Decarbonization options for buildings include using low-carbon cement and engineered timber. However, the long-term cumulative effects of urbanization, destinations of building materials at end-of-life, CO2 uptake from cement carbonation, and biogenic sequestration from biomass regrowth on their climate change impacts remain unclear. Here, we assess the climate change impacts of these dynamic factors on future urban buildings for urban growth between 2025 and 2100, using dynamic life cycle assessment across 14 pathways under various short- and long-term scenarios. Construction of urban buildings using timber ('timber cities') can lead to a global temperature increase that is up to 0.023 K lower by 2100 than that caused by their construction using reinforced concrete ('reinforced concrete cities'). After 2100, timber cities can lead to a temperature increase similar to or higher than reinforced concrete cities if there is poor forest regrowth, high landfill gas release, and incineration. If timber recycling leads to forest aging or deforestation due to reduced motivation for forest regrowth, global temperature can significantly rise compared to a scenario in which timber is recycled while simultaneously maintaining the forest carbon sink, which is the most climate-friendly option. Important global actions to minimize the climate impacts of future cities are (1) to support rapid and large-scale implementation of timber buildings in response to current high urbanization; (2) to proactively develop land, forest, and waste policies that limit future temperature increases caused by poor forest regrowth, landfill gas release, and wood incineration; and (3) to adopt dynamic life cycle assessment and related indicators such as absolute global warming potential in the built environment for climate-related policymaking, rather than using only global warming potential.

ABSTRACT Over the past three decades, Tanzania has been promoting a global initiative on participatory forest management. Village Land Forest Reserves are one of its key components stipulated in the Forest Policy of 1998 and the Forest Act of 2002. Since its recognition, the Reserves have been implemented in various parts of the country. However, little is known about how these Reserves can contribute to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This practical note reviewed the contribution of the Reserves to achieving the SDGs. It provides a convincing case for enhancing and promoting the Reserves.

Research interest in gender and its implications for forest ownership in the Global North has increased over recent decades, contributing to a growing body of empirical studies. At the same time, the historical dominance of men and masculinities in forestry and forest management has shaped both policy and knowledge production, creating persistent biases in how forest ownership is understood. To assess the current state of scientific knowledge on gender and forest ownership in the Global North, this systematic literature review examines patterns of knowledge production, the nature of the knowledge produced, and remaining research gaps over the past 25 years. Following PRISMA guidelines, 103 studies were included after the search and screening processes. The results reveal a strong geographical concentration of research in the United States, Sweden, and Finland, and a clear methodological dominance of surveys, which constituted the primary method in 80% of the studies. Only 6% of the studies applied a mixed-methods approach. Consequently, gender is most often treated as an empirical variable used to identifying differences, rather than as a relational or institutional factor shaping forest ownership and management. Although approximately half of the studies explicitly focused on gender, many equate gender with women, reinforcing a narrow conceptualization. The limited integration of gender theory constrains the explanatory power and policy relevance of existing research. To strengthen future forest research and policy, this review highlights the need for more theoretically grounded and methodologically diverse analyses that conceptualize gender as a relational and meaning-making dimension of forest ownership. • Research on gender and forest ownership has grown steadily in the Global North. • Survey methods dominate, with gender mainly treated as a comparative variable. • Limited use of gender theory in research weakens cumulative knowledge development. • Gender is largely conceptualized as women rather than relationally. • Normative approaches risk reproducing existing gender biases.

Post-disturbance recovery is a central element of forest resilience against intensifying disturbance regimes. Although recovery signals are strong across Central European forests, the relative roles of different factors contributing to recovery remain incompletely understood. As climate change increasingly challenges recovery, elucidating these processes is essential to adapt forest management to changing climate and disturbance regimes. We extended and applied a biologically grounded model of forest growth to remote sensing data to quantify how management shapes two key drivers of canopy recovery—disturbance legacies and post-disturbance height growth—across Bavaria, Germany. We combined 23,036 ha of quality-filtered photogrammetric canopy height model data with a Landsat-based disturbance map, a forest ownership map and environmental covariates in a Bayesian modelling framework. Post-disturbance growth rates were governed primarily by forest type and site conditions, whereas management strongly influenced disturbance legacies, i.e. the remaining post-disturbance vegetation height structure on site. Legacies varied widely across management types: Federal and set-aside forests retained the highest level of disturbance legacies, while private forests had the lowest legacy levels. Despite marginally lower growth rates, set-aside areas had recovery trajectories that were comparable to managed forests. The median recovery time to 5 m mean canopy height was 14.3 years over all forest and management types. Set-aside areas exhibited the greatest variation in recovery trajectories. We here show that (i) management affects disturbance legacies more strongly than post-disturbance tree growth, (ii) set-aside areas do not differ in recovery speed from managed areas, and (iii) legacies are diversifying forest recovery trajectories, with potential implications for future forest resilience. Our results underline that the post-disturbance reorganization window is a crucial period for management to influence long-term forest development. The framework presented here provides a scalable approach to monitor structural recovery and guide adaptive forest policy and management under increasing disturbance. • Forest management in Central Europe affects post-disturbance recovery more via legacies than tree growth rates. • Set-aside forests recover their canopy height equally fast as managed forests in Central Europe. • Homogenizing and removing disturbance legacies can reduce forest canopy variation across forest stand development. • We combined a biological growth model with remote sensing data to assess forest canopy recovery.

