Facing the Forest: Exploring Local Knowledge and Sustainable Governance
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Economics, Policy, and Social Science".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2026
Special Issue Editor
Interests: ethnobotany; local diets; ecosystem services; ex situ plant conservation; seed biology; medicinal, rare, and threatened plants; plant biotechnology; biologically active substances
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
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
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.
Keywords
- forest resources
- local knowledge
- ecosystem services
- social–ecological systems
- non-timber forest products (NTFPs)
- bioeconomy
- bioculture
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