conflicts. These results indicate that the framing of an issue in the media can differ considerably at different levels and that this is a fruitful field for future in-depth research.

Over the past several years, at least three different forest policy processes have emerged in the European sphere, two of which are legally binding agreements — one under the auspices of Forest Europe, attempting to negotiate a legally binding agreement; and two, the possibility of a legally binding agreement within the European Union (EU). We aim to identify, reconstruct and classify the major conflicts in both the Commission Green Paper on forest protection and information in the EU: preparing forests for climate change and Forest Europe initiated LBA process. The theoretical framework of this study uses an adapted conflict regulation approach based on the conflict triangle model. Empirically four dimensions are analysed to reconstruct and classify the conflicts: substance, procedure, relationship and discourses around the conflict. Empirical data has been gathered by qualitative document analysis and expert interviews with stakeholders at the national and EU level. The results of the empirical analysis identify three major conflicting interests: a) the subsidiarity principle, b) forest management and c) the responsibility for conducting the negotiations. Classifying these three conflicts into substance and procedural dimensions highlights the major role of the latter within the recent European forest policy processes.

The TV oak (Television Oak) conflict concerned felling an old tree in a wealthy area of Stockholm. The case received great public attention in different media formats with different scopes (e.g., newspapers, television, internet). The TV Oak issue involved actors with different, partly conflicting perceptions. Assuming that the relevance of urban tree management issues in particular leads to increased interest among the local audience, this paper compared differences in reporting on the TV Oak case in local and national newspapers. The comparison comprised the actors “speaking” in the newspapers, the interest roles attributed to different actors and the frames used. The empirical materials used were articles concerning the TV Oak published between October 2011 and June 2012 in one local and two national Swedish newspapers. Quantitative analysis of statements in these articles showed that the geographical scope of the newspaper was not the major driving force framing the TV Oak conflict and that variety of framings, ranging from a humanised perception of the oak to a more analytical hazard perception, were used. Differences between the interest roles allocated to different actors (e.g., in terms of victim, causer, and helper in the oak conflict) showed that the framing of conflicts very much depended on single actors, in particular a high profile journalist in the national newspapers and private individuals writing letters to the editor in the local newspaper.

The aim of this review paper is to provide a structured overview on the state-of-the-art of research on Swedish forest policy over the last two decades. An additional aim is to identify major trends and blind-spots within this research area. To achieve this aim, 34 peer-reviewed journal articles and Ph.D. theses on forest policy in Sweden published between 1990 and 2009 have been reviewed and analyzed. The categories used comprise the date of publication, the affiliation of the author, theories and methodologies used, as well as major conclusions drawn. One major result of the review is that there is a continuous increase in the studies on Swedish forest policy, not the least due to the fact that an increasing number of authors are affiliated with non-forest research organizations. The shift of authors from forest scientists to political scientists is also linked to the theories used in these studies, e.g. neo-institutionalism. The main focus of the reviewed studies is on small-scale forestry as ...

The main aim of this paper is to investigate and discuss the applicability of a normative meta-theory on empirical research. This is done by confronting the demands of a deliberative public sphere with assumptions resulting from media theory and discussing it on the basis of exemplary cases from environmental and forest policy cases. A core concept of this paper is Jurgen Habermas' notion of a deliberative discourse in the public sphere, where the essential elements for a democratic ideal are openness to speakers from the periphery of the political system, a discursive communication flow and a public consensus or a result supported by the majority. Since today's political public sphere mostly comprises the media public these elements are confronted with the constraints of the media. Theoretical approaches of media studies as well as empirical examples of debates on forest, agricultural and environmental policies in the media corroborates that the media lacks the function of deliberation. Nevertheless, normative demands allow empirical findings to be interpreted relative to expectations. Applying the theoretical concept of a deliberative democracy to the empirical cases of forest, agriculture or environmental policy already serves as a first step toward awareness of deliberation in public communication. It not only can exemplify the gap between normative ideals and the empirical approach but it highlights the degree of “grey” between the static poles of black or white used in entitling processes as deliberative or not deliberative.

The regulation of seasonal foreign farm labour (SFFL) in Germany distorts market outcomes and produces no significant benefits for any of the affected groups. Analysis of the media discourse on this regulation indicates that its persistence can be attributed to the political sensitivity of unemployment and related issues in Germany. To reach these conclusions, we propose a new method for the analysis of discourse data based on a Poisson change point model, and demonstrate that exogenous factors such as unemployment in Germany can explain structural breaks in the media discourse on SFFL in Germany. , Oxford University Press.

