Freedom with what? Interpretations of “responsibility” in Swedish forestry practice

- Responsibility is a key aspect of forest governance and policy.
- Responsibility has different meanings across actors and instances.
- The fluidity of the responsibility concept creates tension and friction.
- Uncertainty means that responsibility should be enacted in responsive ways.

Responsibility is a key aspect of all regulation, and forest regulation is no exception. How should responsibility be understood and used in a time characterized by complexity and uncertainty? This paper develops a typology that distinguishes six notions of responsibility and then employs it in analyzing interpretations of responsibility in Swedish forestry practice. The Swedish forest management system is a deregulated system structured by the governing principle of “freedom with responsibility.” By investigating how responsibility is understood and enacted by forest consultants and forest owners, we demonstrate the practical fluidity of the responsibility concept. We emphasize the need for an understanding of responsibility that fosters sensitivity and adaptiveness to external issues and actors in the face of uncertainty, and identify obstacles in current forestry policy and practice to enacting such an understanding.