Maintaining biodiversity is crucial to preserving ecosystems that sustain life on our planet. In Sweden, a legal grey area currently exists for the protection and registration of woodland key habitats. Key habitats have been identified and protected in Sweden since the early 1990s in order to support biodiversity. In December 2021, the Swedish Forest Agency announced that no new key habitats would be registered and that any key biotope registered after 2019 could be unregistered at the landowners’ request. Because of this decision, legislation and responsibility are currently hanging in the air as no clear policy exists.  This study explores questions regarding social acceptability towards woodland key habitat policies from the perspective of Swedish individual forest owners. Exploring this is relevant in the context of policy acceptance, as opinions and underlying attitudes are predictors of compliance and could be useful in guiding policy implementation. The study explores this through inductive research, a qualitative explanatory design using a questionnaire with closed- and open-ended questions and structured follow-up interview questions. Contrary to what is commonly portrayed in the media and public debate, a majority of private forest owners think biodiversity and protection of redlisted species are important and that measures need to be taken to ensure this. The study reveals that the discontent on these issues primarily lies in how the Swedish Forest Agency has managed policy and failed to communicate with and adequately compensate individual forest owners, and those who are most negative own forests primarily for economic reasons. The forest owners have ideas about what future policy could entail. Results show a mixed willingness to inventory their forest, but generally, they prefer to manage it without excessive bureaucracy and imposed regulation. Another sentiment that becomes apparent is that of unfairness in the individual forest owner bearing the costs and responsibility for the protection of habitats, and there are suggestions on how this cost could be shared by society and companies.  Keywords: key habitat, key biotope, individual forest owners, biodiversity, social acceptance.