Forest owners have faced very different risks for decades: pests, forest fires, storms, economic crises, etc. Why would climate change put a new light on forest owners’ perception of risks and on their management practices? An eight-year qualitative survey in the Southwestern part of France shows that forest owners are aware of climate changes. Their beliefs and practices do not rest only on scientific evidence but also on the memory of the local community who connects and interprets the succession of natural hazards as a proof of climate changes. However they have to face structural barriers (current wood market, forest wood chain structuring, forest policy framework, scientific controversies, etc.) that slow down and hamper the implementation of adaptative strategies. Despite these difficulties, they take into account the main characteristics of the risks (frequency, strength, impact, insurability, etc.) and they adopt different strategies to mitigate climate changes (combination of different silvicultural systems, short and long rotation, species diversification, etc.). These progressive changes suggest a paradigmatic shift in the forest owners’ values scale (resilience and safety vs economic optimization). However it may also increase the gap between forest owners who choose hyper-intensive silvicultural models and those who will adopt close-to-nature forestry.