Forest Economics and Policy Analysis

Dear Colleagues,

At the global scale, forests have assumed various roles. Traditional functions include timber production, non-timber production, and agriculture, while more recent roles involve serving as biodiversity protection, ecosystem services, and carbon sinks. Conflicting interests have permeated the history of forest utilization and conservation. Numerous human-based factors influence forest management and environmental practices related to forests. Policies and economics are developed to address conflicts, considering their impacts on broader societal, political, developmental, and anthropological factors. Consequently, a rapidly growing and diversifying research program has emerged, addressing questions about the relationship between society and forests within various social science disciplines.

This Special Issue will highlight innovative research in the broad field of forest governance, policies, and economics across disciplines such as political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, human geography, development studies, environmental history, legal studies, and livelihood analyses. It will include a special focus on the importance of forests for meeting the global environmental crisis, the Sustainable Development Goals, and international environmental agreements. The topics covered in this Special Issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Forest governance through policy (international, national, and local scales).
• Urban forests and garden megacities.
• Nature conservation policy.
• AI and digital technology, information, and communication.
• Forest sector innovation.
• Forest-related indigenous knowledge and local knowledge.
• Forestry economics and management.
• Environmental policy and economics related to forests.
• Integrated forest management.
• Forest law and legislation.
• Green jobs and forest-based community livelihoods.

Prof. Dr. Jinlong Liu
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-anonymized 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.