Interaction, cooperation and governance in the Russian forest sector

We study key trends and challenges of the Russian forest sector through the lens of interaction, cooperation and governance relationships of major players - the state, private sector and non-governmental organisations. Using in-depth interviews with representatives of these sectors, we show that changes towards sustainable forest management are mainly driven by non-state actors. Business and NGOs are keen to cooperate, in order to compensate for the state's inability to effectively address environmental and socio-economic forestry problems and meet the requirements of international markets. However, the governance and transformative capacity of non-state actors is severely limited by the lack of consistent multistakeholder dialogue, and the future of business-NGO joint projects remains dependent on the state.