Non-timber Forest Products: Beyond the Wood
A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Wood Science and Forest Products".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (24 May 2024) | Viewed by 9789
Special Issue Editors
Interests: postharvest physiology of fruit and vegetables; postharvest technologies to preserve overall quality; functional and nutritional quality; native resources valorization; pomology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: biodiversity; ecosystem functioning; carbon cycling; forest management; biomass estimation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Non-wood forest products (NWFPs) are a source of income and constitute non-negligible rural economies, especially in territories where wood resources are not fully utilised. The FAO (1999) defined NWFPs as “products of biological origin other than wood derived from forests, other wooded land and trees outside forests”. They include fruits (such as berries), nuts, hypogeous and epigeous fungi, medicinal and aromatic plants, fish and game, vegetables, saps, resins and essential oils, and a range of barks (such as cork), fibres, bamboo, and rattans, among a number of other multi-purpose trees. They are of increasing importance in the diversification of the forest-based bioeconomy across the world. The importance of NWFPs for rural communities depends on the type of resources available, how they are managed, and the knowledge that people have about management and marketing perspectives; however, their economic importance also depends on the governance of forest resources, such as the capacity of communities to organize management and marketing, as well as the distribution of the benefits and costs of resource management.
We encourage topics from all fields, including experimental studies, monitoring approaches, or assessment quality studies, to contribute to this Special Issue in order to provide information on different aspects related to innovation, sustainability, and planning forests to promote functionally diversified forests and landscapes.
We welcome research that includes local case studies, international comparisons, and transdisciplinary studies of relevance to sustainable forest management, the production of non-timber forest products, and their postharvest management.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Factors influencing the development and quality of forest products;
- Local ecological knowledge and its dynamics concerning NWFPs;
- Silviculture and forest management for the sustainable sourcing of NWFPs;
- Marketing channels and consumer choice;
- Advanced practices to enhance the quality and shelf life of products;
- Circular economy in forest production;
- New uses of forest products;
- Testing procedures for the quality assurance of fruits and vegetables during postharvest storage as well as marketing;
- Factors that can contribute to the loss of fruit and vegetable quality;
- Value chain management and postharvest handling.
Dr. Giuseppe Sortino
Dr. Giovanna Sala
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. Forests 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.
Keywords
- biodiversity conservation
- avoiding ecosystem degradation
- multipurpose plant
- bioeconomy
- non-timber products
- unconventional species
- food security
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