Despite strong expectations regarding the role that forestry, with its multitude of potential benefits, could and should play in the ‘bio-economy’, little research has been done on the actual perceptions of influential actors on how to best address future forest land-use disputes. We want to shed light on whether and in which contexts expectations regarding the bio-economy, e.g., the strong role of markets, are likely. The paper analyses influential actors’ core values and beliefs about the primary facilitators and the most appropriate instruments for resolving disputes over future forest land use. We used Social Network Analysis-based sampling and a quantitative semi-structured questionnaire, which included a preference analysis with twelve items covering broad issues and disputes related to future forest land use, to identify actors’ beliefs about and preferences for facilitators and policy instruments within key issues for future land use. The respondents were asked to identify one of five ‘primary facilitators’ (state, market, society, individual citizens/owners, leave it to nature) and distribute six points to a maximum of three preferred instruments (eight items, covering a broad set of instruments, from dictates or bans to awareness raising). The results are based on the perceptions of the influential or most important actors from various innovative government and private forest initiatives in Bavaria (Germany), Slovenia, Castilla y León (Spain), Nordeste (Portugal), and Latvia (481 actor responses, 109 initiatives). The initiatives included participatory mountain forest initiatives, forest intervention zones, afforestation projects, forest owner associations, and model forest and labelling initiatives. The results provide insight into the similarities and differences between European countries and actor groups regarding the preferred facilitators and instruments for solving future forest problems. In light of disagreement in the literature on the role of the state or markets in future forest land use and the bio-economy, our results show that the market and its instruments are considered to play a dominant role in wood mobilisation. With respect to all other issues (socio-ecological, societal, other), the state or other institutions and their instruments gain priority. The state is considered to play a stronger role in developing new markets, e.g., for energy transition or new uses of wood, contrary to liberal market expectations. Ecological and social problems are considered to be outside of the market domain. Here, the state is called in, e.g., to steer recreational issues, the provision of ecosystem services, or the improvement of the protective function. The clearest preference across all regions is for the state to secure the provision of ecosystem services, in contrast to calls for future markets to regulate this field.

This paper analyzes the use of new environmental policy instruments (NEPIs) and instrument mixes in government forest initiatives (GFIs), in Bavaria. It traces research questions on the repertoire of instruments applied and if an application of NEPIs leads to improving program effectiveness and legitimacy. In accordance with recent literature it assumes that GFIs, being developed and implemented for a long time in Bavaria, will make use of an instrument mix, including modern policy instruments; and that the use of such a mix of instruments would lead to improved effectiveness and legitimacy. The empirical paper aims to test these currently dominant theoretical thoughts and to contribute to further theoretical discussion with new empirical data, but it does not suggest a new theory. The primary data-basis for the analysis is qualitative interviews with 175 people from 16 GFIs, the selection of interviewees being based on social network analysis. The analysis uses an instrument typology as an analytical reference point and reveals that GFIs used a broad variety of instruments, both, traditional and new ones, to support and facilitate a range of activities in priority areas of forest landscapes, as expected. Some traditional instruments were modified for the use in GFIs only, other instruments were newly created for the purpose of GFIs, e.g., voluntary agreements between government forest administrations (AELFs) and private forest owners (PFOs). This supports assumptions from the theory that the most common forms of instrument integration would be layering and fusion. The paper also analyzes if the use of a mix of instruments by GFIs led to improving effectiveness and legitimacy, thereby contributing to a relevant question in the literature, because developing more complex policy instruments (NEPIs), is considered to help to avoid many problems of more traditional instruments in environmental governance. The analysis uses a set of theoretical elements, attributed to the use of NEPIs or modern instrument mixes, and compares these with actual empirical observations, to answer the question, if modern instrument approaches can lead to an improved program effectiveness and legitimacy. The paper concludes that the application of a modern mix of instruments did lead to an increase of short-term effectiveness, especially in road construction or improvement, but not to a noteworthy increase of long-term effectiveness, especially regarding forest conversion to increase forests’ climate resiliency, despite the application of nudging ‘in the forests’. Instead, nudging in the forests can result in increased conflicts and non-action, in some cases. Hence, the empirical evidence presented in this paper, does not (fully) support the assumption that a modern instrument mix would lead to improvements in effectiveness and legitimacy. It remains to be seen, if, in the longer-term, the improved road access would actually lead to more climate resilient forests; or what role natural hazards will play in this regard. Maybe, a more flexible design of the voluntary agreements and of eligibility criteria of funding schemes, could increase the share of forest owners, willing to participate and could enable processes of civic-knowledge integration and the development of more innovative, alterative-based, local solutions. Considering the strong, recent public engagement in climate change topics, this could be an opportunity to better integrate civil society to GFIs or to new forms of initiatives. A better integration of owners and society could also improve the legitimacy of GFIs, which is thwarted by the marginal participation of individual PFOs.