“Profitability is sustainability:” framing of forest management practices by the Swedish forest industry

ABSTRACT This article investigates how the Swedish forest industry, as represented by the three largest Swedish private forest companies (Svenska Cellulosa AB, Stora Enso, and Holmen), through their main public relations (PR) channels frame the current dominant Swedish forestry model and alternative models that are promoted by the European Union (EU). The content analysis of the three companies’ trade magazines published between 2019 and 2022 explores the patterns in the PR framing of the forest management models with respect to economic, environmental, and social aspects. The time interval is centered by the July 2021 announcement of the EU's new Forest Strategy for 2030. The magazines’ target audience is private forest owners, from whom Svenska Cellulosa AB, Stora Enso, and Holmen buy 40–50% of the timber used in production. The main finding of the study is that these corporations did not present alternative methods as viable options to replace the Swedish forestry model. The magazines, with some individual variations, respond to the alternative methods promoted by the EU and environmental associations by an increased emphasis on the benefits, mainly environmental, of the Swedish forestry model – framing the model as not only the most profitable but also the most ecologically sustainable.


Introduction -Swedish forestry and the forestry model debate
In the contemporary environmental crisis of planetary historical magnitude, the role of the world's forests is central.With "forests" covering around 69% of total land area in Sweden the country is the world's fifth largest exporter of pulp, paper, and sawn timber (The World Bank 2020).Swedish forest industry stood for approximately 10% of Sweden's total exports of goods in 2020 (Swedish Forest Industries 2021a).The ownership of the 24 million hectares of productive forestlands in Sweden are roughly divided between four groups: the Swedish state and municipalities (22%), private companies (24%), individual private owners (48%), and other private owners such as the Swedish Church (6%) (Skogskunskap 2022).The three largest private forest companies, Svenska Cellulosa AB (SCA, the largest private forest owner in Europe), Stora Enso,and Holmen,own nearly 19% (5.3 million hectares) of the Swedish forestland and buy 40-50% of the timber in Sweden from private owners (SCA n.d.;Stora Enso 2021a;Holmen 2021b).To these private forest owners, they also offer forest plans to aid with management and to harvest the forest in accordance with the Swedish model (SM).Holmen also manages smaller owners' forests.All three companies own saw-, pulp-and papermills and SCA and Stora Enso also produce biofuels.The management of the forests is intensely debated, both among researchers and in the Swedish public sphere.Different issues such as climate effects and forest management, the necessity of continuing with the current clear-cutting-based SM as practiced by all major actors, or the suitability of alternative clear-cut-free management methods, henceforth used synonymously with continuous cover forestry (CCF), are at the heart of the debates.The term "Swedish model" (SM) is used for practical purposes to refer to the dominant forest management practices in Sweden rather than the entire machinery of forestry in the country with its surrounding political, legal, and social arrangements (for such a wider definition of the SM see Lindahl et al. 2017).
Much of the academic literature that covers the contemporary SM after the 1993 SFA reform (SFS 1979:429;SFS 1993:553) has an increased emphasis on climate-related aspects.Another common trend in the literature is the examination and comparison of CCF-methods as an alternative or supplement to the SM (Lundmark et al. 2016;Hodge et al. 2017;Lindahl et al. 2017;Eggers et al. 2019;Fischer et al. 2020;Hertog et al. 2022).Hertog et al. (2022) have identified barriers that other management methods, specifically CCF, must overcome to see widespread use in Sweden, such as internal peer-and industry pressure and centralized forestry education that makes it difficult to divert from the norm.Since media plays an important role in inducing policy change, not least in Sweden where media is considered "the third power/estate" (beside the parliament and government in the absence of a constitutional court), several studies exist on the ways in which Swedish forestry issues have been framed by the media (Espmark 2017;Hallberg-Sramek et al. 2020;Sténs and Mårald 2020).
While there exists a growing literature on the issue's framing in the media, a study on the internal industry PR framing has not been conducted.What companies and industries choose to include in their PR is important in image-and relation building with the public (Scanlan 2017;Swenson 2018;Gunderson et al. 2020) and selected target groups (in the case of these forest corporations, primarily small forest owners).Given the attention to the performance of the SM (Lindahl et al. 2017) and the focus on CCF alternatives to it (Lundmark et al. 2016;Eggers et al. 2019;Hertog et al. 2022), a thorough examination of what the industry side presents in their controlled communication channels in regard to these aspects will help to uncover any internal changes, continuities, and intentions.Controlled communication channels, such as social media or company magazines, are company tools where the company has direct control over the content published (Public Relation Society of America (PRSA), 2022).Less controlled communication tools are news-features releases and press-conferences to get journalists' attention.Journalists, in turn, publish the content in articles in media outlets.Whereas these communication channels contribute to the public debate then, they are not subject to direct confrontation in the same way as debates in public media.These channels are also particularly important in this case since the ultimate decision to use one method or the other comes down to the small forest owners, i.e. the suppliers of the industry and their thinking about these methods are the targets of these magazines.The aim of this article, therefore, is to explore how the three main private companies that (together with the largest company, the stateowned Sveaskog, owning 14% or 3.1 million hectares of forestland) dominate the Swedish forest industry frames the current forest debate concerning management methods in their controlled PR channels.
Given that the internal attitude of influential actors and how they convey it to their audience through communication such as PR can greatly influence practices, public opinion, and policy decisions, can we expect a change in the forestry practices triggered by such internal attitude change if there is any?By comparing the companies' PR communication in these magazines (with the small forest suppliers and other readers, such as employees and other agents within their interest sphere) between 2019 and 2022, a period of intensification of the forest debate, especially around the EU directives, we explore the industry's stance through the following research question: Has the industry changed its framing of forestry management methods, specifically the SM and CCF-methods, becoming more accepting of alternative CCF-methods along the line of the and at a European level, or has it reinforced its defensive position of the SM even further and how?