The 2000/2001 German BSE crisis unfolded as a public drama where awkward crisis management and political attacks on industrial agriculture sparked intense, prolonged media coverage. Mediatisation and politicisation of BSE went hand in hand. In the process, responsibilities for problems and solutions were socially constructed. A high level of press coverage and a policy turnabout (Agrarwende) became mutually reinforcing, according to our analysis of more than 5,000 articles from five national German quality newspapers. Politicians had a prominent standing but did not dominate the BSE discourse; speakers from civil society, the private sector and the media had a relatively good ‘standing’. Before the policy change, consumers appeared as the main victims in the media, while afterwards it was agriculture. Throughout the crisis, politicians were mostly blamed as problem causers and to a far lesser degree business and agriculture. Politicians were also overwhelmingly framed as problem solvers, far more than science, agriculture, business and consumers. As the new policy unfolded, more issue frames were articulated, suggesting that the debate shifted from BSE to the general direction of agriculture policy and the distribution of subsidies, but also to the relation between nature and technology and to a lesser degree the relation between food and consumers. Localisation and globalisation of food and international issues played minor roles. In the context of wider research on mass media and public opinion, the case study shows how media coverage tends to politicise food hazards. Food scares offer high news values and attract wide audiences. While industrial agriculture received much blame, major responsibility was attributed to the political system.

The way forests are being governed and managed today has substantially changed over time (Agrawal et al., 2008). Discourses such as sustainable forest management, decentralized forest management and participatory forest management have become very influential in programmes, policies, and projects all over the world, being practised in diverse forms, and with various intended and unintended impacts on the ground (Pulzl, 2005; Rayner et al., 2010). Since these discourses and practices have initially been fueled and funded by international organizations, NGOs and donors, it seems as if these initiatives have been ‘forced’ upon countries and communities (Humphreys, 2006). Hence, it is tempting to analyse this global-local nexus from an hierarchical perspective, such as regime theory, which sketches an international institutional structure that sets rules, norms, incentives and sanctions that others follow at lower levels of the administrative scale. However, such a hierarchical perspective probably overstates the enforceability of international rules, norms and discourses, and undervalues the room for manoeuvre for national and local actors. Therefore this chapter takes another stance by advocating a flat ontology of world politics, as advocated in the quotation above. It analyses how ideas, norms and rules travel through global networks that bind bundles of practices at a worldwide scale. Such a flat perspective however implies that many traditional definitions of governance no longer hold. One example is ‘the setting, application and enforcement of rules’ (Kjaer, 2004: 12). Although this definition might apply to some instances of global governance, such as in the case of legally-binding trade rules of the WTOthat can be enforced through court ruling, this chapter argues that the majority of global governance initiatives work fundamentally differently. Often, binding and enforceable rules lack, or remain only paper regimes, and yet global governance initiatives produce impacts on the ground through other mechanisms than international rules (Bernstein and Cashore, 2012). Therefore, in this chapter, global governance is conceptualized as the worldwide diffusion of certain practices through: (1) ideas and discourses; (2) standards and procedures; and (3) technologies and resources (Dobbin et al., 2007; Shove et al., 2012). The assumption is that practices – such as eating hamburgers or curries – diffuse around the globe anyway, but that governance initiatives can promote the spread of certain practices that aim at addressing specific policy problems. Such a diffusion can take different forms: as speech acts, as policy plans, as institutionalized norms, as technical handbooks or as a supply of resources and materials. The examples we in this chapter investigate from this perspective all relate to global forest governance. Consequently, the practices this chapter looks at are those that address the issues of deforestation and forest degradation, ranging from administrative practices in offices to management practices on the ground. Examples of the latter are initiatives that might reverse the loss of forests (the use of innovative technologies for agricultural intensification), increase the area of protected forests (the designation of new forest protected areas) and enhance their sustainable management and use (the introduction and application of certification schemes) (McDermott et al., 2007; Rayner et al., 2010). At the same time, we look at global governance practices that advance such preferred forms of forest use, management and protection, like spreading ideas, providing resources, codifying norms and designing global standards. Thus, practices of global governance in our analyses imply both the governing of people and the management of forests. For that reason, practices of forest governance illustrate in detail the role of agencies, objects, technologies and infrastructures in the reproduction and transformation of (bundles of ) practices that connect multiple global and local sites (Schatzki, this volume). The above picture matches well with the view of globalization theorist and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (2006) who argued that the world has become ‘flat’, being connected through networks of global cities, computers, social movements, companies, etcetera, which stretch beyond national borders and operate on a global scale. It also mirrors many of the insights of Manuel Castell’s (2005) theory of the network society. So when for example discussing the conflicts between forest-poor developed and forest-rich developing countries in the context of global forest governance (Kolk, 1996), we should bear in mind that these unequal power relations exist next to many horizontal links which coshape the field. Global ideas, norms and standards, for example on sustainable forest management (SFM), travel from the global to the local and have an impact on practices of forest management on the ground (Overdevest and Zeitlin, 2012). In turn, practices and experiences in specific sites may feed into national and international dialogues on forests (Arts, 2004).

