In deregulated forest management systems, social norms, knowledge dissemination and communication are pivotal for guiding forest owners' actions. This presents a challenge to national forest agencies charged with the task of translating forest policy into practice. Drawing on interviews with forest consultants employed by the Swedish Forest Agency, this paper discusses the challenges present in everyday advisory practice, how they are dealt with, and possible implications for forest policy. Four main challenges are identified: climate change; the heterogeneity of forest owners; resource constraints and funding cutbacks; and competing and conflicting advice. The analysis finds that the forest consultants have developed the following professional capacities to meet these challenges: articulating uncertainties, advocating risk diversification, and using historical references to handle the long-term risk associated with climate change; contextualizing the advice to meet the needs of a heterogeneous group of forest owners; and organizational decoupling, whereby consultants prioritize advisory activities at the expense of other tasks. The study concludes by discussing the implications of these strategies for the forest consultants and forest policy but also what can be learned from the Swedish experience.