Implications of the European green deal for forest policy and management across the Baltic States: A nexus perspective

This study aims to analyze the species diversity of tree vegetation and to estimate aboveground tree biomass, calculate carbon stock and carbon sequestration, and assess the contribution of tree diameter classes within a cluster plot in the dryland forest of Selil Village, Ulilin District, Merauke Regency, South Papua Province. This study employed a quantitative-descriptive approach based on a field survey using the National Forest Inventory (Inventarisasi Hutan Nasional/IHN) 2.0 method. Species diversity was analyzed using the Shannon–Wiener index, biomass was estimated using the Chave allometric equation, while carbon stock and carbon sequestration were calculated based on the IPCC conversion factor. The results showed that 64 individual trees representing 7 species were recorded within the cluster plot, namely kelat (Eugenia densiflora), jale (Casuarina papuana), resak (Vatica papuana), kapur (Dryobalanops aromatica), bintangur (Calophyllum papuanum), wild nutmeg (Myristica sp.), and merawan (Hopea papuana). Species diversity was classified as moderate (1 < 1.477 < 3). The most dominant species was kelat (Eugenia densiflora) with an Important Value Index (IVI) of 100.304, followed by resak (Vatica papuana) with 68.522 and jale (Casuarina papuana) with 49.023. The total above ground tree biomass was 141.228 tons/ha, with the largest contribution coming from kelat (Eugenia densiflora), jale (Casuarina papuana), and resak (Vatica papuana). This biomass produced a carbon stock of 66.377 tons C/ha and carbon sequestration of 243.383 tons CO₂/ha. The diameter class of 40 cm up contributed the greatest share to biomass and carbon, accounting for 70.71% of the total biomass. This indicates that large diameter trees play a major role in climate mitigation, are important as natural carbon sinks, and provide baseline data that can be used to support sustainable forest management and climate change mitigation policies in South Papua.

Forests are vital resources providing various benefits to both the environment and humanity. However, their continuous loss in many parts of the developing world highlights the urgent need for a sustainable and context-specific management model. Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)-based successful forest management models have been reported in many regions of the world. Most of these practices are de facto and have been exercised for generations without any formal documentation. Their effectiveness needs to be documented to conserve this precious heritage and to highlight significance. This study is an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of TEK in communal forest management and conservation systems in Kurram Valley, Pakistan. A qualitative research design was adopted, combining field observations, semi-structured interviews with community key stakeholders, focus group discussions (FGDs), and the analysis of official and revenue records. The study results reveal the active role of TEK-based forest governance in maintaining balance between utilization and forest conservation. Communal ownership plays a vital role in empowering the community to make more independent decisions. The active indigenous institutions govern forest management and conservation practices with high efficacy. The prevailing conservation and utilization mechanisms have been constructively designed to maintain regrowth and prevent unsustainable exploitation. However, weakening of traditional institutions over time in certain localities has led to deterioration in forest sustainability, which reflects broader challenges in community-based conservation systems. Overall, TEK-based forest management plays a positive role in local forest conservation practices, and may provide useful insights for improving forest policies.

