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## RESEARCH ARTICLE

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WILEY

# Analysis of French forest policy in the context of ecosystem services: From the national to the regional level

Lison Ambroise<fnref n="1" /> ID | Jens Abildtrup<fnref n="1" /> | Helga Pülzl<fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="3" />

### Correspondence

Lison Ambroise, Université de Lorraine,
Université de Strasbourg, AgroParisTech,
CNRS, INRAE, BETA, 54000 Nancy, France.
Email: lison.ambroise@gmail.com

### Funding information

Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Grant/
Award Numbers: ANR-11-LABX-0002-01 Lab of Excellence ARBRE, ANR-19-SUM2-0001-04; Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Regions and Tourism; Bundesministerium für Nachhaltigkeit und Tourismus, Grant/Award Number: 101201/1; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Grant/Award Number: 773324; NOBEL Research Project

### Abstract

Ecosystem service research has been steadily growing and has gone beyond the scope of conceptual understanding and methodological approaches. Overall, less research has been devoted to how and to what degree the ecosystems service concept has been adopted in policy-making. This study analyses how forests and forest ecosystem services are framed in official French documents. A frame analysis was carried out on 26 documents (related to forest, biodiversity, energy, bioeconomy and climate policies) using ATLAS.ti software. The analysis was conducted at the national and regional levels (Grand Est region) in order to compare potential framing differences. It was supplemented with qualitative expert interviews to cross-validate frames and to investigate the relative importance given to each frame by key stakeholders at the regional and national levels. The analysis resulted in the reconstruction of 12 frames. The two most important frames at the national level are 'Forests as providers of wood and material' and 'Forests as a means of mitigating climate change'. In the Grand Est region, the latter frame is less important than frames related to the role of forests with regard to the quality of human life and recreation. This may be explained by the fact that public ownership is predominant in the Grand Est region. While the multifunctionality of the forest is rarely mentioned in policy documents, interviews revealed that the multifunctionality of forests remains an important concept among policy-makers, even if it is not always explicitly mentioned and is losing ground to the ecosystem services concept.

### KEYWORDS

forest ecosystem services, forest policy, frame analysis, French forest policy, multi-level

## 1 | INTRODUCTION

While the ecosystem service concept was initially developed to warn decision-makers about the economic stakes of conservation (Costanza et al., 1997; Costanza et al., 2014; Froger et al., 2012), it has gained increasing importance in the last decades (Aznar-Sánchez et al., 2018). Even though a great deal of research is focused on

producing knowledge (Díaz et al., 2018), for example, indicators of ecosystem service (ES) provision (Czúcz et al., 2018; Fagerholm et al., 2016; Hernández-Morcillo et al., 2013) and monetary valuation (de Groot et al., 2012), much less is driven by the way this knowledge is integrated into and taken into account by actual policies (Olander et al., 2017; Saarikoski et al., 2018). According to Bouwma et al. (2018), there is a lack of coherence between the different policies

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© 2022 The Authors. *Environmental Policy and Governance* published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

<footnote n="1">¹Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg, AgroParisTech, CNRS, INRAE, BETA, Nancy, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²European Forest Institute (EFI), Joensuu, Finland</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Department of Economics and Social Science and EFI Forest Policy Research Network, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria</footnote>
addressing ES at the European level and the achievement of a higher level of coherence that mainly depends on policy implementation at the national and regional levels. That is why it is interesting to study how ES are addressed therein (Primmer et al., 2021). Some studies have conducted national scale analyses: i.e., in the United Kingdom (Raum, 2017), in Scotland (Claret et al., 2018), in Poland (Maczka et al., 2016), and in Bangladesh (Ahammad et al., 2021). They all have shown either conflation, confusion of concepts by the stakeholders, or no specific policy implementation. We also investigate whether or not different understandings of the FES concept exist at different scales within the same country (in our case, France).

The French metropolitan forest (i.e., excluding overseas forests) is the fourth largest in Europe with 17 million hectares (IGN, 2021) and provides a wide range of goods and services, including non-market services whose value can in some cases be higher than that of marketed goods. The value of forest ecosystem services (FES) was recently assessed across the whole French metropolitan territory (EFESE, 2018), but how much FES are taken into account in the various policies and legislation related to forests has not yet been determined.