Background about Swedish forest policy and management
The dominant forest management practice in Sweden (SM) is based on clearcutting and even aged tree stands, with pine trees currently being the most common.Clear-cutting is a method where most to all trees are periodically harvested and replanted at the same time to create monocultural, even-aged forest stands where all trees are the same species and roughly the same age.The model includes a four-step repeating cycle: the planting of seedlings after soil preparation; clearing and selective removal of trees to increase the health and growth of remaining trees; thinning (roughly one-third of all timber harvested in Sweden comes from thinning); and the final felling, clearcutting, of the forest.All trees in an area are cut down except some trees that are saved for nature consideration (Skogskunskap 2019).
The SM can be traced back to the establishment of the Swedish Forestry Act (SFA) in 1903.The legislation has seen several reworks and has, following the 1950s, focused on clear-cutting and even-aged stands to mechanize and maximize production.Faster growing monocultural forests would be more beneficial to the forestry industry than sparser and more diverse forests and were therefore prioritized.In the 1970s, the forest industry was subject to increased environmental criticisms, but production remained the priority (Pettersson 2005;Lindahl et al. 2017).This trend continued until the most recent (1993) iteration of the SFA where production and biodiversity became equally important goals (SFS 1979:429;SFS 1993:553) and the law of forest with "freedom under responsibility," i.e. granting operational freedom as long as the environmental goals are met, makes up the basis of the SM.The SFA contains relatively few binding rules (Swedish Forest Agency 2021b).This shared environmental and production goal is at the core of the division and debates surrounding the forest.On the one hand, you have those arguing that the SM is unsuitable for fulfilling the environmental policy goal and is in fact harming the environment (Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) 2011).On the other are those, mainly stakeholders, that defend the SM (Espmark 2017).
CCF, on the other hand, is when trees are selectively harvested to avoid large-scale felling of trees.In contrast to clearcut-based forestry, CCF methods are based on uneven-aged forest stands and self-seeding, making soil preparation and planting redundant.One type of CCF is blädning, a clearcut-free method mainly used in pine-tree forests to create uneven-aged stands.The harvesting is done by selectively cutting down mature trees while leaving enough healthy trees at all ages for the forest to be able to self-generate new trees for harvesting (Andersson and Appelqvist 2020).
Academic studies compare alternative management methods to the current SM in terms of various effects (Lundmark et al. 2016;Eggers et al. 2019;Hertog et al. 2022).Lundmark et al. (2016), for instance, measure the difference in carbon balance.Under equal growth conditions, but with the different management practices, the deciding factor is the maximization of the growth and yield of biomass to fuel the substitution of fossil-based product with bio-based products as that would result in the greatest climate benefit.The substitution effect is one of the main arguments related to bioeconomy.Fischer et al. (2020) shows that in the formulation of the Swedish National Forest Programme from 2018, due to its centralization around the concept of a bioeconomy, production was prioritized at the cost of environmental, cultural, and social values.There is a consensus across that production is prioritized in Swedish forestry, despite the dual goals of the SFA (Lindahl et al. 2017;Eggers et al. 2019;Fischer et al. 2020).Hodge et al. (2017) points out that while recognizing forest as a limited resource, there is little acknowledgement of any changes in consumption or production.Instead, there is a belief in innovation to sustain the broader "more of everything" pathway (Lindahl et al. 2017) with current management practices as the basis.Eggers et al. (2019) argues that certain aspects of other management practices should have a heavier sway in the discussion.They indicate a clear trade-off between wood production (the economic aspect) and other elements of sustainable forest management such as other economic and cultural activities (e.g.reindeer husbandry) and social (recreational) values.Based on this they argue that other management practices than SM are more suitable to fulfilling the Swedish policy goal of production and biodiversity, specifically those focused more on CCF and longer rotation periods.
Debates around the forest are also a common item on the public agenda in Sweden (see for example Dagens Nyheter (DN) (2022) and Svenska Dagbladet (2022) for the accumulated forest debate of two large Swedish newspapers).Further, the Swedish Public Television (SVT) broadcasted a documentary in 2021 about the current Swedish forestry model and investigated alternative models (Brohult 2021).What intensified these debates, however, was the EU's new Forest Strategy for 2030.Announced in July of 2021, this strategy is " … one of the European Green Deal flagship initiatives that builds on the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and addresses all the multiple functions of forests" (Questions and Answers: European Green Deal: New EU Forest Strategy for 2030, 2021).With quantitative and qualitative growth of forestry to reduce carbon emissions and increase biodiversity, the strategy aims to achieve a sustainable bioeconomy and climate neutrality by 2050.Some of the main points regarding forest management are to greatly reduce or eliminate clearcutting practices, pointing at its environmentally harmful consequences (EU Communication 2021).
The switch to clear-cut-free management goes against the core of contemporary Swedish forestry practices, and although some, mainly environmental organizations welcomed this suggested strategy, there were also critical voices.Opponents argue that the EU strategy fails to sufficiently consider the national forest variations of the EU member states (Swedish Forest Agency 2021a) and fails to understand the full contribution of current practices to the green transition (Swedish Forest Industries 2021b).These points align with the Swedish Parliament's official judgement of the strategy, while agreeing on the forest's climate role and the need for more cross-border forestry cooperation, it disapproves of the proposed centralization and supranational detail-regulation (Verdict 2021/22: MJU8 2021).Advocates for the SM argue that current standards and certifications are sufficient for Swedish forest owners to meet environmental challenges.One such certification is the international Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that forest owners voluntarily choose to join.The FSC-certification works as a proof that the timber from a certified forest is produced with respect to criteria such as biodiversity, social and recreational values, and indigenous people's rights.In October 2020, the Swedish FSC-certification got stricter regarding the protection of biodiversity and social values demanding that 10% of the productive forest should be set aside for nature conservation instead of earlier 5% (FSC 2020).
