Forest Landscape Conservation Planning

Dear Colleagues,

Forests have contributed to human wellbeing and to national economies by providing multiple ecosystem services. Spatial and temporal knowledge concerning landscape patterns enables us to identify these dynamics, along with their environmental consequences. Landscape ecology, a more holistic trend in the study of these landscapes, has facilitated their study, analysis, and understanding, which will in turn improve their conservation. It is important to remember that the historical study of this cultural heritage often allows us to understand the reason for the existence of current biodiversity, how it has evolved over the years, and what the future may hold, as well as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) practices and systems to ensure the sustainable utilization and conservation of ecosystem services. This involves both public and private lands using both traditional and innovative approaches to plan a sustainable forest management and improve forest management practices (i.e., diversity of forest tree species and forest structure, thinning, grazing, etc.), including new bioeconomy value chains for maximizing wood and non-wood forest products and services while improving biodiversity and resilience.

The Convention on Biological Diversity identified restoration as key to delivering essential ecosystem services. Landscapes are large, heterogeneous, and multifunctional environments that provide diverse services and values to multiple stakeholders. Landscape restoration therefore refers to restoration of natural processes within burned lands. Such restoration projects are typically complex, covering a mosaic of habitats and species ranges and affecting a wide range of people in many different ways. They may also cross political boundaries and involve a large number of private and public landowners working in often complex partnerships. Consequently, restoration success at such scales is commonly dependent upon a wide range of interacting cultural, social, political, and economic factors, in addition to ecological considerations.

Prof. Dr. Diego Varga
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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.

• ecosystem services
• forest fires
• restoration
• resilience
• forest management and traditional knowledge
• policies and financial instruments