Sectoral policies cause incoherence in forest management and ecosystem service provisioning

Various national policies guide forest use, but often with competing policy objectives leading to divergent management paradigms. Incoherent may negatively impact the sustainable provision of ecosystem services (FES), and multifunctionality. There is uncertainty among policymakers about impacts on real world. We translated documents Finland into scenarios including quantitative demands for FES, representing: strategy (NFS), biodiversity (BDS), bioeconomy (BES). simulated a Finland-wide systematic sample stands alternative regimes climate change. Finally, we used multi-objective optimization identify combination matching best each scenario analysed their long-term effects FES. The NFS proved be most multifunctional, targeting highest number while BES had lowest FES targets. However, was strongly oriented towards value chain wood bioenergy dominating economic growth target, which caused strong within-policy conflicts hindered reaching BDS were instead more consistent showed either sustainability gaps in terms providing timber resources (BDS) or no improvements All resulted programs dominated by continuous cover forestry, set-aside areas, intensive zones, proportions depending focus. Our results highlight first time sectoral requirements outcomes provide leverage points increase coherence future improve implementation multiple uses forests.