Innovative Forest Management for Climate Change Mitigation and Biodiversity Conservation

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, "Innovative Forest Management for Climate Change Mitigation and Biodiversity Conservation", focuses on advancing strategies to address two critical global challenges: mitigating climate change and conserving biodiversity. It explores innovative approaches to enhance forests' role as carbon sinks, emphasizing practices such as afforestation, reforestation, and improved forest health management to sequester atmospheric carbon. Additionally, this Special Issue addresses the resilience of forest ecosystems to climate-related stressors like extreme weather while promoting sustainable forest utilization to balance economic benefits with environmental preservation. Biodiversity conservation is a core theme, with an emphasis on protecting habitats, preserving endangered species, and maintaining ecological services, such as pollination and nutrient cycling. Forest landscape restoration and tackling issues such as invasive species and habitat degradation are also prioritized. Cutting-edge technologies, such as remote sensing, geographic information systems (GISs), and artificial intelligence (AI), are highlighted for their potential to improve forest monitoring and predictive modeling. This Special Issue also recognizes the value of traditional knowledge and participatory approaches from indigenous and local communities in forest governance. By integrating interdisciplinary perspectives and fostering cross-sector collaborations, this research aims to develop actionable solutions for sustainable forest management, ensuring forests continue to mitigate climate change and support biodiversity globally.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Role of afforestation and reforestation in carbon sequestration;
• Strategies to improve forest resilience against climate-related stressors;
• Protecting habitats for endangered species in forest ecosystems;
• Applications of remote sensing, GIS, and AI in forest management;
• Community-led forest conservation programs;
• Techniques for restoring degraded forest lands;
• Leveraging indigenous knowledge for sustainable forest management.

Dr. Matthew Ogwu
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.