The industry side of the forest debate argues against straying too far from the SM.The EU strategy served as a fuel to intensify the debate surrounding the SM, but the forest debate has been around for decades (Espmark 2017).One distinct actor on one side of the forest debate has been environmental organizations.One of these, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (SSNC) asserts that the good reputation of Swedish forests acts as a façade for brutal forestry practices to maximize yields, often contrary to sustainability promises and certifications (Sahlin 2011).Greenpeace (2022) similarly argues that the forest industry is mired in greenwashing, i.e. manipulative use of green PR to appear environmentally friendly to consumers, with the state-owned Sveaskog at the helm.Greenpeace holds that the SM only serves to destroy and replace natural old-growth forests with evenaged monocultural tree plantations.While the forest debate in Sweden is far from new, the climate debates of recent decades have influenced it and invited a greener sustainability perspective.It is the reaction of the forest industry to the sustainability challenge that we explore through a new angle that frames attitude from within the industry as it addresses its private suppliers of timber.

Materials and methods
The empirical dataset is the corporations' main controlled PR channels that consist of magazines/industry papers, Din Skog from SCA, Skogsnära from Stora Enso, and Skogsliv from Holmen (SCA n.d.;SCA 2021;Holmen 2021a;Stora Enso 2021b).The company magazines are distributed to forest owners associated with the respective company (free of charge) while also being freely available online at the companies' webpages.Din Skog is distributed to forest owners in the four northernmost counties in Sweden where they operate.Skogsnära is distributed to Swedish forest owners through subscription.Skogsliv is distributed to forest owners that have sold timber to Holmen over the last five years across all of Sweden.Employees also have access to these magazines.and Appelqvist 2020).The first five keywords relate to the SM and the last three to the alternative methods.The two in between, Biologisk mångfald and Naturhänsyn, can relate to both models.
We employ a qualitative content analysis (QCA) to highlight latent content with supplementary counting (Hannah and Lautsch 2011) to explore the trends and transformations of the different frames of forestry management methods by the forestry companies in these magazines over the last four years.
PR defines reality in a way that lines up with how it benefits an organization or company.An important part of PR framing is salience, meaning to make certain elements of communication with the relevant audience more noticeable and memorable (Entman 1993).Actors selectively make specific aspects more salient and therefore promote a specific image of a specific issue.Actors also choose what aspects to exclude and play down.Hallahan (1999) has identified seven conceptualizations of framing that are applicable in the field of PR: framing of attributes, framing of risky choices, framing of situations, framing of actions, framing of issues, framing of responsibility, and framing of news.This study focuses on framing of actionshow a person would act upon a choice of a particular issue to achieve a desired goal, depending on if the alternative actions are framed in a positive or negative way.The idea is that how an action that is up for a possible change is framed in relation to benefits and risks or gain and loss will decide if a person is willing to engage in the change or not.
In the heavily polarized discussion surrounding the SM and CCF-methods, the advantages and disadvantages of each model are primarily framed by emphasizing their economic, environmental, or social aspects.The categories correspond to the three main domains in the sustainability/ sustainable development discourse (United Nations 2015; Purvis et al. 2019).Our coding, thus, is done accordingly: For economic aspects codewords such as "growth, industry demand, job opportunities, timber quantity, and profit" are expected in addition to the more technical terms used by the Swedish Forest Agency (Andersson and Appelqvist 2020) such as "replanting and self-seeding."For environmental aspect, codewords such as "carbon binding, climate change, bioeconomy, biodiversity, and protected forestland" are expected following the debate's focus on climate change, biodiversity and the bioeconomy, carbon emissions, and the substitution effect (Lundmark et al. 2016;Hodge et al. 2017;Fischer et al. 2020).For social aspects emphasizing the forest's recreational values, "outdoor activities, foraging, mental health, relaxation, and aesthetics" (Espmark 2017;Lindahl et al. 2017;Eggers et al. 2019) in relation to the social values demanded by the FSC (2020) certification are expected in the data (Table 2).
After categorizing each article according to the economic, environmental, or social framing, we further categorized them based on Hallahan's (1999) theory of action framing as positive or negative for each model analyzing each article accordingly.
These frames and their respective codes are also counted first during the selection of the articles using the keywords for different management methods (see Table 1) and then by counting the number of times each frame fits into any of the content of the magazines to examine what the most common topics are.Such allows us to identify which aspects related to forestry the industry deems important at certain points in time.We are also able to count the frequency of how often clear-cutting and CCF methods are brought up, and by comparing these see the interest in respective methods over time.Finally, by counting the number of positive and negative codes in respective frames one can identify and highlight the internal stance of the industry toward the different management methods.Then, by comparing the frequency of certain frames and codes over the entire period it is possible to show if the internal stance has changed or remained the same.Since not all magazines have published an equal number of issues, the number of keywords, frames and codes are divided with the number of issues published during a certain period.

Results
The total number of articles in all three magazines published between 2019 and 2022 is 564 of which 286 were sampled based on the keywords (Table 3).
Of the 286 articles left after the initial screening, 208 articles are left when screened for particular frames (72.7%) leaving 78 articles (27.2%) without any frame, which means the keywords were used within the context of the discussion of different management methods, their pros and cons.These 78 articles included no mention of management methods.
