Our Future Forests and Their Products—How to Get out of the Woods—Selected Papers from the IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress

Dear Colleagues,

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 put forests in the spotlight of policy agendas to achieve many goals. In particular, SDG 15 aims to “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”. Forests play an important role in reducing the risk of floods, droughts, landslides, and other extreme events, they protect watersheds, maintain the quality of air and soil, and host more than 80% of all terrestrial species. Forests also contribute to other SDGs, for instance, in SDG 13 on combating climate change, as they mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration. Investment into forests and forestry can help to support people’s livelihoods, especially the rural poor and women. More than 1.6 billion people currently depend on forests for their livelihoods.

Despite this significant role of forests for achieving the SDGs, many regions in the world still see rampant—legal and illegal—deforestation for economic reasons, and degradation of forests due to pollution and climate impacts. This raises the question of how to reconcile this variety of competing demands on the forests: How will our forests look like in a much needed greener future and how their products? How can we make our forests fit for the increased need for large-scale and permanent carbon storage, high demand for energy wood and other sustainable wood and non-wood forest products, while maintaining biodiversity and livelihoods, or natural recreational and protected areas? How do the corresponding policies look like and how can they be implemented within a short time frame?

Considering the above constraints, we invite transdisciplinary articles targeting new insights into a broad array of topics including: Risk resilient and sustainable management of global forests—also bridging to the Food–Water–Energy Nexus; optimal production chains for innovative products contributing to a future forest sector and the bioeconomy; the generation of relevant new information; ecosystems services and their protection including forest restoration; marketing and social aspects; as well as new forest-related policies, their implementation, impact, and monitoring.

The issue is also open to receiving regular submissions that discuss a relevant topic.

Dr. Florian Kraxner
Guest Editor

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