Forest bioeconomy in three European countries: Finland, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic

Abstract

The paper assesses similarities and differences between Finland, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic in terms of their forest bioeconomies. In Finland, which is perceived as a leader in forest bioeconomy, the national bioeconomy strategy was adopted in 2014 and updated in 2022. The Czech and Slovak Republics are following a path towards adopting national forest bioeconomy strategies and have partially adopted bioeconomy principles in other forestry-related strategic documents. The relevant core strategies are, the adoption of the bioeconomy concept in the Czech Republic by the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Low-Carbon Development Strategy of the Slovak Republic. The Czech and Slovak Republics have the potential to utilize the forest sector in order to enable development of their forest bioeconomies in the future.