This chapter focuses on political, economic and social response options at national to supranational scales to drivers of unsustainable management of forests and tree-based landscapes and their effects on food security and nutrition. Three different angles are considered: a) policy responses to enhance linkages between food security and forests with a focus on setting up the right institutional and governance structures and addressing the important issue of forest tenure reform; b) market-based response options that focus on global processes for supporting sustainable supply, and innovative corporate and multi-actor initiatives to support inclusive value chains of forest and tree products; and c) socio-cultural response options to enhance food security where the focus is on: changing urban demand; education to change behaviour and improve dietary choices; reducing inequalities and promoting gender-responsive interventions; and social mobilisation for food security.For the public sector, a central governance issue is how and to what extent policy and regulatory frameworks help ensure that the most vulnerable groups, in particular the poorest members of society and women, have equitable access and rights to food security and nutrition from forests and tree-based systems. To this end, it is important to include relevant actors, from local communities to government departments, and initiate tenurial reform, devolution of decision-making to sub-national levels and a strengthening of institutional capacity at local levels.For the private sector, sustainability standards supported by multi-stakeholder processes, complement policy frameworks and offer opportunities for change on the ground, particularly if these can include smallholders. In addition, pledges by corporate actors to zero deforestation and sustainable supply will likely have significant influence in shaping future production practices and business models if they include benefits for smallholder rural populations. Co-regulatory approaches that involve both public and private sector actors to achieve more inclusive food systems through innovations and greater valuation of local practices, management systems and knowledge, may in the future further enhance the governance of food systems.At the level of social responses, education plays a pivotal role in empowering rural populations and has the potential to generate tangible benefits for households and communities in achieving food security and nutrition, sustainable forest and landscape management, and improved health. Targeting women and other vulnerable groups is particularly important to enable greater inclusiveness in decision-making and benefit sharing in forests and tree-based systems. Behavioural change that is often driven by social movements toward the consumption of food with lower environmental impact, particularly in growing urban areas, can have significant positive impacts on rural populations if the value chains necessary to meet the demand are set up to include smallholders and marginalised groups.

As population estimates for 2050 reach over 9 billion, issues of food security and nutrition have been dominating academic and policy debates, especially in relation to the global development agenda beyond 2015.1 A total of 805 million people are undernourished worldwide, even though the trend appears to be slowly reversing (FAO et al., 2014) and malnutrition -- defined as either under-5 stunting, anaemia among women of reproductive age or adult obesity -- affects nearly every country on the planet (IFPRI, 2014).

In the context of this chapter, drivers are considered to be natural or anthropogenic developments affecting forests and tree-based systems for food security and nutrition. They can improve and contribute to food security and nutrition, but they can also lead to food insecurity and malnutrition. For analytical purposes, drivers are separated here into the following four interconnected categories: (i) environmental, (ii) social, (iii) economic and (iv) governance. When reviewing scientific findings twelve major drivers (i.e. population growth, urbanisation, governance shifts, climate change, commercialisation of agriculture, industrialisation of forest resources, gender imbalances, conflicts, formalisation of tenure rights, rising food prices and increasing per capita income) were identified within these four categories. They affect food security and nutrition through land use and management; through consumption, income and livelihood; or through both. These drivers are interrelated and can have different consequences depending on the social structure; for example, they can support food security for elite groups but can increase the vulnerability of other groups.

The term bioeconomy and closely related notions like bio-based economy or knowledge-based bioeconomy (KBBE) are increasingly used by scientists and politicians in the last years. It does therefore have the potential of becoming an influential global discourse. Its role is however so far unclear. The general assumption that guides this paper is that discourses, resulting ideas and arguments are generally said to have performative power. They shape actors' views, influence their behaviour, impact on their beliefs and interests and can cause institutional change in a given society. Thus, the aim of this paper is twofold: first, it aims to analyse whether the ideas used in a bioeconomy discourse differs from those in other global meta-discourses of the last decades affecting forest discourses, such as the ecological modernization discourse or the sustainable development discourse. Second, this paper aims to analyse whether and how the bioeconomy discourse has started (or not) to reshape or overshadow the “classical” forest discourses, such as sustainable forest management, forest biodiversity or forest and climate change.

This chapter introduces discourse analysis as a theoretical concept and an empirical methodology that may enable the endogenization of path-creating and path-breaking changes in conventional models of political path dependency. Economic criteria, such as rents created by a policy, do not always provide a comprehensive explanation of path-dependent political decisions. Discourse theory suggests that specific interpretative schemata and narratives, such as storylines in the mass media, heavily influence political discourse. Discourses themselves can actually exercise a constitutive power that constrains decision-making processes and, thus, influence the ensuing policy-creation path. Hence, discourses must be taken into account when political path dependency, path-breaking and path creation are analyzed. In this chapter we trace over time individual storylines that represent important elements of the discourse underlying the restriction of seasonal farm workers from central and eastern European countries in Germany. We illustrate how dominant speakers and their storylines have been interacting to shape this policy.