The distribution of articles between 2019 and 2022 demonstrates the dominance of the SM: 196 articles (94%) only wrote about the SM.Three articles (2%) covered CCFmethods without also including the SM.The rest, nine articles (4%), included mentions of both the SM and CCF-methods.
As demonstrated in Table 4, among these 208 articles, the most frequently used frame was the environmental frame both for the SM and CCF-methods.The economic frame was the second most frequent frame for both methods and the social frame was the least common for both.
Figure 1 illustrates the trends of the positive codes during the period, demonstrating some clear differences between the SM and CCF-methods.As there is a drastic difference between the number of codes for each management method, the positive codes for the CCF are demonstrated along the Y-axis on the left side with smaller numbers while the positive codes for the SM required another axis on the right highlighting the difference in attention each management method receives in the magazines.Another noticeable aspect is the trend differences for the codes in each respective method.Regarding the SM, the PlusEcon and PlusSoc codes experience no drastic difference from 2019 to 2022.PlusSoc essentially starts and stops at roughly the same point while PlusEcon shows a very slight downward trend, both with slight fluctuations between the years.PlusEnv is the only code for the SM that sees a constant increase every year, showing the environmental frame's rising frequency of appearance which differs from the trends for CCF.There, except for PlusSoc between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 not changing, all codes are on a constant rise.A similarity between the two is the graphs for the PlusEnv code.Although they have different starting points, they manifest an almost identical increase.This increase is also much greater than any changes in the other codes, underlining the importance of the environmental frame.
Compared to the positive codes, one can observe a large difference in the number of articles with a negative code (Figure 1).Due to the small amount of data including negative codes, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions.There are, however, some differences in the code trends for each frame.Firstly, there is no MinEcon code for the SM at all during 2019-2022.The CCF, however, has a few MinEcon codes and one MinEnv code during 2021.The last code, MinSoc regarding CCF, does not exist.Similar to the positive codes, the MinSoc code for the SM remains stable with minor fluctuations, albeit exhibiting a very slight downward trend.Although it exhibits a dip during 2020 and 2021, the MinEnv code for the SM overall shows an increasing trend from 2019 to 2022.This rising trend of the environmental frame was also seen in the PlusEnv code for both the SM and CCF, and thus demonstrates the increased importance of the environmental frame.
To explore these trends more closely, especially in a comparative way to understand the framing patterns of the three magazines before and after the EU directive, we now turn to the results of the qualitative content analysis.We take each year individually in order to see the qualitative change in the way that the industry argued for different methods as the debate intensified, culminated with the EU directive, and moved on.

Articles in 2019
In 2019, the most prevalent frame was the issue/model in relation to its economic aspects.The PlusEcon code was the dominant code (49% of the articles) with the articles exclusively talking about the SM.The only article across all magazines in 2019 that even mentioned CCF acknowledged it as beneficial for social aspects such as mental health, making PlusSoc the only code used for CCF this year.Many of the economic articles included tips and stories of how and when to best implement different forestry measures to maximize economic gains.
Whenever environmental aspects, in terms of PlusEnv, were brought up it was mostly mentioned as a bonus for using the forestry measures of the SM or as something considered when employing said measures.It was common to highlight that production, such as higher timber quantities, and environmental goals could coexist in Swedish forestry.For example, it is common to find arguments about how a well-managed forest in line with the SM will lead to higher growth compared to an un-managed forest, how higher growth makes it possible to produce more products out of biomass instead of fossil-based materials, or how the industry (such as Stora Enso) is working to make the current forestry model to be as considerate as possible regarding biodiversity by even employing their own biologists (SN19:1:8) or by developing techniques to protect the nature during clearcutting (SL19:4:5).The possibility of protecting the environment while getting higher economic yields through the SM, therefore, is a constant theme: When we find the right balance between forestry and conservation, we must take into account that the more forest we protect the less fossil-based products we can exchange.We shall preserve the forest's biodiversity, but we want to combine this with a high timber production (DS19:3:1, p.3; see appendix 2 for similar examples (1)).
Increased timber production, therefore, was framed as a way to reduce the use of fossil-based products, hence environment-friendly.
Of the two articles that spoke negatively of the SM in 2019, one mentioned planning issues and the planting of contorta-pine and dense forests as important, but solvable drawbacks (DS19:3:11), while the other acknowledged the irreconcilability of production focus and environmental goals: by summing up the demands on the forest according to current guidelines we would need another 50-70 million cubic meters compared to now.This is not realistic.Therefore, we probably need to prioritize what it should be used for (SN19:1:3, p.26).
The SM is also predominantly presented as positive in terms of social aspects: Even though production and economic gains are the priority, it is argued that a well-managed forest, where you clear and thin out inferior trees and biomass, is also more open and beautiful making people feel calm and safe: "by thinning you also guide the growth to favor the best trees, which gives good timber […] Furthermore, the forest becomes very beautiful.Most people enjoy visiting a thinned-out forest" (DS19:3:3, p.6; see appendix 2 for similar examples (2)).
The industry magazines, in 2019, primarily framed content about the SM in terms of economic aspects while considering environmental aspects to be a bonus and capable of coexistence with the high growth-focus.

