TY - JOUR
T1 - Public perceptions of using forests to fuel the European bioeconomy: Findings from eight university cities
AU - Malkamäki, Arttu
AU - Korhonen, Jaana
AU - Berghäll, Sami
AU - Berg Rustas, Carolina
AU - Bernö, Hanna
AU - Carreira, Ariane
AU - D'Amato, Dalia
AU - Dobrovolsky, Alexander
AU - Giertliová, Blanka
AU - Holmgren, Sara
AU - Mark-Herbert, Cecilia
AU - Masiero, Mauro
AU - Nagy, Emil
AU - Navrátilová, Lenka
AU - Pülzl, Helga
AU - Ranacher, Lea
AU - Secco, Laura
AU - Suomala, Tuuli
AU - Toppinen, Anne
AU - Valsta, Lauri
AU - Výbošťok, Jozef
AU - Zellweger, Jonas
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - The political project on bioeconomy strives to address multiple societal aspirations, namely combine economic growth with environmental sustainability in some socially acceptable manner. The contradictions between the goals and the concrete plans to increase production, processing, and consumption of forest biomass in Europe have however raised sustainability concerns within and beyond its borders. While political actors articulate such contradictions differently and compete for traction for their viewpoints in the public discourse, little is known about how citizens of urban areas perceive this discourse. Conceptualising perception as a multidimensional construct, data from eight European university cities (Bordeaux, Bratislava, Freiburg, Helsinki, Padua, St. Petersburg, Uppsala, Vienna) are statistically analysed to explore its dimensions, the communities of like-minded citizens forming across those dimensions, and the traits associating with membership in each such community. Five communities across six dimensions from biocentrism through distributional aspects to adherence to political goals are identified: adherent-environmentalist, adherent-governmentalist, critical-reformist, critical-agriculturalist, and indifferent. City of residence and perceived familiarity with bioeconomy clearly interact with perception. There is however considerable variation in communities within and across the eight cities, suggesting deeper social tension beyond the public discourse. Much of the within-community variation remains unexplained, though, calling for more work locally. Implications for forest policy are derived.
AB - The political project on bioeconomy strives to address multiple societal aspirations, namely combine economic growth with environmental sustainability in some socially acceptable manner. The contradictions between the goals and the concrete plans to increase production, processing, and consumption of forest biomass in Europe have however raised sustainability concerns within and beyond its borders. While political actors articulate such contradictions differently and compete for traction for their viewpoints in the public discourse, little is known about how citizens of urban areas perceive this discourse. Conceptualising perception as a multidimensional construct, data from eight European university cities (Bordeaux, Bratislava, Freiburg, Helsinki, Padua, St. Petersburg, Uppsala, Vienna) are statistically analysed to explore its dimensions, the communities of like-minded citizens forming across those dimensions, and the traits associating with membership in each such community. Five communities across six dimensions from biocentrism through distributional aspects to adherence to political goals are identified: adherent-environmentalist, adherent-governmentalist, critical-reformist, critical-agriculturalist, and indifferent. City of residence and perceived familiarity with bioeconomy clearly interact with perception. There is however considerable variation in communities within and across the eight cities, suggesting deeper social tension beyond the public discourse. Much of the within-community variation remains unexplained, though, calling for more work locally. Implications for forest policy are derived.
KW - 4112 Forestry
KW - 511 Economics
KW - Lay perception
KW - Legitimacy
KW - Network analysis
KW - Public discourse
KW - Risk perception
KW - Socio-technical transition
KW - MANAGEMENT
KW - POLICY
KW - PERSPECTIVES
KW - GOVERNANCE
KW - SCIENCE
KW - GREEN
KW - URBAN
KW - ERA
U2 - 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102749
DO - 10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102749
M3 - Article
SN - 1389-9341
VL - 140
JO - Forest Policy and Economics
JF - Forest Policy and Economics
M1 - 102749
ER -