Sustainable Forest Landscape Management towards Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity

Dear Colleagues,

The provision of ecosystem services over time in natural and anthropized landscapes requires the conservation of biodiversity, which ensures the functioning of ecosystems and their resilience to disturbances and natural and anthropogenic impacts. Currently, one of the greatest challenges is finding new ways to reconcile productive activities and urban growth with the provision of ecosystem services related to human well-being. Human well-being represents the ultimate measure in the evaluation of changes in ecosystem services (e.g., subsistence, health, goods), where the design and restoration of multifunctional landscapes represents one of the strategies used to face these challenges, e.g., using multi-objective forest planning at a landscape level. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to deepen studies on ecology at different scales of analysis, developing strategies and tools which are tailored to the specific requirements of the most sensitive or threatened areas. These tools need to be feasible for development and conservation strategies at the landscape scale, with implementation costs that are accessible and that utilize the scarce information available in developing countries. Tools such as remote sensing have rapidly developed in recent years, providing new opportunities for ecosystem monitoring and inventories.

This Special Issue, called “Sustainable Forest Landscape Management towards Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity”, aims to present and discuss the latest advances in the study of biodiversity in forests, both in natural and anthropized landscapes, via different productive activities, as well as following the main recommendations to improve their conservation and maintain the provision of the ecosystem services. It also aims to review current applications regarding the use of remote sensors and other platforms, their state of the art in natural ecosystems, and to analyze the utility and feasibility of these tools.

We will accept scientific papers and reviews in the following themes, but will also focus on forest management strategies based on the provision of ecosystem services and/or biodiversity conservation:

1. Land-related issues in ecology, environmental/geosciences, economic (sustainability) sciences, and biodiversity research.
2. Land-related aspects of biodiversity and forest management.
3. Land management, including the application of ecosystem services, multifunctionality, or other concepts.
4. Land-related trade-off analyses in resource management (e.g., biodiversity).
5. Landscape and territorial planning, conservation, and management.
6. New management proposals, e.g., variable retention forestry. 

Dr. Guillermo J. Martinez-Pastur
Prof. Dr. Robert Baldwin
Dr. Mónica Toro-Manríquez
Dr. Serban Chivulescu
Guest Editors

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. Land 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.

• sustainable forestry
• ecosystem services
• biodiversity conservation
• multi-objective forest planning
• synergies and trade-offs
• landscape management