The conceptual development of ES (and FES) in French policy has been relatively late compared to other countries (Maury et al., 2016). Indeed, FES were first introduced into French forest policy with the 2007 Grenelle Environment Forum and the Assizes of the Forest (Valette et al., 2012). The introduction of this notion has partially changed the way forests are addressed in French policy documents and legislation related to forests. Yet, the way a theme is framed has an influence on the policy directions taken (Coburn, 2006). This study therefore aims at analysing how French forest policy and legislation documents address forests and their role by using the frame analysis method of Rein & Schön (1996) and Schön & Rein (1994). This method has the advantage of bringing the different present and absent French forest frames to light, enabling us to understand which policy paths are emerging in France.

The French government is centralised and the main forest policy directions are given at the national level. However, even if policy-makers always make their decisions in accordance with the national orientations, there is more and more subsidiarity and differentiation to be found at the sub-national level (Sergent, 2017). In this study, we therefore analyse how forests and FESs are addressed in French national and regional forest policy and legislation in order to show-case communalities and differences. The region chosen for the present analysis is the Grand Est since the forest and wood industry is particularly developed there. This region ranks second in France in terms of harvested timber volume and consequently presents an important region for French forest policy-makers (Batto & Eichwald, 2019).

The structure of this paper is as follows. First, the research design is clearly outlined and explained. This includes an introduction to what is meant by frame and a section describing the methods and material used. Second, the findings concerning the relative importance of each frame at the national and regional levels are presented. Finally,

elements that might explain the results are discussed together with the outcomes from interviews with experts.

## 2 | RESEARCH DESIGN

### 2.1 | Frames, a useful conceptual tool

The frame concept is multidisciplinary (Aggestam, 2017; Degelsegger, 2008; van Hulst & Yanow, 2016). Although its definition changes depending on the field of research and authors, it is recognised that frames are generally imperceptible. Goffman (1974: 21), one of the pioneers of the concept defines it as a 'schemata of interpretation', used by individuals to classify occurring events. Consistent with this definition, frames can be understood as ways of perceiving the world (Bateson, 1972; Lewicki et al., 2003).

Other authors see frames as something collective rather than individual. For example, Reese Jr. et al. (2001) define frames as 'organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to structure the social world'. Frames are not only a way of viewing events, but also appeal to a collective culture and can thus be well-known by both the frame-user and the frame-receiver (Vossen et al., 2018). For Entman (1993: 52), frames 'define problems', 'diagnose causes', 'make moral judgements' and 'suggest remedies'. They are contained within a text and are consciously or unconsciously developed by the writer (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). However, because a frame is present in a text does not mean that it will be adopted or even perceived by the reader (Entman, 1993; van Gorp, 2007).

The definition preferred by Rein and Schön (1996: 89) for frame analysis is the one of 'narrative-frames'. With the help of framing and reasoning devices, respectively, narrative-frames simultaneously suggest how to analyse a situation and what to do about it. 'Framing devices' consist of metaphors, exemplars, catchphrases, depictions and images. 'Reasoning devices' are elements that explain causes and consequences or that call on moral principles (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). Narrative-frames are related to norms linked to general cultural themes. According to van Gorp (2007, p. 64), the reconstruction of 'frame packages' (framing devices, reasoning devices and an implicit binding cultural phenomenon) is the core component of frame analysis. Rein and Schön (1996: 91) differentiate 'rhetorical frames', which, according to them, consist of arguments used by the defenders of an idea in policy debates, from 'action frames', which are the way laws, strategy documents, and so on are designed and implemented by policy practitioners. In this study, we focus on action frames and their reconstruction.

Drawing on Björnehed and Erikson (2018), we use the concept of the frame institutionalisation ladder and the number of quotations related to each frame in this study to enable us to determine which FES frames have been downplayed or put forward at the French national and regional levels.

