By Theresa Klara Loch, Michael Wohlwend and Örjan Bodin

Image by Theresa Klara Loch

This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.

Forests are shaped not only by trees, animals, and climate, but also by the people who manage them. In public forests, forest managers play a key role in turning policies into day-to-day decisions. Their work often depends on how they interact with colleagues in neighbouring districts. However, we still know little about how these interactions relate to the species managers are responsible for, or how confident managers feel about their ability to influence outcomes.

In this study, we looked at how forest district managers in one German state forest organisation work with each other around species management. We focused on eight species that are relevant for both forest management and public debate, such as red deer, bark beetles, wolves, and lynxes. We examined managers’ reports of where these species occur, how they work with colleagues, and how confident they feel in their ability to influence management.

We used a network approach to map who collaborates with whom and where the same species occur across districts. This allowed us to explore whether collaboration patterns line up with species co-occurence. Our results show that collaboration is not evenly spread across the network. Managers tend to interact more with nearby colleagues, and collaboration often concentrates around species that are highly visible, politically sensitive, or institutionally complex.

Most interactions between managers involve information sharing rather than sustained joint decision-making. Managers who are more connected to others also tend to feel more effective in their work. However, closer alignment between collaboration and species occurrence does not automatically translate into higher perceived effectiveness. In some cases, collaboration appears to reflect institutional pressure or public attention rather than direct influence over management outcomes.

Overall, our findings highlight that forest governance is strongly shaped by relationships, perceptions, and context. Supporting sustainable forest management may therefore depend not only on formal rules or organisational structures, but also on strengthening trust-based collaboration and peer networks. Looking at who works with whom, and around which issues, provides valuable insight into how forest governance actually works in practice.