Forest Management Transitions and the Reconfiguration of Human–Forest Relations under Policy Interventions

Forests worldwide face increasingly complex and interconnected pressures: climate change, competition for land, biodiversity loss, and rising demand for forest products and ecosystem services. These challenges call for more adaptive, inclusive, and sustainable approaches to forest governance and management. In response, policymakers have introduced a wide range of instruments to shape how forests are used, conserved, and managed — from international climate agreements and national forest strategies to market-based incentives and local community regulations.Yet policy does not always deliver the ecological or social outcomes it promises. Objectives and management practices often diverge, and regulatory frameworks frequently sit at odds with the actual behavior, values, and livelihood needs of the people who depend on forests. These gaps continue to constrain sustainable forest management.This Research Topic examines two closely connected questions: how policies shape forest management practices, and how human–forest relationships evolve under policy interventions. We are especially interested in how policy instruments reshape the decisions of forest managers, under what conditions interventions genuinely promote sustainable forest management, and how livelihood dependence, cultural identity, and environmental values shift as policies change. By bringing together empirical, comparative, and interdisciplinary studies, we aim to identify the institutional, behavioral, and social factors that determine policy effectiveness, test the assumptions of rational behavior built into policy design against real-world decision-making, and generate evidence for more adaptive, equitable, and socially responsive forest governance.We welcome contributions on the following themes, among others.Theme 1: Policy impacts on forest managementThis theme explores how policy instruments shape forest managers' decisions and practices, with particular attention to the gaps between policy objectives and actual outcomes and the factors behind them. Topics include:• Comparative analysis of command-and-control instruments (such as harvesting quotas), economic incentives (such as carbon markets and subsidies), and information-based instruments (such as forest certification) — their mechanisms, limits, synergies, and conflicts;• Multidimensional sustainability assessment that quantifies the ecological and social impacts of forest policies using causal inference methods, such as quasi-experimental and regression discontinuity designs;• Institutional pathways for adaptive forest management under climate change and decision-making under uncertainty;• Policy effects on forest vulnerability and resilience to disturbances such as wildfire, pests, and disease;• Cross-regional, cross-scale, and historical-institutional comparative studies.Theme 2: Human–forest relations under policy interventionThis theme examines how policy interventions reshape the many interactions between people and forests, and it foregrounds the social dimensions of sustainable forest management. Topics include:• Policy-driven livelihood transitions in forest-dependent communities — including shifts from traditional forest-product harvesting toward emerging activities such as forest carbon trading, ecotourism, and the commercialization of non-timber forest products — with attention to benefit distribution and social justice throughout these transitions;• Local community perceptions, values, and acceptance of forest policies, drawing on psychometric methods, behavioral experiments, and narrative analysis to reveal the behavioral foundations and cultural roots of policy responses;• The effectiveness of participatory governance and co-management, with attention to power asymmetries, knowledge inequalities, and ways to integrate traditional and scientific knowledge;• The contributions of forest ecosystem services, such as climate regulation and water conservation, to human well-being, and their distributional effects under different policy frameworks;• Changing patterns of interaction between residents and urban or peri-urban forests.This Research Topic welcomes diverse research paradigms, including quantitative causal inference, qualitative comparative case studies, cross-regional institutional analysis, and interdisciplinary work that bridges ecology and the social sciences. We particularly encourage original contributions that challenge established assumptions, develop new theoretical perspectives, or offer clear implications for forest policy and practice. Topic editors: Gang Diao, Di Shang, Rong Zhao, Qian Zhang Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85478/forest-management-transitions-and-the-reconfiguration-of-human-forest-relations-under-policy-interventions