Some authors such as van Hulst and Yanow (2016) make a distinction between framing as a dynamic process, and frames, which are static. We focus on frames in our analysis and are not interested in studying how frames are constructed.
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## 2.2 | Material and methods

In order to shed light on how forests and FES are addressed in French national and regional forest-related policies, a qualitative document analysis using the frame analysis methodology developed by Schön and Rein (1994, 1996) was carried out. Since it was expected that not many references to the FES concept would be found in documents due to its novelty, it was decided to analyse the way forests are addressed and their suggested role as a placeholder for FES.

### 2.2.1 | Document selection

Forest policy is linked to several policy domains. Indeed, biodiversity policy, climate change policy, energy policy and bioeconomy policy are all connected to forests, and it is therefore important to understand how forests and FES are framed therein. These documents were therefore selected according to the following criteria:

* Either linkage to one of the five policy domains mentioned above or essential to policy analysis (i.e., a document mentioned as important regarding forests by several others);

* Part of main policy plans, strategies or laws of the selected policy domains;

* Of national or regional origin (selected region: Grand Est);

* Written or supported by governmental institutions only;

* In force at the time the study was conducted.

The list of selected French documents and their full references are available in Appendix S1A. In total, 26 documents were analysed, among which 20 were related to the national level with the following distribution: forest policy (5); biodiversity policy (4); climate change policy (4); energy policy (3); bioeconomy (2); circular economy (1); and one that concerned both climate change and energy policy.

### 2.2.2 | Frame analysis through coding

The frame analysis was done based on the coding of the forest-related sections in these documents. These underlying frame reconstructions help to uncover what receives more importance or, in other words, what produces more attention and action (Perri 6, 2006). In the literature, we find codes said to refer to units of meaning and which are then assigned to paragraphs or phrases in the documents during analysis (Miles &

Huberman, 1994). Frames were reconstructed based on open coding, meaning that codes were developed while reading the text. This was carried out using ATLAS.ti 8 software. As recommended by Gläser and Laudel (2013), codes were only attributed to selected parts of the texts, depending on their relationship to the research questions. Additionally, the following matrix was used to guide the analysis (Table 1).

During text analysis, the number of codes was then reduced by grouping them into categories to enable the identification of frames. In order to minimise the bias due to the fact that there was only one coder, the reconstructed frames were reviewed by the authors' team as well as by peers, in addition to being cross-validated with interviewees (see Section 2.2.4).

### 2.2.3 | Determination of the relative importance of each frame

Additionally, in order to determine the importance attributed to each frame, the number of quotations referring to each frame was counted using the methodology developed by Elomina and Pülzl (2021). ES are mentioned in the very first article of the French environmental law (Art. L 110-1) and can therefore be considered to be at the top of the 'frame institutionalisation ladder' developed by Björnehed and Erikson (2018). However, this does not imply that all (forest) ecosystem services are taken into account in the same way. Thus, what is at stake here is to determine if there is a difference of importance among the frames of FES depending on the policy domains and between the national and regional levels. The number of quotations related to one frame as well as the types of documents where quotations were found was to serve as an indicator (Björnehed and Erikson (2018)). The total number of quotations related to FES well depicts the importance given to them, independently of the number of documents and their number of pages, which we consider to be part of the context. That is why we decided not to normalise the number of citations in order to retain this information. Interviewees (see Section 2.2.4) were also asked about their point of view of the relative importance of FES frames in the studied documents, after the one established through the data was presented to them.

### 2.2.4 | Interviews

Expert interviews (Meuser & Nagel, 2009) with stakeholders and policy-makers were conducted in June and July 2020 via phone using

