Alexandru Giurca

Forests in a bioeconomy: bridge, boundary or divide?

ABSTRACT Bioeconomy is an emerging concept that is gaining momentum both in science and policy. Within the forest sector, the bioeconomy discourse is already shaping the international forest policy debate. Given the sector’s importance for the national economy, this study investigates the perceptions of bioeconomy by forest owners, forest industry and ENGOs in Sweden. Drawing on cognitive and ideological dimensions of political bargaining, we analyse to which extent the bioeconomy serves as a bridging concept, a dividing concept or a boundary object. The results show that the bioeconomy is a broadly accepted concept, perceived as a natural extension of the Swedish forestry model. Results indicate that bioeconomy is well aligned with the key characteristics of a boundary object, that is, serving specific interests of different forest stakeholders under the generally accepted conceptual umbrella. We did not identify dividing effects of any substance. On the contrary, the interviews provide a strong indication that bioeconomy serves the Swedish forest sector as a bridging concept that brings closer rather than antagonises the different actors.

Environmental concerns in political bioeconomy discourses

The term bioeconomy has been generated as a new discourse in the environmental policy arena. This paper raises three questions: (i) are environmental concerns integrated in the political discourses of bioeconomy and, if so, to what extent?, (ii) in which way is the environment framed in the political discourses of bioeconomy?, and (iii) are environmental concerns considered in the political discourses on forest-based bioeconomy? The theoretical framework of this paper builds on the cognitive approach of policy integration and on frame analysis. The empirical research design is a comparative qualitative analysis of five different political bioeconomy discourses in the EU and four different EU member states – Germany, Finland, France and the Netherlands – in general and in the forestry sector specifically. Results show a weak and mainly 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 safeguarded with the help of the bioeconomy. With the exception of Finland, amongst the countries studied, forests plays only a minor role in bioeconomy discourses while environmental concerns in this strand of discussion are mainly focused on sustainability arguments in general.