Negotiating between forest conversion, industrial tree plantations and multifunctional landscapes. Power and politics in forest transitions

•Power and politics are largely neglected in forest transition research.•We develop a framework to identify power relations in forest politics.•We analyze the contested forest transition in Lao PDR.•Tree plantations and REDD+ gain importance to modernize extractivist activities.•Livelihoods-based approaches should figure more prominently in forest politics.