Societal needs for forest products and services are plentiful. In this article, I present six different approaches to prioritize those needs. If societal welfare is to be optimized, forest planning has to account for those needs. A typical region of the Swiss plateau was chosen as case study area: the region around Greifensee, close to Zurich. Most prioritization approaches show, that today, the most important needs in this region are recreation and ecological aspects. Timber production is secondary.