<table><caption>TABLE 1 Section title, guiding questions and expected results in the analysis matrix (adapted from Elomina, 2019)</caption><thead><tr><th>Section title</th><th>Guiding question</th><th>Expected results</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Frame reconstruction</td><td>How are forests and their services addressed?<br>What frame does this correspond to?<br>Are some frames included in others?</td><td>= &gt; Citations that directly and indirectly address FES or forests<br>= &gt; Frame assignment<br>= &gt; Classification of sub-frames and main frames</td></tr><tr><td>Analysing the policy document</td><td>What does the document say about implementation?<br>Are there obligations/sanctions?</td><td>= &gt; Description of the planned implementation and sanctions, if any</td></tr></tbody></table>
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an interview guideline. The expert interviews had two main objec-
tives: the cross-validation of frames, as advocated by Rein and Schön
(1996), and the comparison between the relative importance of each
frame mentioned in the documents and the priority that the different
interviewees gave to them. The interview guidelines are provided in
Appendix S1B. According to the data management plan of BETA
(Bureau of Theoretical and Applied Economics), best practices for the
processing of interviews were implemented: the purpose of the study
was explained, the consent of the subjects was obtained, and they
had been informed of theirs rights. Only the data necessary to the
study were collected, and the data was anonymised. During the pro-
ject, data was stored on a secure server, managed by BETA, and
accessible by the project manager and project members. Once the
study was completed, the data was archived on the server with access
restricted to the data administrator and the project manager.

To select the interviewees, the main organisations in charge of
forest policy implementation or having a consultative role in forest
policy at the regional and national level were identified and individu-
ally contacted. A total of 10 people were interviewed as representa-
tives of their respective organisations for a period of 20 min up to 1
h. They represented the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of the
Environment, the Grand Est Regional Directorate of Agriculture, Food
and Forests (DRAAF Grand Est), the Grand Est Regional Directorate
of Environment, Planning and Housing (DREAL Grand Est), France
Nature Environnement (environmental NGO), the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC France), the French National Forestry Office (ONF), the
Grand Est Regional Centre of Forest Ownership (CRPF Grand Est) and
Fibois (inter-professional association of the wood and forest sector).
One of them was an expert on climate change policies. Seven inter-
views were recorded and fully transcribed with the agreement of the
interviewees. In the other cases, notes where taken throughout the
interview.

3 | RESULTS OF THE DOCUMENT ANALYSIS AND INTERVIEWS

3.1 | Frame identification

Twelve different frames were identified and are described in Table 2.
Appendix S1C details the sub-frames that are included in each frame
and provides sample texts. Several frames were sometimes found in
one quotation.

3.2 | Interviewee's point of view on frames

The 12 frames identified were presented to the interviewees during
the qualitative interviews. Generally, interviewees recognised the
identified frames. Nevertheless, some comments were made. Regard-
ing Frame 2, several interviewees (Int 1, 4, 6) were really surprised not
to find any mention of climate change adaptation. Additionally, one
interviewee (Int 6) underlined that climate change mitigation through

storage and absorption, on the one hand, and climate change mitiga-
tion through substitution, on the other, were quite different since
they involve contrasting forest management strategies. However, the
analysis of the documents shows that substitution, storage and
sequestration are very frequently cited together, which impedes the
reconstruction of two frames.

Concerning Frame 10, ‘Multifunctionality’, and Frame
6, ‘Resource renewal and soil fertility’, some of the interviewees (Int
3, 4, 6) considered them as being ‘different’ from the other frames. It
is true they are broader than the other frames. Nevertheless, as they
were cited as the main ones by some interviewees (Int 4, 6, 8), they
have a certain legitimacy.

More than half of the interviewees questioned the following three frames: Frame 5, ‘Forests as economic sites’; Frame 3, ‘Forests as energy providers’; and Frame 1, ‘Forests as wood and material providers’. Some said that there is no distinction between these frames, and others made merging proposals like seeking the vision of sustainable development and its three pillars, which is very present in French policy. However, the results of the different interviewees underlines that it is not necessarily exactly the same aspects that are classified in relation to the economic category. Furthermore, such a merging would not make it possible to capture French forest policy in all its complexity. In particular, this viewpoint does not cover the aspects related to climate change mitigation.

3.3 | Relative importance of frames at the national and regional levels

When the number of quotations per policy domain are compared to
each other, we find the following results: not surprisingly, the forest
policy domain (n = 324) shows the most quotations, followed by the
energy (n = 212) and climate policy domains (n = 211), whereas the
biodiversity policy (n = 115) domain and the bioeconomy policy
domain (n = 45) come in last (see Figure 1). Since Frame 11, ‘Forests
as educational support’, and Frame 12, ‘Forests as grazing land’, were
both only found in the forest policy domain in a single document (the
National Forest and Wood Programme and the French Forestry Code,
respectively), they will not be included in the figures so as not to
overload them.

