Forestry is facing new challenges due to, e.g. multiple needs and values of people and society, globalisation of markets and changing climate. To safeguard the benefits to current and future generations, governments have applied different means of regulation. In global markets, individual market players, such as forest owners, companies and consumers, seek their own benefits. Sometimes conflicts appear between governing and market behaviour. To close this gap, there is a shift towards new governance emphasising voluntary, community and market-based instruments such as certification, community forests or commercial values for ecosystem products and services. Consequently, there is a need for decision support for market players, such as forest owners, and policy support for governmental consumers of ecosystem products and services. Luckily, recent advances in science and technology make it possible to support complicated decision- and policymaking situations. The aim of this study was to illustrate how information and communication technology helps to connect mathematical modelling with multipurpose forest management. First, the methodology and implementation of the Finnish MELA system are presented as an example of knowledge transfer in practical forestry. Thereafter, a case study is used to illustrate how MELA can be linked with multisource national forest inventory (MS-NFI) data, a geographic information system (GIS) and web-based services to facilitate collaborative planning and social learning in the context of a local forestry programme.