Articles in 2020
No article in 2020 contained any negative codes for either management method.Continuing the trend from 2019, economic aspects was the most common frame in 2020 with the dominating code being PlusEcon for the SM.It did, however, lose some traction, only covering 39.1% of the articles compared to 49% in 2019.The subject matter similarly carried over into 2020, with many of the SM PlusEcon articles illustrating the emphasis on the importance of the right measure at the right time to maximize growth.For example, articles in Din Skog (DS20:1:2, DS20:1:3) and A common argument was for the importance of other measures such as soil preparation, planting and thinning (SN20:3:3, SN20:3:4).It is frequently pointed out that "Soil preparation may feel like an unwanted expense, but all experience points to it bolstering both the survivability and growth of the new plants" (SN20:3:2, p.24; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 4)).The closest mention of CCF methods this year, and the only PlusEcon for CCF, was a forest owner satisfied with a compromise where he had to selectively cut down pine trees while leaving coniferous trees: The question is if we would have gotten a better yield if we did as we planned initially?I do not think so.Initially, when the Swedish Forest Agency sent their decision, I was really annoyed, but you can always change your mind (SL20:4:4, p.38).
As in 2019, the SM is presented as accommodating both production and environmental values without cutting corners on either.Regarding the SM the PlusEnv code can be found frequently as in the arguments about the high wood production leading to eco-friendly products made from wood (SL20:3:1).2020 also witnesses critique against Swedish government policies affected by the EU (SL20:3:13, SL20:3:5) by emphasizing that the SM already fulfills the environmental goals without hurting the economic ones: We work with renewable raw material, we offer solutions that is needed in the climate transition, and we are producing European raw materials in Europe for European consumers … .we must be allowed to conduct forestry (Anna Holmberg from Swedish Forest Industries, quoted in SL20:3:8, p.18; see appendix 2 for similar examples (5)).
While the social aspects frame lagged behind the other two, the narrative from 2019, with the forest's social aspects benefiting from forestry measures of the SM, carried over into 2020.Arguments are made about a revision of the FSCcertification that puts more emphasis on social and environmental aspects, increasing set-aside requirements from 5% to 10% (DS20:1:4, DS20:4:3).These articles acknowledge that SCA employs some CCF-methods under very specific circumstances but argue that the SM basically fulfils the new FSC conditions: "Many already do this type of adaptations, so in these cases the extra 5% already exists.Then it is mostly about documentation in your forestry plan" (DS20:4:3, p.17).
SM's contribution to beauty through "clearing" is still emphasized.Forest owners are quoted on the subject: [after clear cutting, the forest] becomes so beautiful and that I can see the result immediately.I can drive by a place I have been clearing and feel so proud and satisfiedand sometimes I get comments from others about how beautiful it looks (DS20:2:2, p.4; see appendix 2 for similar examples (6)).
Similarly, the contribution to physical and mental health is part of the argument quoting forest owners as "Thinking about the bliss I get from owning and being in a forest.Well-needed exercise, but also the exhilarating feelings I get from the forest in moments like these [clearing]" (SN20:2:9, p.50; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 7)).
The trend of framing the SM as sufficient in meeting all interests; economic, environmental, and social and mentioning CCF as little as possible and only as a small complement to the SM continued in 2020.

Articles in 2021
In 2021, the economic aspects frame lost its dominant position to the environmental aspects frame with the PlusEnv code prevailing over the PlusEcon (46.7 and 32.7% of the articles this year respectively) for the SM.Even the articles emphasizing economic aspects of the model made the arguments in relation to environmental values.There were only 10 (15.4%) economic articles in 2021 that did not also include the environment frame, compared to 27 (41.5%) in 2020 and 26 (44.1%) in 2019.There were 23 articles (35.4%) which included both the economic and environmental frames in 2021, compared to 7 (10.8%) in 2020 and 19 (32.2%) in 2019.
Both in the articles on sustainable production and climate issues, the environmental frame continued to focus on biodiversity and the preservation of natural values.Several articles in Din Skog, for instance, highlight the care for biodiversity and avoiding damage by vehicles during thinnings and fellings (DS21:1:5, DS21:3:10, DS21:3:11).Similarly, it is argued that Sweden's forestry is beneficial to biodiversity (DS21:1:9, SL21:1:6, SL21:1:3).In an interview, for example, with a Global Wood & Supply Manager at IKEA, the SM is valorized in this respect: "I cannot think of offhand any other country among the 50 we purchase wood from that has better managed to combine the production and sustainability goals.So, we have a good starting line in Sweden" (SL21:1:3, p.24; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 8)).
The ratio between biodiversity and climate discussions has seen a trend-shift from previous years, with the latter catching up to biodiversity.In 2021 one can more clearly identify the presence of the Swedish forest debate in all three magazines, where the climate benefits of the SM are presented as the most important aspect in the PlusEnv code.This is done explicitly by addressing the debate: "Another aspect that is often missing in the debate is that the amount of carbon dioxide bound in the Swedish forests is continuously growingand that is thanks to the active forestry" (DS21:4:4 p.9; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 9)); or implicitly by promoting the climate benefits of higher growth: We have an amazing solution to the climate crisis: to grow more forest and with that bind more carbon dioxide in the growing trees through active forestry.The harvested forest can then replace a bunch of fossil-based products, creating a substitution effect (SL21:1:4, p.26; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 10)).
2021 included the first noteworthy differences among the three magazines.Although the core message of the SM being the best option for sustainable forestry permeated all three, they took different approaches to the intensified forest debate.Din Skog (SCA), adopted a clear defensive stance in the debate and presented the SM to be superior in growth, resulting in a strong economy for forest owners and the Swedish export industry.Directly responding to the series of critical articles in Dagens Nyheter and the SVT documentary Slaget om Skogen, and questioning their credibility, articles claim that the two fail to show the whole picture: that Swedish forests are beneficial to the Swedish economy and the key to solving the climate issue and the green transition and that international agreements, such as the EU-strategy, are problematic and should not overrule those that actually experience and understand the local needs (DS21:3:1, DS21:4:1).
