## 1 Introduction
This is, for example, the case of Italy, where, despite the existence of strong regional differences and excellence hotspots [31], the forest-wood sector has always struggled to express its full economic potential, and the management of forest areas is currently experiencing a state of abandonment [30; 32]. One can consider several elements to illustrate the state of the Italian forest-wood supply chain: despite the fact that more than one third of the Italian territory is covered by forest, more than two thirds of the national supply chain depends on the import of raw materials; forest harvesting infrastructures and sawmills are disappearing; only 18% of the forest surface is managed according to a forest management plan; 72% of the firms are one man businesses and only 7% are share capital enterprises; and, over the years, the number of companies and workers in the wood cutting businesses for construction and furniture have dramatically fallen (by 27.8% and 34.4% in the period 2008-2017, respectively). When it comes to the state of the circular bioeconomy, data shows a low level of innovativeness and product differentiation, with approximately 95% of the recycled material used to produce particleboard or fiberboard for the furniture sector [32]. Against this backdrop, the current paper posits that the expectations for the uptake of CBE strategies in the forest-wood sector in the next years may face several barriers. In particular, the incumbents of disadvantaged Italian forest areas might not own the resources and the business environment required by a CBE transition. As recent CBE policies have suggested the application of advanced technological processes to upcycle biobased materials (e.g., the New EU Forest Strategy for 2030 [33]), this paper addresses the limits of this guidance for disadvantaged forest areas. Without contextual insights on drivers, barriers, and potential strategies for circular bioeconomy transition in the forest-wood sector, CBE policies may fail. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to contribute to generating geographically situated knowledge on these topics. This objective is consistent with previous studies seeking strategies to develop forest circular bioeconomy supply chains that are tailored to geographical contexts (e.g., [34; 35; 36; 37]). In Italy, where the current study was performed, previous studies on forest circular bioeconomy have been focused mainly on technological issues (e.g., [38; 39; 40]), on the market aspects and financial performances of sustainable forest management (e.g., [41; 42; 43; 44]), and on specific tree species (e.g., [29]). To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to provide a comprehensive socio-economic understanding of how to approach a circular bioeconomy transition in the forest-wood sector of Southern Italy. More specifically, the current research raises the two following research questions:  
1. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the transition of disadvantaged forest areas into a circular bioeconomy? 2. Which strategies can be adopted to foster the transition? To answer the two questions, information gathered by interviewing a set of forest entrepreneurs and other key informants was used. More specifically, the paper presents the outcomes of a qualitative analysis of the interaction with experts, business actors and other representatives of the forest-wood sector of the Salerno province (Southern Italy). An inductive process was used to generate a SWOT analysis of the interviews and to derive the appropriate strategies for the transition in the context at hand. The paper offers an outlook of the potentialities of CBE in disadvantaged forest areas to policy actors willing to bridge the gap between CBE agendas and territorial development challenges.