Sustainable and Regenerative Ecologies for the Management of Mountain Forestscapes

Dear Colleagues,

Forest restoration of mountains prompts a diverse approach to evaluating conservation and management practices for sustainable and regenerative development of the mountain socio-ecological system, benefiting forestscape’s biocultural diversity. We have identified the need to coalesce distinct approaches and methodologies of mountain forestry into a transdisciplinary montology; this will allow us to more effectively evaluate the needs for the protection of forestlands that co-create different transformations of the mountain forestscape. This Special Issue on “Sustainable and Regenerative Ecologies for the Management of Mountain Forestscapes'' will allow montologists to better grasp effective conservation measures in productive, conserved mountain forestscapes.

We welcome contributions from different areas of study and distinct focal emphases to highlight the need for better forest conservation, where legal, social, cultural, and financial frameworks help mountain forestscapes secure their role of provision, regulation, support, and cultural ecosystem services and other benefits. We welcome diverse perspectives from both seasoned and young researchers, those of all genders and educational affiliations, and professional and academic tropes, allowing for the consilient montology of different longitudes, latitudes, and altitudes of the graticule of mountain forests. With these contributions, we seek to reinforce the membership of the Commission of Mountain Studies of the International Geographical Union that underlies this effort.

1. With the UN’s International Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, the goal of recovering not only the form and function of the lost forests but also their function becomes an imperative for the integrated management of resources in watersheds that have severely been affected by colonization and exploitation of the wood and other critical resources. The importance of this research area bridges pure and applied sciences to grapple with sustainable and regenerative solutions for mountain forestscapes.

2. The Special Issue aims to make evident the need for several ecologies that are needed to understand the sustainability and regenerability of mountain forests, from mathematical ecology and modeling scenarios to population ecology, community ecology, and landscape ecology to forest biogeography, political ecology, and invasive dispersal ecology, to hydrometeorological effects on aerosols, cloud formation and risk/hazards of disturbance and catastrophic episodes, all these ecologies are needed to better understand the appropriate level of active or passive manipulation of the mountain forestscape to attain successful practices for sustainable and regenerative social forestry. By questioning the type of ecology needed to manage mountain forests, we related squarely to the sustainability journal's scope.

3. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: mountain geography, historical ecology, biogeography, and forest distribution, land-use and land-cover change, paleoecology of forest migration, historical ecology of mountain forestry, community-driven conservation, geospatial analyses of watersheds, Chipko-like movements, forest handprint and reforestation, forest footprint and deforestation, restoration ecology and sustainable uses, Carbon sequestration and other adaptation mechanisms for mountain forest management amidst meteorological climate change and other pernicious factors, such as religious climates, military climates, political climates, investment climates and more.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Fausto Sarmiento
Prof. Dr. Barbaros Gönençgil
Dr. Pankaj Kumar
Guest Editors

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• mountain forests
• sustainable forestry
• regenerative forests
• silviculture
• restoration
• regenerative development
• mountainscapes
• mountain forestscapes