Din Skog's defensive position is also illustrated when CCFmethods are mentioned, with both MinEcon and MinEnv codes: "Multiple scientific studies clearly show that a clearcut-free forestry in Sweden would lead to a substantially lower forest growth, compared to the current forestry" (DS21:4:4, p.11), and again relating the argument to the environment by pointing out reduced carbon dioxide uptake by reduced forestry.Opposition to CCF model is pronounced through forest owners' mouths saying that they "want to show consideration for nature, but [they] have no plans to switch to alternative management methods such as uneven-aged forestry.Up here in the north, with productivity being low, it would be hard to turn any profits" (DS21:4:8, p.29).
Skogsnära (Stora Enso) also responds to the debate, but without addressing the EU strategy and without being too defensive while, again, emphasizing the environmental benefits of the SM posing questions such as "what would we make products out of?" if clearcutting is stopped and forests are left untouched for at least 10 years (SN21:3:4, p.24).
While Skogsnära presents the SM as a sufficient method to meet economic and environmental requirements, there is no MinEnv for CCF.In contrast, the possibility of alternative methods complementing the SM in a flexible manner is mentioned.It is suggested, for example, that the 10% productive forest set aside per FSC-certification requirements for nature conservation can be managed by both methods for the coexistence of conservation and production (SN21:2:5, p.28).
The third magazine, Skogsliv (Holmen), adopted a more passive tone compared to the other two with no explicit response to the intensified forest debate, with no codes, positive or negative, for CCF-methods.There were some articles with the PlusEcon code for the SM (SL21:1:1) and some with the PlusEnv code mostly for its climate benefits (SL21:1:3, SL21:1:2, SL21:1:4).
Apart from fewer articles compared to 2019 and 2020, there were no major changes for the social aspects frame with the most frequent code once again being PlusSoc for the SM.Similarly, the content highlighted the usefulness of forests and Swedish forestry arguing that "It gives recuperation and exercise and is a place where you can just be" (DS21:1:10, p.21; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 11)).Only one article included a weak MinSoc for the SM by saying that although a pine forest is beautiful "It pains to harvest this shift, even though it is mature enough" (DS21:2:10, p.28) and hinting at a loss of social values when clear-cutting.
In sum, the magazines continued to stress how well the combination of high production with environmental values worked and climate benefits from the SM took on a much larger role in the rhetoric as something vital to the green transition.It was argued that many adversaries failed to consider all the benefits and the whole picture of the SM.In 2021, the three magazines slightly differed for the first time in their standpoints on the forest debate and the management methods.
With climate as the focus, a common argument in 2022 was that the Swedish forest industry was hindered by too strict regulations such as the government's implementation of EU-directives concerning species-protection: The fundamental problem is that our law makers, our politicians that is, have over-implemented EU-directive and merged two different directives in the Swedish species protection ordinance.That has resulted in Sweden having significantly stricter laws than what EU demands.That is why we forest owners now must protect every bird on an individual level instead of considering the different species conservation status, as the EU directive intended (DS22:1:1, p.3; see appendix 2 for similar examples ( 12)).
The EU's, among others, narrow view of the forest as nothing more than carbon sinks (anything that accumulates and stores carbon from the air) is negative, according to the magazines, since "to manage the transition to a fossil-free society we need to intensify the forestry, not decrease it" (SL22:1:1, p.2). Skogsnära once again differentiates itself from the other two magazines, with little to no attention given to the forest debate and sticking to its more lenient stance toward alternative methods, with few articles applauding the SM (SN22:1:3, SN22:1:5).One issue though contained one article speaking positively, albeit implicitly about alternative methods' economic advantages (PlusEco) while also questioning the SM through an interview as: He says that overall economy in the long run will probably become better if we let the nature do the job instead of focusing so much on short sighted economic yield.Unfortunately, it is hard for the ones who go against the stream because the bar is set by the ones that are most successful here and now (SN22:1:2, p.15).
While the article agrees that the forest should not be left unmanaged, it advocates less intense forestry methods to allow continuous regeneration.As such, while not explicitly mentioning CCF, clear-cutting methods are clearly being questioned as the article also included the PlusEnv and PlusSoc codes for CCF and MinEnv for the SM: The forest with its nature values cannot be conserved so we should learn to look after it so that we create new nature values all the time and, in that way, create a necessary continuity.Then we also get high recreational values at the same time (SN22:1:2, p.19).
As in 2021, the focus on climate benefits connected to high growth of forests was presented as an important argument to continue with the SM.The current model was in general seen as efficient and sufficient in fulfilling environmental and social aspects.However, CCF-methods were for the first time briefly considered by Din Skog as a potentially viable option to meet future environmental challenges in a better way.

Discussion
As the forest debate progressed over the last three years in Sweden, the focus of the forest industry in their PR framing shifted from the emphasis on the economic to the environmental aspects.The SM was predominantly framed as superior throughout the entire period for its economic advantages and sufficiency to meet environmental challenges as well as the promotion of social values and thus not warranting a change to alternative methods.Whereas the way social values were framed saw no major changes from 2019 to 2022, the other two frames did.The focus of the economic frame started out as implementing the right forestry measure at the right time to maximize growth and profitability, with many articles covering technical descriptions and examples of how to achieve these goals while occasionally mentioning the environmental benefits.As the environmental question became increasingly prominent in the magazines, the economic frame more frequently included explanations of how to combine high production and sustainability to assure the forest owners of the SM's continued capability, hence the motto of the forest industry in Sweden for promoting Swedish forestry model: "profitability is sustainability" (see Eriksson 2022).As such, while the growth aspect was initially dedicated to higher yields, over time it increasingly included the climate benefits, i.e. carbon capture that this growth would bring.
