ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores historic and future outlooks, as well as contemporary integrated approaches, in both environmental governance and forest management. It develops an integrated approach, Reflexive Forestry, to facilitate attempts to close the identified gap between governance and management. The book considers information drawn from the Swedish forest arena as an empirical base to address forest governance and management challenges. It also explores historical layers of forest benefits, knowledge, and governance that have accumulated in the forest arena's foundations during the last 150 years. The book compares several integrated approaches, all intended to enable change, learning, and common action to promote sustainability in a transforming and multi-layered present. It also considers how alternative forest futures can be assessed, and how they may inform policy-making and management in the present.