Figure 1 also reveals that the relative importance of each frame
differs depending on the policy domain, but most of the frames can
be found in all of the chosen policy domains, except for bioeconomy.
Indeed, the latter seems to address forests mainly as wood and mate-
rial providers, economic sites or energy providers. In the other policy
domains, the remaining frames have a greater importance. In particu-
lar, in the forest policy domain, more than half of the quotations are
linked to frames different from the three frames previously men-
tioned. The dominating frames for forest, energy and climate policy
domains appear to be relatively closely related. As for the biodiversity
policy domain, it mainly refers to frames 3, 4 and 9.

Overall, it can be said, with exception made for Frames 11 and
12, related to education and grazing, respectively, the 10 other frames
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<table><caption>TABLE 2 Frames identified during the analysis</caption><thead><tr><td>Frames</td><td>Short description</td><td>Examples</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1. Forests as providers of wood and material</td><td>> Refers to the wood and material supply to the construction industry, the furniture industry, the pulp and panel industry, the packaging industry, and the green chemistry industry as well.</td><td>'The wood forest sector is based on the logging of 13.7 million m3 of timber, annually produced by regional forests'. (p. 111, SRADDET report, Section 4).</td></tr><tr><td>2. Forests as means of mitigating climate change</td><td>> Includes climate change mitigation through both carbon storage and substitution.<br/>> Does not include climate change adaptation since what is mainly put forward in the documents is that forests need to adapt to climate change, which is not an ecosystem service.</td><td>'The scheme aims at reaching a regional balance and effective coordination between the different wood uses in order to optimise wood use to combat climate change'. (L 222-3-1, French Environmental Code).</td></tr><tr><td>3. Forests as energy providers</td><td>> Refers to wood used as fuel in general, whether for self-consumption or at an industrial scale.</td><td>'Wood can be directly used in devices or facilities that produce heat'. (p. 151, France's integrated climate and energy plan).</td></tr><tr><td>4. Forests as living space for fauna and flora</td><td>> Refers to a vision of forests as biodiversity reservoirs and includes the notions of habitat, connectivity between them at the landscape scale, natural patrimony and protection of genetic resources.</td><td>'Forests as biodiversity reservoirs have a protective effect on the soil, air and climate'. (p. 8, PNFB 2016-2026).</td></tr><tr><td>5. Forests as economic sites</td><td>> Refers to the contribution of the forest to the economy, whether it be by providing jobs, generating incomes or supplying a bioeconomy.</td><td>'The forest wood sector should contribute to reaching objectives that will increase turnover by 100 million euros and create 110,000 jobs on French territory by 2020'. (p. 30, French Research and Innovation Plan for 2025 for the forest-based sector).</td></tr><tr><td>6. Resource renewal and maintenance of soil fertility</td><td>> Includes everything related to the regenerative function of forests, which is part of the maintenance of forest ecosystem services.</td><td>'to reconcile, on the one hand, an increase in the production and harvesting of forest biomass with, on the other, the maintenance of the three components of soil fertility (chemical, physical and biological)'. (p. 38, French Research and Innovation Plan for 2025 for the forest-based sector).</td></tr><tr><td>7. Forests as protectors against natural disasters and of the soil</td><td>> Refers to the protective function of the forest.</td><td>'Sustainably managed forests play a protective role towards natural risks such as erosion and floods'. (p. 101, PRFB, Grand Est, 2018-2027).</td></tr><tr><td>8. Forests as enhancers of human life quality</td><td>> Encompasses the benefits provided by forests such as water quality, air quality and landscape features.</td><td>'The notion of services provided by forest ecosystems (water quality, air quality, carbon storage, biodiversity, landscapes, etc.) highlights material and immaterial goods provided by ecosystems and their economic importance'. (p. 54, PRFB, Grand Est, 2018-2027).</td></tr><tr><td>9. Forests as recreational areas</td><td>> Includes hunting and gathering activities, sports activities and also encompasses tourist attractiveness.</td><td>'Forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services for humans, some of which are directly perceived by the general public: the support for recreational activities (hunting, gathering, walking, sports) and tourism that need to be coordinated with the use of fuel wood (different assessments of forest landscapes, physical and noise disturbances of recreational areas, etc.)'. (p. 40, French National Biomass Mobilisation Strategy).</td></tr><tr><td>10. Multifunctionality</td><td>> Refers to the provision of several forest ecosystem services at the same time.<br/>> Includes only citations that contained the term 'multifunctionality'.</td><td>'It is therefore a question of respecting the objectives of multifunctionality and sustainable forest management, which are currently set out in the various regional forest management schemes'. (p. 111, SRADDET report, Grand Est, Section 4).</td></tr><tr><td>11. Forests as educational support</td><td>> Refers to forests as a suitable place for teaching about the environment.</td><td>'The forest is indeed a perfect support for environmental and sustainable development educational activities' (p. 34, PNFB, 2016).</td></tr><tr><td>12. Forests as grazing land</td><td>> Refers to forests as support for livestock feeding.</td><td>'In protected forests, owners and right-of-use holders may only graze their livestock in areas that are not protected' (Art.R. 141-13, French Forest Code (new).</td></tr></tbody></table>
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 1 Number of quotations from each frame per policy domain</figcaption></figure>

