The integration of improved environmental or sustainable aspects in forest management is often affiliated with the rise of market-driven governance systems like forest certification. In terms of forest resource peripheries as North-Karelia in Finland, these largely originate from environmental business and consumer demands from the green central European markets. While acknowledging these aspects related to the supply chains of wood based products, this study evaluates the actual perceptions on various drivers of environmental forest governance in the resource peripheries themselves. Thus it displays the perceived changes in forestry comparing private and corporate ownership and their underlying governance networks. Transnational forest governance is hereby treated as a relational space while forest certification systems are seen as possible political technologies to achieve improved, sustainable forest management. Utilizing the regional case of the North-Karelian forestry sector, the varying positionalities of actors and institutions within such a relational space shape the knowledge networks, perceptions and decision making. This local-global positionality of actors and individuals also shapes their understanding of sustainable forest management and its practices; and influence their willingness to participate in or oppose specific certification systems. Since these actors not only entail a variety of partially similar but also different relations they attribute varying roles to the central European markets as influences on forest governance. Generally, the green markets are not perceived as the main driving force and a strong role of governmental influence, particularly related to private ownership aspects is noted in the case of Finnish forestry. Forest certification systems and further political technologies for sustainable forest management are embedded in or strongly restricted by these aspects.