Facing the Forest: Exploring Local Knowledge and Sustainable Governance

Dear Colleagues,

Forests are shelter for millions of people around the globe, providing sustenance and livelihoods, and the range of ecosystem services forests provide spans across all categories—provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting. Sustaining forests and their resources requires adapting to current climatic, economic, and social challenges; however, globalized markets of forest-related goods and services affect local, often disadvantaged, communities who barely benefit from their own arboreal biocultural heritage. Meanwhile, the preservation and sustainable management of forests is vital to the continued existence of valuable habitats and species, as well as supporting and cultural services that ensure natural and human health, well-being, and prosperity.

Critical discussion of the outcomes of existing policies and the knowledge that underpins them is needed if we are to find more effective ways to sustain and grow better forest environments. Interdisciplinary approaches to forest resource research and the incorporation of hands-on local knowledge would contribute to the development of more flexible and adaptive policies fostering the restoration of nature. The collation of traditional and local knowledge from various regions and the exploration of its transformations is crucial to the effective application of such knowledge without harming valuable cultural heritage.

Research articles and reviews focusing on following and related topics are welcomed:

• Forest resources;
• Local knowledge;
• Traditional practices;
• Ecosystem services;
• Social–ecological systems;
• Protected areas management;
• Nature conservation;
• Non-timber forest products;
• Adaptive silviculture;
• Forest and wildlife policy;
• Forest economics;
• Reforestation;
• Restoration;
• Rewilding;
• Regional development;
• Bioeconomy.

Dr. Teodora Ivanova
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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