Sustainable mountain forest management should support and improve the capacity of mountain forests to provide environmental services. It is important to quantify such services if landowners and local communities are to be rewarded for providing them. Environmental services can be categorized as either provisioning, regulating and supporting, or cultural.

Mountain forests have intrinsic spiritual and aesthetic values. They provide considerable recreational opportunities globally, and the customs and beliefs of many mountain communities are intricately linked with forest ecosystems (see also Further learning).

The mass movement of rocks, soil, water, snow and ice on mountain slopes can constitute a hazard to human lives and infrastructure; mountain forests, therefore, often have an important protective function. Mountain forests protect assets (such as human settlements or roads) at lower altitudes from natural hazards such as rockfalls, avalanches, flooding and landslides. To maintain their protective function, mountain protection forests need to be managed for maximum stability and integrity. Human interventions should be reduced to a minimum to allow the undisturbed development of natural stands with their own structures, plant species composition, forest litter and microhabitats. The goals of protection forest management may be to attain: a diverse species composition; sufficient natural regeneration; and optimal forest structure. Silvicultural or technical interventions such as counter-felling, the retention of high stumps, planting, regeneration felling, and additional terrain control structures against avalanches or rockfalls may be needed.

Wood-harvesting in mountain forests. Harvesting intervals and wood volumes need to be adapted to the lower productivity of mountain forests. In most cases, wood-harvesting should not be permitted on hillsides with slopes greater than 30 degrees. Where appropriate, harvesting may be carried out on slopes less than 30 degrees using manual or mechanized methods. The log-extraction method should ensure minimal impacts on soil and other forest values. Depending on environmental conditions, the availability of skilled labour, and economic considerations, log extraction may be carried out using manual downhill skidding; animals; or skidders or tractors (with or without winches). In certain circumstances, trees felled on slopes greater than 30 degrees may be extracted using cable-ways (uphill or downhill) or helicopters. In general, logs should be skidded uphill, because this tends to result in less environmental damage than downhill skidding.

The harvesting of NWFPs such as leaves, fruits, mushrooms, wild meat, insects and honey, and the use of forest pastures for animal production, can help improve food security and nutrition and provide income for forest communities. NWFPs may be particularly important for local livelihoods in mountain forests, where wood-harvesting may be limited due to difficult terrain. However, the excessive exploitation of NWFPs, and overgrazing by livestock, can lead to forest degradation, reduce the regenerative capacity of the forest, increase soil erosion and reduce biodiversity.

Seedlings and young stands in mountainous areas often need special protection measures against such factors as snow and soil erosion (see Wood harvesting).

Mountains are early-warning systems for changes in the global climate, such as global warming. Increases in temperature can cause forest ecosystems and species to “shift” to higher altitudes; moreover, forest pests suited to warmer temperatures may become more prevalent at higher altitudes, damaging forest stands that previously were unaffected. Managing mountain forest ecosystems in a changing climate means supporting their natural capacity to adapt to change by encouraging a diverse composition of native species and diverse forest structures, and natural regeneration. Large clearfellings, monocultures and even-aged forest stands should be avoided (see also Climate-change adaptation and mitigation).