Background/Objectives: This study examines the legislation governing forest therapy in healthcare, centered on nature-based environments as workplaces for professional forest therapy specialists within international, EU, and national legal frameworks from a labor law perspective. Methods: Using systematic legal analysis, comparative document analysis, and analysis of the scientific literature, the study examines current relevant international, EU, and national (Lithuania, the Republic of Korea) regulations. Results: Based on a cross-sectoral legal norms analysis, the legal conception of forest therapy in healthcare systems and the general regulatory framework for the professional use of nature-based environments as workplaces were identified, along with their impact on the realization of the right to work, workplace requirements, and the provision of forest therapy services. Regulatory mechanisms and conditions governing the use of nature-based environments for forest therapy purposes, under schemes administered by public and private bodies, were identified and analyzed. The interaction between nature-based workplace factors and legal liability arising from professional, contractual, and service-based relationships was also defined and clarified. Conclusions: Fragmented legal regulation of nature-based environments as workplaces for forest therapy creates legal uncertainty, limits the realization of the right to work, and increases legal risks in employment, service provision, patient protection, and resource use. Strengthened interdisciplinary integration between health and forest policy is essential to ensure service quality, accessibility, and legal certainty. Therefore, future regulation should prioritize integrated and harmonized legal frameworks that recognize forest therapy within healthcare systems, ensure fair working conditions, and establish clear rules for the professional use of nature-based environments in therapeutic practices.

• Survey of perceptions of ecosystem services of forests and greenspaces across Europe. • Regulating and cultural ecosystem services were perceived as most important. • Provisioning services and disservices were perceived as least important. • Four distinct country-clusters form based on perceptions of ecosystem services. • Both values and demographics significantly influenced perceptions. Understanding public perceptions of ecosystem services and disservices of forests and greenspaces is essential for developing targeted forest policy and management strategies. However, across Europe, geographic differences and the role of demographic patterns and values in shaping perceptions remain largely unexplored. This study assesses societal perceptions of forests and greenspace services for the first time on a continental scale, encompassing data from 33 countries. Based on a representative sample ( n = 10,782), perceptions were assessed from two angles: First, by analysing regional differences across Europe. Second, by examining how Schwartz’s values (i.e., openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence) and demographics (i.e., age, gender) relate to their perceived importance. Overall, regulating and cultural ecosystem services are perceived as very important, and provisioning services as less important. Disservices are generally perceived as unimportant. Hierarchical clustering identifies four regional clusters across Europe, showing significant regional differences in perceptions. Structural equation modelling shows that demographics and values significantly predict perceptions, with values having the strongest influence. Self-transcendence, openness to change, and conservation values are positively associated with regulating and cultural services, while self-enhancement values are negatively associated. Provisioning services are positively associated with openness to change, conservation, and self-enhancement values, but negatively with self-transcendence. Gender, age, education, and income also significantly predict perceptions. Altogether, our analysis of major patterns in perceptions of ecosystem services across Europe – and specifically the assessment of regional, demographic and value differences – provides a critical and so far, largely missing knowledge base to inform forest policy, management and nature planning.

The impact of cultural ecosystem service experiences on forest policy acceptance

Aim of study: This study examines the impact of forest area expansion on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Türkiye, focusing on the roles of industrial production, energy consumption, and economic growth.Area of study: The analysis covers Türkiye using annual data for the period 1990–2021. Data on GHG emissions, forest areas, industrial production, energy consumption, and economic growth were obtained from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) and other official sources.Material and method: The study employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and Johansen cointegration approach to analyze the long-run relationships among the variables. Unit root tests were conducted to examine the stationarity properties of the series.Main results: The findings indicate that forest area expansion significantly reduces GHG emissions in the long run, highlighting the role of forests as carbon sinks. In contrast, industrial production, energy consumption, and GDP per capita exert statistically significant positive effects on emissions. The Johansen cointegration results confirm a stable long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables.Research highlights: Achieving Türkiye’s emission reduction targets requires strengthening forest management policies and aligning industrial production and energy consumption with environmental sustainability.

