Countries are forced to develop bio-based economic strategies to promote efficient use of renewable natural resources. The transition towards a sustainable forest bio-based economy is associated with resource efficiency optimization, adoption of innovative bio-based approaches in terms of technological improvements and cost effectiveness, and an opportunity to reach multiple societal challenges. This paper is focused on a comparative analysis of the forestry sector in the Republic of Bulgaria and the Slovak Republic by estimating the economic efficiency of four Bulgarian state-owned forest enterprises and four Slovak forest enterprises. The evaluation of economic efficiency was carried out using selected indicators of the studied enterprises over a period of five years. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach was used as a non-parametric linear technique for measuring the relative efficiency of a set of production decision-making units (DMUs). The Malmquist productivity index (MPI) was used to assess the pure efficiency changes (PEC) and technological changes (TCs) of the studied forest enterprises. Data for 2014–2018 were processed. The results obtained for the economic efficiency study outlined the major factors affecting the differences in efficiency scores. The long-term sustainability and increased economic efficiency of forest enterprises in both countries can be achieved by improvements in forest management and investments in research and development activities.

In Slovakia the topic of socially responsible business has been little reviewed and described, both theoretically and practically. The article highlights the differences in the definition and characteristics of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as published by several domestic and foreign authors. Not less significant is the added value of a practical design of the CSR implementation model for forest management, as well as its measurement, evaluation and reporting tools.

Fire is considered one of the major natural hazards that damages European forests and causes losses for forest owner. The forest fires endanger the financial stability of forest enterprises, which may cause their economic decline. One possibility how to cover these losses is to insure forest land against this kind of specific risk of forest land management. The aim of the present paper is to analyse possibilities of forest fire insurance for forest owners and enterprises in the Slovak private insurance market. The market analysis was based on document analysis of general terms and insurance conditions of chosen private insurance companies and interviews with insurance agents. The results show that forest owners and enterprises have only few options for forest property insurance concerning the specific risk of forest fires. Only one commercial insurance company provides such forest fire insurance product for forest owners. This insurance covers material damage to forest land and timber damage.

The paper builds on previous international research done by Masiero et al. (2020). It applies on Slovak national level and expands the previous study with different study programs. The societal transformation towards bioeconomy provides an opportunity for changing current economy and societies into more sustainable ones with mitigation of the environmental pressures at hearts. Such societal transition requires involvement of all stakeholders in bio-economy discussion and decision-making process and studying their perceptions of bioeconomy. Amongst all the stakeholders, future generation is particularly important, as it is important to understand bioeconomy perception by the generation of stakeholders that will manage this area in the near future. For that reason, we focus our attention on students of three bioeconomy related areas at the Technical University in Zvolen (forestry studies, wood processing studies and natural resources management studies). We were able to identify significant differences in bioeconomy perception between analyzed categories. The familiarity with the concept is quite high, as more then two thirds have heard about bioeconomy before the survey was conducted. As the main information sources were selected news, university courses and social media. The study program had a greater impact on perceived importance of forests within bioeconomy than the type of study. Overall, students perceive development of forest-based bioeconomy as favouring sustainable forest management.

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the price development of timber assortments in selected countries in Central Europe, to compare the prices and identify the factors influencing the prices, and to quantify the extent of their impact on the prices. A further aim is to predict the price development based on comparing various models for predicting time series of prices. The analyses of the price development was carried out for the assortments of spruce, fir, and beech sawlogs in Slovakia, Czech Republic, and selected Austrian provinces. The analyzed period covered the years from 2001 to 2017 per individual months. Following the selected factors, the study was focused on the timber price development, and subsequently the prediction up to the end of 2019 was calculated. The most significant factor having a negative impact on the price development was the global economic crisis. Following all the prediction methods, the next two years can expect an increase in the prices of sawlogs, except the beech sawlogs in Austria. Analysis of the price developments in the selected countries confirmed that all global factors reflected the price level trends approximately equally in all countries.