This climate aspect of growth was initially less frequent than the biodiversity aspect.The SM was framed as sufficient to create and maintain high enough levels of biodiversity while the high growth handily included climate benefits.In 2020, an increasing number of articles handled issues where forest owners were denied permission to clearcut certain areas due to high conservation values leading to more emphasis on climate benefits.In 2021, the forest debate enters the magazines explicitly with climate benefits being pushed for even harder.Many articles criticized the EU, certain media or institutions, sometimes simply calling them "the other side" or "some people," for failing to see the whole picture of the environmental benefits of the SM.This is also where notable differences between the magazines first appear.Din Skog became more resolute on the SM and increasingly offensive in its defense.Skogsliv remains relatively passive from 2019 to 2022, continuing to advocate for the SM while not openly addressing the forest debate, while Skogsnära opens for the possibility to incorporate some alternative methods.This is also visible in the codes for each magazine in 2021 and 2022.Din Skog and Skogsliv predominantly used positive codes for the SM, with Din Skog also including MinEcon and MinEnv codes for CCFmethods which in line with action framing can serve as deterrents for the target audience (forest owners) to alternative methods.Skogsnära, while still having positive codes for the SM, also included a few articles with positive codes from all frames for CCF-methods.
A noticeable aspect was that before 2021, there were only three mentions in the magazines of any CCF-methods.These articles only did so in passing demonstrating that the industry ignored CCF-methods in favor of the SM until the EU directive kindled the forest debate.In the middle of a strong salience from the industry favoring the SM, we can see that the framing of the SM has changed slightly from 2019 to 2022, with initially more focus on the economic aspects and biodiversity as the dominant environmental aspect, toward more environmental aspects, even penetrating economic arguments, and especially climate focus.The social frame was also considered to benefit from the SM, but it was mostly considered a positive side effect of clearing.
The framing of CCF methods also saw changes, albeit in different ways.It went from near total silence the first two years (2019-2020) to being mentioned the last two years (2021)(2022).The industry considered it a small-scale situational alternative that could bring some environmental, mainly biodiversity, and social benefits but not a viable alternative for large-scale production.On an organizational scale, Skogsliv remained constant by not mentioning CCF methods at all.Din Skog went from ignoring it, to a somewhat neutral article before ending with a negative portrayal.Skogsnära were initially neutral toward CCF, but after 2021 starts being more supportive if forest owners want to use different management methods.The salience of the SM in the magazines along with the portrayal of the alternative CCF-methods as a risk due to its lower growth of biomass in the forest compared to the SM aligns Hallahan's (1999) theory of action framing, where the actions of recipients of PR are influenced by whether alternatives up for possible change are framed positively or negatively.The risks of the CCF-methods were largely framed to overshadow possible biodiversity and social benefits and thus may act as a deterrent for forest owners to change from the SM to CCFmethods.CCF-methods were framed as economically inferior and unable to fulfil future climate-related needs.These needs were presented as requiring larger quantities of forest products, which could only be achieved with the higher growth of the SM.The framing of the SM as the best option to achieve a bioeconomy got increasingly prominent as the period progressed which made the SM into a symbol for a green and hopeful future.

Conclusion
The EU's new EU Forest Strategy for 2030 has increased the forest management debate in Sweden since it is calling for the elimination of clear-cutting because of its harmful effects on the environment.Within Sweden, the industry continues to argue for the superiority of the Swedish forest management practice, emphasizing its economic contribution as well as its climate impacts.The magazines' portrayal of the forest and forest owners as the backbone of the green transition serves to build a strong sense of community, much like the way Swenson (2018) has argued that the Ford Times magazine was used to build a community of shared beliefs.Due to the forest industry's high reliance on individual forest owners as timber suppliers, the companies have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo within the community.With the usage of the magazines, controlled PR channels, to highlight the environmental and economic "goodness" and reliability of the SM, and the risks of changing to CCF-methods, the companies attempt to maintain and grow these communities.Furthermore, although they were not exactly eco-chambers as described by Sténs and Mårald (2020), the closed-off company magazines serve a similar function to reinforce pre-existing beliefs to support the SM and maintain these communities.The magazines continuously reassured the forest owners that the SM was well-suited to meet both production and sustainability goals due to the industry constantly developing the already established methods.This reflected the findings of Scanlan (2017) and Gunderson et al. (2020) about the oil industry using their PR tools to constantly feed their target audiences with reassurance that the current methods are sufficient to meet future challenges and strategically avoiding negative aspects related to their methods.As a result, despite the appearance of a prioritization of social and environmental goals on the part of small forest owners and those who influence their decisions, recent research has shown that environmental goals are not fulfilled nationally as they take a backseat to economic goals in practice (Curtis et al. 2023;Lidestav and Westin 2023;Westin et al. 2023).
As observable in both the total number of articles (see Figure 2/Table 3) and the distribution of articles per management method, the ratio between articles covering the SM and articles covering CCF-methods is heavily skewed toward the former.This salience is an indication that the forest industry currently has little interest in alternative management methods.Although there is some change happening in the internal attitudes of the forest industry, specifically in the case of Skogsnära after 2021, there is still no large-scale interest in the implementation of alternative methods as the industry insists on its motto of "profitability is sustainability" and the SM ensuring it.Apart from demonstrating the trends and possibilities for change in the Swedish forest industry, these findings also may help us interpret the broader political and social contexts regarding issues such as the climate, biodiversity, and sovereignty.The intensification of the debate observed in 2021 after the new EU forest strategy and the resulting reaction of the forest industry should be interpreted within the context of questions of sovereignty and supranational regulation of conflicts if we would like to understand the possibilities of change in the face of several environmental challenges including the climate issue.