Combating climate change, flood risk, managing land use, and developmental change need cohesive policy action. Analysing policies is essential to assess whether there is a coherent approach where various sectors support each other, or at least do not conflict. This study analyses policy documents addressing hydrological hazards in the Niger Delta region, Nigeria using Qualitative Document Analysis, content analysis, keyword analysis and frequency counts. These insights were used to examine: 1) the types of hydrological hazards and their drivers recognised in six national policy documents across environment, climate change, agriculture, water, forest, and petroleum policy sectors, 2) the measures outlined to reduce the risks from these hazards, and 3), how well aligned the measures are across sectors for management of the Niger Delta region. Results reveal that the policies across the Environment and Climate Change directly address hydrological hazards and their climatic drivers. In contrast, Agriculture, Water, and Forest policies demonstrate sector-specific approaches, while the Petroleum policy stands out for its very limited consideration of hydrological hazards and their drivers. Hydrological hazards were considered as high rainfall, river floods, sea level rise, storm surges, and warming trends as key hydrological hazards. Climate variability and human activity arising from urbanisation, deforestation, industrialisation, agriculture, and population are identified as drivers that can exacerbate the hazards and their impacts. Measures across the policies consider flood defence structures, preparing comprehensive hazard maps and vulnerability analysis to strengthen smart water management to reduce risk and build adaptive capacity across the region. Overall alignment of the six national policies is found to be low, indicating limited attention to the interactions between sectors and stakeholders. This pattern indicates horizontal misalignment. For Nigeria to better manage climate change impacts, all hydrological hazards and their drivers must be recognised. There is a need for the policy framework to be more joined-up so that a multi-sector approach can reduce risks from hydrological hazards.

Introduction Forest carbon sinks play a crucial role in mitigating climate change, and their development is supported by various policy measures in China. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of China’s forest carbon sink policies from 2014 to 2024, focusing on three key performance dimensions: economic, social, and environmental. Methods While applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Gray Correlation Analysis, this study constructs a comprehensive performance evaluation framework and quantitatively assesses the impacts of forest carbon sequestration policies on these dimensions. Results The findings indicate significant improvements in all three areas, with economic performance, including four secondary indicator variables, showing consistent growth. Social performance, reflected in three main secondary indicator variables, also demonstrated steady progress, although at a slower rate compared to environmental gains. Environmental performance saw the most notable improvements, with four secondary indicator variables increasing substantially by 2024. Furthermore, Gray Correlation Analysis revealed that economic performance indicators, particularly forestry industry investment and the contribution rate of the forestry sector’s total output to GDP, had the most significant impact on policy effectiveness. Discussion The study concludes that while substantial progress has been made, continued policy optimization, increased investment, and enhanced environmental governance are essential to furthering China’s carbon neutrality and sustainable development goals.

The forest bioeconomy holds transformative potential for East Africa: a 2024 Food and Agriculture Organization and Dalberg report estimated that a sustainable forest-based economic transition could generate one trillion United States dollars and create 100 million jobs across the continent by 2050. Yet across the seven East African Community member states examined in this review, namely Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Burundi, between 50 and 90 percent of the timber trade is estimated to operate illegally. This paper argues that this contradiction is not a financing gap or a technology shortfall but a governance architecture failure rooted in the colonial design DNA of national timber trade legislation that was built for formal concession holders rather than for the artisanal and cross-border economies that dominate regional timber flows. Through a systematic desk review of primary legislation, cross-border trade evidence, and peer-reviewed governance literature, the paper documents four compounding regulatory failure modes: legislation that excludes artisanal operators by design; moratorium capture by criminal networks; systematic trade data falsification; and enforcement paralysis produced by the intersection of illegal logging with armed conflict and political corruption. The climate cost of these failures is substantial, threatening the forest-sector components of all seven countries' nationally determined contributions. The paper proposes a three-tier reform typology comprising national legislative modernization, a regional East African Community Timber Trade Protocol, and phased collective engagement with the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Voluntary Partnership Agreement framework. The paper contributes to Forest Policy and Economics by demonstrating that governance architecture reform is the critical path item in Africa's forest bioeconomy transition, upstream of financing, market development, and technology deployment.

Forests are critical providers of ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, protection of water catchments, soil conservation, and biodiversity preservation, which is a critical driver of livelihoods, especially in rural areas. Despite increased policy interventions and interagency efforts, including reforestation initiatives, Kenya continues to experience forest cover loss across several regions. We leverage satellite-derived data to examine forest cover change across the 47 counties in Kenya from 2001 to 2024. We relied on MODIS Land Use to estimate annual forest cover from 2001 to 2023 and on the Global Drivers of Forest Loss dataset, developed by the World Resources Institute and Google DeepMind, to identify drivers of forest cover loss during the period of analysis. Our analysis showed that between 2001 and 2023, Kenya suffered an approximate net loss of 254,052 ha (14.84%) in its forest cover, with much of this loss occurring from 2001 to 2011, followed by a modest recovery through 2023. County-level results show noticeable subnational heterogeneity in forest cover changes, with counties such as Busia, Mombasa, Garissa, Narok, and Lamu recording the highest losses, while Nyeri, Nyandarua, Murang’a, Turkana, and Trans-Nzoia recorded substantial gains. We further show that permanent agriculture is the dormant driver of forest cover loss both at the national level and across counties. Additionally, the roles played by logging and shifting cultivation are relatively marginal. Our findings highlight the need for county-specific forest regulatory and policy frameworks and spatial planning interventions, particularly within Kenya’s devolved structures. This will not only drive the country towards meeting its national forest cover targets but also enhance the sustainability of forest management. Besides this, we argue for climate-smart agriculture and propose the institutionalization of satellite-based forest monitoring with priority to protect the remaining natural forests from further depletion.

Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter resolution across Europe using a deep learning-based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed areas more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe's forest demography. Because of their profound implications for forest carbon storage and the habitat value of forest ecosystems, disturbances should be a priority of forest policy and management.

Forest fires in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) are intensified by the accumulation of highly flammable Chir pine (Pinus roxburghii Sarg.) needles. This biomass, often treated as waste, represents both a hazard and an untapped renewable energy resource. Converting pine needles into biofuel offers a dual solution—reducing fire risk while contributing to rural energy security. However, systemic gaps in technology adoption, governance, and resource management have limited progress. This study develops an integrated, community-centric framework for sustainable deployment of pine-based biofuel systems in the IHR. Four objectives guided the research: (i) characterization of pine needle fuel properties to establish a baseline for harvest planning; (ii) techno-economic and sustainability analysis of decentralized conversion pathways, with briquetting emerging as most viable under current constraints; (iii) evaluation of a participatory governance model integrating local knowledge with institutional mechanisms to ensure equitable benefit-sharing and community ownership; and (iv) synthesis into a scalable framework aligned with national forest policy and climate goals. Results show community-managed biofuel systems can reduce forest fire fuel loads while fostering livelihoods. Briquetting was identified as the most feasible pathway, while pyrolysis and gasification showed promise for cluster-level deployment with targeted investment. The study provides a replicable blueprint for transforming hazardous pine needle waste into energy security, ecological resilience, and inclusive development in fragile mountain ecosystems.

Abstract This study developed an early warning indicator (EWI) for sawn timber prices in South Korea by applying machine learning (ML) models. Specifically, we compared the predictive performance of artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF) models while employing Bayesian optimization to fine-tune hyperparameters and improve both accuracy and computational efficiency. Using monthly timber market data, the empirical analysis revealed that ANN consistently achieves the highest predictive accuracy across both in-sample and out-of-sample tests. However, when applying crisis thresholds of 1.65 and 1.96, the ANN model tended to yield overcautious signals. In contrast, SVM and RF performed adequately within the training sample but showed reduced robustness and stability in out-of-sample forecasting, particularly under conditions of data scarcity. These findings underscore the practical utility of ANN as a reliable tool for early detection of timber price shocks, thereby offering policymakers a proactive instrument with which to mitigate risks in a volatile market. Beyond empirical contributions, this research enriches the methodological framework for constructing EWIs in the timber sector and demonstrates the potential of data-driven approaches for enhancing market surveillance and risk management in forest policy and economics.

Contribution of forest ecosystem services in India using Meta-Regression Approach

Abstract The efficient implementation of forest-related policies under the European Green Deal requires assessing the capacity of ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services (ES) and involving stakeholders in the decision-making process. Public involvement ensures that policies align with local needs, relevant ES are identified, ES supply is optimised, and acceptance of measures is increased. We conducted a nationwide public survey ( n = 813) in Slovenia, consisting of three sections: (1) knowledge and perceptions related to ES and the bioeconomy, (2) a discrete choice experiment (DCE) to elicit preferences for possible changes in the supply of forest ES and products based on them (FPS) that support the strategic objectives of the EU Green Deal, and (3) questions on socio-demographics, lifestyle, and consumer behaviour. The results of the DCE, together with respondents’ place of residence using Moran’s I statistic, allowed us to identify areas of distinct preferences (ADP), either positive or negative, for FPS. Based on biophysical indicators, we assessed the potential supply of FPS within and outside ADP and found statistically significant differences. Then we compared potential supply with public preferences (demand) for FPS, which yielded several findings, most notably three cases where higher potential supply of FPS within the ADP coincided with positive preferences in the same ADP: high-quality wood, strictly protected forests, and forest tourism involving non-owners. In all these cases, mobilising additional FPS would benefit communities within the ADP (meeting allocative efficiency), and their high potential supply makes this feasible as well (meeting resource use efficiency).