were found both at the national and regional levels, but they occurred to a different degree (Figure 2). Frames 1, 3, 4 and 5 are clearly the main ones, both at the national and regional levels.

Figure 2 also shows that the relative importance of the frames in the Grand Est region is different than the one found at the national level. More precisely, at the national level, Frame 2 is much more important than at the Grand Est level. Frames 8 and 9 are gaining momentum in the Grand Est region in comparison to the national level.

## 3.4 Interviewees' point of view on the relative importance of each frame

According to the interviewees, Frame 10, ‘Multifunctionality’, has a greater importance than was revealed through the document analysis. Indeed, almost all of the interviewees mentioned multifunctionality as a major or main frame (Int 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8): ‘Multifunctionality is not secondary; it is really very very important’ (Int 6).

In addition to this strong emphasis on Frame 10, interviewees (Int 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10) recognised the preponderance of Frames 1 and 2 at the French national level. The others frequently attributed a greater importance to Frame 4, ‘Forests as living space for fauna and flora’. It can be underlined that when interviewees were asked about the main frame, they frequently addressed several

frames at the same time. Many interviewees (Int 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10) shared the idea that Frame 3, ‘Forests as energy providers’, is an important one.

While this section highlighted the perception of interviewed experts (representing different organisations of forest-related policy domains) the way frames appear in policy documents does not necessarily reflect actors' perceptions regarding frame importance. This is an important result that can generate more frame awareness in the long run.

## 3.5 Different scales, different frames?

Since 2014, each French region must define its own regional forest and wood programme adapted to regional specificities, while being in line with the national programmes.¹ The design of this study enables us to conduct an in-depth exploration at the regional limit of the adaptation of national policies, taking the example of the Grand Est region via the analysis of the number of frame-related quotations.

The three main differences observed between the Grand Est and the national levels concern: the greater importance of Frame 1 (providers of wood and material) and Frame 9 (recreational area) and the lesser importance of Frame 2 related to climate change mitigation in the Grand Est as compared to the national level.
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Proportion (in %) of occurrence of each frame at the national and regional level</figcaption></figure>

<caption>**FIGURE 2** Proportion (in %) of occurrence of each frame at the national and regional level</caption>

# 4 | DISCUSSION

## 4.1 | French FES frames and EU FES frames

The reconstructed frames show that various FES are mentioned in official French documents. The four different categories of services (provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural; MEA, 2005) were found. In particular, support services are mentioned in Frame 6. This is interesting because, according to recent studies conducted on the same topic (Bouwma et al., 2018; Elomina & Pülzl, 2021), this category of ecosystem services is rarely found in EU policies.

Additionally, the reconstructed frames are distributed across the different policy domains (except from bioeconomy policy), which shows that in France, those policy documents not only focus on but, in contrast to the EU level, also promote their respective frames (Bouwma et al., 2018; Elomina & Pülzl, 2021).

