Special Issue "The Role of Forest Education"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Forestry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2022.

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Anna Zawadzka
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Forestry and Forest Ecology, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland
Interests: forest bathing; forest education; non-timber forest products; forest genetic

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As Nelson Mandela says, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Changing the currently dominant consumption models is a huge challenge. This requires people to reflect on their own priorities and to change their attitudes. Education has a special role to play in this process. Education for sustainable development is education that pays attention to interrelationships of the environment, society, economy, and culture.

Conducting forest education classes in the spirit of sustainable development is in line with the modern trend of education.

The necessary conditions for making responsible decisions are:

  • Knowledge about the state of the world (including the condition of forests in the world);
  • Awareness of the links connecting everyday choices and attitudes to the issue of deforestation or degradation of forests in the world;
  • Aroused curiosity about the conditions of production and the origin of everyday products (and the raw materials from which they were made);
  • The ability to search for meaningful information on labels (the presence of raw materials that are obtained with harm to the environment; certificates confirming care a friendly production chain).

Education for sustainable development has the ambition to influence the spheres of knowledge, skills, and attitudes at the same time. They are crucial because changing them means your audience actions will make more informed and responsible decisions about their own environmental impact. When we think of the forest in this way, we take into account the multidimensionality and multifaceted functions of the forest. This allows you to enrich and deepen your understanding of the importance of forests for society. Describing activities carried out in forest areas and evaluating them through the prism of sustainability, we must take into account the three main dimensions of the forest: environmental, economic and social.

Dr. Anna Zawadzka
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 papers will be 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. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 1900 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 education
  • forestry
  • sustainable forests
  • sustainable education
  • sustainable communities

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Climate Change and Informal Education in the Opinion of Forest Users in Poland
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7892; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147892 - 14 Jul 2021
Viewed by 518
Abstract
Climate change affects various aspects of the economy, agriculture, economics, and politics, including forestry. There is more and more talk about the real impact of the effects of climate change. This paper presents the results of a survey on the perceptions of two [...] Read more.
Climate change affects various aspects of the economy, agriculture, economics, and politics, including forestry. There is more and more talk about the real impact of the effects of climate change. This paper presents the results of a survey on the perceptions of two groups, foresters and recreational forest users, about climate change and its impacts on forested areas; 130 foresters and 146 recreational forest users participated in the survey (total n = 276). The survey was conducted from April to November 2019 and consisted of three parts. The first part included questions about the demographic characteristics of the respondents (gender, age, education, place of residence), the second part focused on the respondents’ views on climate change and its implications for forest ecosystems, and the third part focused on informal forest education and its relationship to climate change. The results of our study indicated that progressive climate change affecting forest ecosystems is clearly felt by the professional group related to forests such as foresters, and to a lesser extent by people using forests for tourism and recreation. According to foresters, the effects of climate change on forest areas include rapid changes in weather patterns and more frequent insect infestations. On the other hand, people resting in forests mainly observe the lack of snow cover and occurrence of drought. Informal forest education insufficiently covers the topic of climate change. Thus, our study can help guide informal education towards topics related to climate change and the need for sustainable forest use. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Role of Forest Education)
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