Focus Issue: Mountain Forests and the SDGs

Dear Readers, Mountain forests play a key role in securing mountain livelihoods by providing timber, fuelwood, food, fodder, and medicine. In the following paper, Lama et al examine the impact of migration on community-level gender relations in forest user groups in 3 districts of Nepal; they show that gender norms and time poverty make it difficult for women to achieve a higher level of participation and leadership in forest management. The next paper, by Toscani and Sekot, presents and illustrates a method to analyze the profitability of small-scale farm forestry in Austria's mountain areas; their case study allows them to show that profitable timber production is not incompatible with sustainable forest management.