SUMMARY Forestry is one of Europe's largest land uses, for which adaptation to climate change will require coordinated action among multiple actors. However, so far, adaptation has been less placed in focus than has mitigation, and adaptation in the forest sector has mainly been reactive. This paper explores and reviews the integration of forestry in the development of planned adaptation policy in different countries. Sweden, Germany and France are taken as examples of countries with different developments of their adaptation policies as well as different requirements of their forest systems and actors. Italy is utilised as an example of how adaptation actions for forestry have been defined in a country where no national adaptation policy currently exists; in general, the results illustrate the seemingly large role of extreme events in driving adaptation policy forward in different policy systems.