Selected Papers from the 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests (IECF 2026)

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce the Special Issue of the 5th International Electronic Conference on Forests (IECF 2026)—"Forests at the Crossroads: Integrating Ecology, Technological Innovation, and Governance", which will be hosted by the open access MDPI journal Forests (ISSN: 1999-4907; IF: 2.5), and will take place online from 14 to 16 September 2026.

The Special Issue aims to publish selected papers from the Proceedings volume associated with our event IECF 2026. All participants are encouraged to submit a full paper to the dedicated Conference Special Issue in Forests with a 20% discount on the Article Processing Charges (APC) which is deducted when the manuscript passes the journal’s assessment/prescreening.

We welcome you to join us with your work and be part of this exciting experience. Topics of interest for the conference are as follows:

S1. Forest Ecology and Sustainable Management;

Recent advances in Earth observation technologies, process-based ecosystem modeling, and long-term ecological monitoring networks to enhance the capacity to quantify and predict the structural and functional dynamics of forests across spatial and temporal scales. Nature-based solutions and climate-smart forestry as integrative, evidence-based, frameworks for climate change mitigation and adaptation to promote resilience, carbon sequestration, and the maintenance of ecosystem services. Particularly welcome are papers dealing with emerging challenges such as biodiversity loss, carbon sequestration trade-offs, and the increasing frequency of extreme events, as well as forest the critical role forests play in supporting livelihoods and sustainable bioeconomies.

S2. Forest Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services, and Earth Observations;

Conservation biology approaches that address the biological diversity, status, and importance of forests of all types as a bridge linking the science and policy that aim to solve the global biodiversity and climate crises impacting forests and people. The expected focus is on forest ecosystems (their importance, status, services, and conservation needs), the biodiversity within them (across scales), and interactions between forest species, forest ecosystems, and their altered surroundings.

S3. Wood Science, Production Chains, Fuelwood, and Trade;

Contributions across a broad range of topics related to wood science and forest product systems, including wood material characterization, forest-based production chains, fuelwood and biomass utilization, forest product markets and trade, and innovations that improve efficiency and sustainability in the forest sector. Submissions that connect fundamental research with practical applications in areas of wood quality evaluation, sustainable processing, circular bioeconomy approaches, and emerging technologies are particularly encouraged, as are contributions aimed at advancing sustainable and well-governed forest-based value chains.

S4. Forest Inventory, Modeling, and Remote Sensing;

Contributions on cutting-edge outputs in terms of new solutions, methods, and the algorithmic fusion of heterogeneous remote sensing data, as well as combinations of active sensors (such as ALS or ULS) with passive multispectral or hyperspectral data that are able to create robust models enabling the prediction of different forest parameters. Additionally, contributions may focus on the derivation of structural parameters, vertical complexity, biodiversity, and other forest related metrics, or the modelling of internal forest attributes such as growth, GSV, and mortality.

S5. Wildfires and Other Forest Disturbances;

Contributions may focus on the impacts wildfires and other forest disturbances can exert on forest ecosystem structures and dynamics, as well as adaptation strategies enabling the sustainable management of forests in a changing climate.

S6. Forest Ecophysiology, Genetics, and Molecular Biology.

Contributions under this subtopic may cover the use of the latest tools for plant physiology, genetics, and molecular biology to describe the adaptation and evolution of forest tree functions in response to environmental drivers. The focus should be on the physiological and molecular scales and on the genetic architecture of adaptive traits, innovative genomic or transcriptomic approaches for mechanisms of resilience, or stress tolerance and long‑term adaptation in forest species. Contributions on mechanistic, cellular, and molecular insights—including ecophysiological approaches focused on plant stress adaptation and carbon and water balances, functional genomics, epigenetics, and trait evolution—are particularly welcome.

For more details, please check the conference website at:

https://sciforum.net/event/IECF2026

This is a great opportunity to exchange ideas and start fruitful collaborations.

Dr. Mark Vanderwel
Dr. Nikolay S. Strigul
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• forest ecology
• remote sensing
• sustainable forest management
• wood science
• climate change
• wildfire
• ecosystems service
• tree physiology