Methodological framework for policy coherence assessment

Political actors, forest restoration managers and other stakeholders across Europe face the challenge of addressing policy coherence and navigating trade-offs in order to meet competing demands for forest ecosystem goods and services. This task is complicated by an uncertain and complex future, as well as by the ongoing biodiversity crisis, climate change, and socio-economic disruptions. To tackle these challenges, there is an urgent need to identify and implement a range of policy and management responses that can help anticipate and prepare for the future. Consequently, achieving policy coherence and integrating diverse societal demands into a balanced approach to forest management—one that benefits both current and future generations—remains a crucial objective for restoring forest ecosystems across Europe.

Policy integration and policy coherence can be defined as a “process of […] coordinating various policies […] aiming to achieve multiple complementarities and synergies” (Briassoulis, 2004, 13). Coherent policy goals can be simultaneously achieved without any significant trade-offs. Incoherent policy goals contain major contradictions where goals cannot be attained simultaneously, thus leading to policy fragmentation, or policy integration failure. Consistent policy instruments and management practices work together to support a policy goal, whereas inconsistent policy instruments and practices work against each other and are counterproductive, for example, providing simultaneous incentives and disincentives toward the attainment of stated policy goals.

Coherent cross-sectoral integration can be observed when issues, goals and instruments are integrated and coordinated among the forestry sector and other forest-relevant land-use sectors such as agriculture, rural development, biodiversity conservation, climate protection, and renewable energy. Intra-sectoral integration applies within the forest sector itself. Forest policy integration and coherence refers to integrating and coordinating forest management practices, including forest restoration within the forest sector itself, as well as across forest management and other land-use practices at different local scales (e.g., individual trees, forest stands, forested landscapes, spatial planning regions).

Vertical forest policy integration and integrated forest management practices refer to issues of coherent integration and co-ordination across spatial scales, including the international, EU, national, subnational and local levels. It is at the level of regional or local practices where political decisionmakers, policy officers, landowners, forest managers, forest industries, environmental groups and other stakeholder groups have to implement integrative policy paradigms and put policy decisions into action. This is not only challenging due to sustainable forest management as a “wicked problem” that is characterized by high stakes and variety of societal claims for competing forest land-uses. It is also challenging due to the paradoxes, inconsistencies, and contradictions inherent in forest-related policymaking.