## 4.2 | Climate change mitigation, energy provision, wood and material provision work together

The frames related to climate change mitigation, energy provision, wood and material provision work together. According to Sergent (2014), climate change mitigation is central to French forest-related policies, and increasing wood harvest is considered as a key goal to

achieve it. To reach the objective of 23% of renewable energy in the French energy mix by 2020, it was also decided to use more fuelwood (Caurla et al., 2013). Taking all of the above into consideration, French forest policy has taken a 'harvest turn' since the Grenelle Environment Forum in 2007 (Sergent, 2014, p. 492). In this particular area, increasing wood harvest has been considered as a win-win objective that has contributed both to environmental and economic objectives (Sergent, 2014), similarly to what has been observed in Sweden (Lindahl et al., 2017).

As mentioned in the previous subsection, the bioeconomy policy domain contains less FES frames. In particular, Frame 2, related to climate change mitigation, is not found despite the fact that it is said to be central in bioeconomy discourses in Europe (Kleinschmit et al., 2017). The explanation might be based on the fact that in France (like in Germany and the Netherlands), forests are only seen as a source of biomass among others (Kleinschmit et al., 2017). Therefore, frames related to climate change mitigation are present but they are instead related to bioresources in general rather than to forests.

## 4.3 | Multifunctionality: A downplayed frame

Frame 10, related to multifunctionality, appears to be very clearly downplayed in the documents, despite the fact that it had reached the top of the 'frame institutionalisation ladder' (Björnehed & Erikson,
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

2018, p. 5) in the forest policy domain. Indeed, the term ‘multi-functionality’ appeared in the French forestry code in 2001, but was then deleted in 2012 (Barthod, 2015). However, the interviews show that this frame is still present as a backdrop. Several interviewees (Int 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) frequently addressed it, going as far as to present it as the main frame.

At the time that multifunctionality was central in French forest policy, its achievement mainly relied on the free will of private owners (Rivière, 2017), following the same logic as in Sweden with the concept of ‘freedom with responsibility’ of forest owners towards environmental goals (Lindahl et al., 2017). In contrast, FES, which are directly linked to payment for ecosystem services, appeal to private owners since they can be financially rewarded depending on their management practices, as well as obtain recognition for their forest management work (Rivière, 2017). Furthermore, the concept of FES seems to be more beneficial than multifunctionality and leads the way to consensus as it makes it possible to define the desired balance between the different services in each area depending on the local context. Consequently, the move towards a higher regional specialisation in the French forest policy identified by Sergent (2017) and Lenglet and Caurla (2020) goes hand-in-hand with the phasing out of multifunctionality in favour of the development of FES.

## 4.4 | Different frames at national and regional scales?

Four hypotheses can be proposed to explain the discrepancies mentioned in Section 3.5.

The first one is linked to French history: The Grand Est includes the Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle departments (part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918) and this has induced a differentiated forest management compared to the rest of France (Degron & Husson, 1999). This could explain the regional particularities in forest policy as compared to the French national forest policy.

The second one is contextualisation, meaning that forest policy is adapted to the sub-national context (topography, climate, tree species, social, etc.). Regions were asked to fit the national forest policy to the sub-national context when they had to write their own Regional Wood and Forest Programme (PRFB). Since regional forest policy is meant to be adapted to the local context, it is natural that the frames found at the Grand Est level slightly differ from those found at the national level.

A third explanation could possibly be related to the temporal shift between national and regional policy implementation. The differences observed between the national and the regional level could be due to the time it takes for new concepts to be enforced at the regional level once they are included at the national level.

A last explanation could lie in the fact that, as mentioned before, the Grand Est is the region with the highest percentage of public forests in France and, consequently, the French National Forestry Office (ONF) plays a central role in forest management. The Grand Est forest policy is expected to be strongly influenced by its ONF policy. On its

website, it is stated that ONF's four main missions 'are to produce wood, preserve the environment, welcome the public and prevent natural risks'.² And in its online glossary, on the page that gives the definition of multifunctionality, it says: 'All the ONF foresters you will meet will tell you: in application of the forestry code, French public forests are managed in a “multifunctional” way’.³

While it is difficult to assess which of those propositions are the one(s) that best explain the discrepancies between French national and regional forest policies, it appears safe to say that several of them work together. Further research is needed on this topic.

