Presentation short abstract

Why do Swedish forest owners with diverse objectives practice homogeneous management? I argue that digital planning tools, GPS systems, and administrative standards, co-evolved over decades, afford clear-cutting while systematically constraining continuous-cover alternatives.

Presentation long abstract

Research on Swedish forestry reveals a puzzle. Private forest owners hold diverse objectives: some prioritize timber production, others biodiversity, recreation, or climate. Many report balancing property rights with stewardship ideals. Yet practiced management remains overwhelmingly homogeneous, focusing on even-aged rotational forestry with devastating impacts on biodiversity and also climate. Why is that?

Existing explanations emphasize discourse and market-level factors. I descend instead into material practices. Drawing on affordance theory and the concept of boundary objects, I argue that physical, digital, and administrative infrastructures, imbricated through decades of co-evolution, enable effortless coordination for clear-cutting while adding friction to alternatives.

Infrastructures become visible when they break down. Through interviews with private owners, contractors, and forest advisors, I examine what happens when actors attempt continuous-cover forestry. Work registration software validates distances between strip roads as 18–22 meters. Harvester GPS sits in the cabin, not the arm tip, preventing precise documentation of selective cutting. Planning software assumes even-aged stands, making CCF interventions impossible to register. Contractors lack both equipment and competence; cooperatives offer standardized clear-cutting advice.

This contributes to critical engagements with ecological data infrastructures. Those infrastructures exist already today, often as crude representations only. The specifications, standards, and software coordinating forest supply chains appear neutral but embed assumptions systematically favoring dominant practices. They constrain not by misreading landscapes but by rendering alternatives illegible: impossible to plan, document, and coordinate. Recognizing these material constraints is essential for understanding regime stability and identifying where transitions might gain traction.