In addition to their significance as central carriers of our planet's health and its ecological sustainability, forests are also major focal points in economic sustainability, especially in countries where production and exports based on forest products support the livelihoods of many (such as in Sweden where over 300 thousand private forest owners and over 100 thousand working people in forest industry depend on them (SFI 2022)).While there are general definitions of economic sustainability in terms of looking at the ability of an economy to support a particular level of economic production and growth, when it comes to forest economics, it has traditionally been understood as "sustained yield," i.e. continuous flow of goods, services, and income from the forest for an infinite number of harvests (Cheng 2001;Siiskonen 2013).Keeping an economic sector or industry alive, not only for sustaining continued livelihoods of the people that depend on it, but also for continued availability of its products for other sectors of the economy are important considerations for society.The issue is how to balance these economic concerns with the ecological as well as social impact of this industry which may be jeopardizing overall sustainability.
Alternative management methods that are used in other countries (Gustafsson et al. 2020) where clear cutting is avoided and selective harvesting of mature trees and leaving others for forest's self-generation is emphasized are promoted from an environmental perspective due to their maintaining of the forest habitat and biodiversity, while they are assumed to be less profitable.The dominant evenaged method in Sweden is seen as a clear case of the trade-off between profitability of timber production and the social and economic losses in reindeer husbandry of Sami people in Northern Sweden as well as environmental losses in terms of biodiversity, ecosystems, and soil erosion (Pang et al. 2017;Eggers et al. 2019;Zanchi and Brady 2019).Hertog et al. (2022) identify this discourse of lower profitability of uneven-aged forestry as a major obstacle for moving toward CCF forest management.The forest industry in Sweden, therefore, is squeezed in between this discourse of having to sacrifice profit to fulfill ecological and social goals or sticking to its traditional methods and fight against the EU directives promoting sustainable practices despite the existence of recent models pointing toward ways to shift to CCF methods without sacrificing economic sustainability (see, for example, Tahvonen 2016).
The development towards alternative agricultural methods, like ecological agriculture, and the historical resistance they faced in Sweden can serve as a good example of how the attitudes of influential actors can affect practice.As our study indicates, the forest industry's stance today is similar to the Swedish agriculture industry in the 1990s.At the time, The Federation of Swedish Farmers (LRF) and conventional farmers were skeptical toward alternative agriculture methods.Starting in the late 1800s, farmers developed effective high-output agriculture methods based on, among other things, synthetic fertilizers and herbicides.The latter half of the 1900s saw the public reacting against the use of such chemicals, fostering an environmental debate.Throughout the 1990s farmers' attitudes slowly changed and in the early 2000s the LRF and conventional farmers started to view alternative methods, i.e. ecological farming, as a viable alternative to conventional farming.Important steps toward change in attitudes to alternative farming methods emerged internally from LRF, not least after the LRF chair in 1999 shifted to ecological farming (Rydén 2018).By 2020 ecological agriculture covered 20% of all farming land in Sweden (Svensson 2021).Although this change was externally influenced by environmental activists, consumers, and the general public, it was also an internal change, from skepticism to endorsement of ecological methods, projected through the main companies' practices and communication.
It is important, therefore, to understand the possibilities for internal change of attitude if we are going to understand the prospects for practical change on a topic such as forest management.Our results indicate that the pressure from outside including environmental organizations as well as the EU has not triggered a significant internal attitude change yet.Rather, it seems to have led to a trend toward arguing for the environmental benefits of the existing practices to convince the suppliers to continue with what they have been doing with a clear conscience.This discourse promoted through PR framing, therefore, can be considered another impediment to the adoption of more sustainable forestry models in Sweden in addition to the ones that have already been identified by previous research (e.g.Hertog et al. 2022).Given that the ecological harm induced by the models adopting clear-cutting is well-established (Naumov et al. 2018), it is urgent to develop policies which will ensure that the environmentally and socially sustainable models are also economically sustainable for small forest owners (United Nations 2015).It is also crucial to communicate the possibilities of balancing different sustainability concerns to relevant parties in order to prevent the monopolization of the debate by forces whose main objective is short-term profit maximization.Further research is needed to explore these possibilities as well as the ways to communicate them.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figure 2 .
Figure2.Total number of articles that included the keyword.The first five keywords (from the left) relate to the SM and the last three with alternative methods.The two in between, "Biologisk mångfald" and "Naturhänsyn," can relate to both management methods.

Table 1 .
Keywords used Skogskunskap n.d.;Skogskunskap 2019;Andersson and Appelqvist 2020)19;Andersson and Appelqvist 2020).Clearing of undergrowth and selective removal of trees to allow for increased health and growth of the remaining trees.SM Gallring Thinning Selective removal of trees to allow for increased health and growth of the remaining trees to increase final pay-out.Gives the forest owner a periodic amount of income.SM Slutavverkning Final felling, clearcutting, harvestingFinal step of the Swedish forestry cycle.All trees, save a few retention trees, in a stand is cut down.

Table 3 .
Total number of articles that included each keyword.

Table 4 .
Total number and percentage of articles that included frames (of 208 articles, no distinction between codes and overlapping frames).
Figure 1.Code density for the SM and the CCF (number of codes/number of issues per year).Y-axis (left): average number of articles per issue each year for PlusCCF, MinCCF, and MinSM codes (calculated through number of articles divided by number of issues each year).Y-axis (right): Average number of articles per issue each year for PlusSM (calculated through number of articles divided by number of issues each year.X-axis: Year.