## 4.5 | Frame reflexion

The way forests and FES are framed in documents and across policy domains might not reflect how actors actually perceive frames and their relative importance. While Rein and Schön (1994) suggest that frame reflection should be used to bridge conflicts and trigger policy learning, most forms of frame analyses stop after the analysis of documents and interviews has been completed. Frame reflection is important, not only to uncover those notions, but also to create frame awareness among policy-makers and to therefore contribute to conflict resolution. While this study has used interviews to validate analytical results, it has also made French policy actors reflect about the content and relative importance of reconstructed frames. This was, however, not meant to be a fully designed intervention, but only an initial step to, on the one hand, make policy actors critically reflect upon research results and, on the other, to provide inputs to researchers to make them critically reflect on their work as well, in the tradition of interpretative policy analysis (Fischer & Forester, 1993). Future research, however, should engage in frame reflection based on external interventions (Benard et al., 2013; Termeer et al., 2010) to study how mutual learning and frame reflection among actors works.

## 5 | CONCLUSIONS

The study's main aim was to generate an understanding of how French national and regional policies frame forests and FES. This included a reconstruction of frames and the determination of the relative importance of each, as well as the study of variations between the national and Grand Est levels conducted through document analysis and interviews.

In the first place, it has to be underlined that French policy documents actually consider the provision of multiple goods and services from the forest with direct or indirect reference to multiple ecosystem services. More precisely, the analysis found four main frames, both at the national and at the Grand Est region levels, namely: Frame 1, 'Forests as wood and material providers'; Frame 3, 'Forests as energy providers'; Frame 4, 'Forests as living spaces for fauna and flora'; and Frame 5, 'Forests as economic sites'. Frame 2, 'Forests as means of mitigating climate change', is very important at the national level, but not so at the regional level. Furthermore, the recreational and life
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

quality aspects of forests are more important in the Grand Est region compared to the national level.

It should be pointed out that the concept of multifunctionality seems to be losing ground, to the benefit of FES. The popularity of FES might be explained by the fact that this notion has a bridging function and conflicts revolving around the concept of multifunctionality in France can be contained.

In addition, future research should address how forests are perceived in other regions, and the methods used in this study could be replicated to understand whether the Grand Est region is a special case in France or not. So far, it appears that the relatively high freedom that each region has to define its own forest policy and, in particular, its Regional Wood and Forest Programme, makes it possible to take their specificities into account. The high regional share in forest policy might foster regional specialisation, which could increase the risk of ignoring global services such as climate change mitigation.

More generally, this frame analysis shows that there are differences between frames at the national and regional levels. Research exclusively focused on national documents might miss out on which frames dominate action on the ground. This form of research could be repeated in other countries as well to investigate how much regional policies, adapted from a national policy, can differ, in order to see if the observations for France are similar elsewhere.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported within the scope of the Forest Value ERA-Net Project 'NOBEL, Novel business models and mechanisms for the sustainable supply of and payment for forest ecosystem services'. ForestValue has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N773,324. Related research was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Regions and Tourism and the French National Agency of Research (ANR-19-SUM2-0001-04). Furthermore, research was supported also within the scope of the Sumforest ERA-Net Project 'POLYFORES'. The related research was funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Sustainability and Tourism [grant 101201/1] and The UMR BETA is supported by a grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the 'Investissements d'Avenir' programme (ANR-11-LABX-0002-01, Lab of Excellence ARBRE).

## CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## ORCID

Lison Ambroise https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0107-0572

## ENDNOTES

onf.fr/onf/+/?ea:la-multifonctionnalité-ou-comment-la-foret-nous-rend-de-nombreux-et-precieux-services.html

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SUPPORTING INFORMATION

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How to cite this article: Ambroise, L., Abildtrup, J., & Pülzl, H. (2023). Analysis of French forest policy in the context of ecosystem services: From the national to the regional level. *Environmental Policy and Governance*, 33(2), 153-163. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2008