Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest lands, most commonly with respect to forest management and timber harvesting. Forestry laws generally adopt management policies for public forest resources, such as multiple use and sustained yield. Forest management is split between private and public management, with public forests being sovereign property of the State. Forestry laws are now considered an international affair.

Governmental agencies are generally responsible for planning and implementing forestry laws on public forest lands, and may be involved in forest inventory, planning, and conservation, and oversight of timber sales. Forestry laws are also dependent on social and economic contexts of the region in which they are implemented. The development of scientific forestry management is based on the precise measurement of the distribution and volume of wood in a given parcel, the systematic felling of trees, and their replacement by standard, carefully aligned rows of mono-cultural plantations that could be harvested at set times.

Forestry laws are intended to protect resources and prevent forest clearing, logging, hunting, and collecting vegetation. However, there are no clear limitations set within these laws in regards to allowable cuts, harvesting rotations, and minimum harvesting diameters. Forest management plans state goals for the upkeep of the land, as well as steps to achieve them. foresters create management plans that account for each differentiated forest itself.

In some cases, plans are made with the assumption that ecosystems within a forest are holding a steady state, separate from the forest that surrounds them. Many foresters who are in third world countries do not have the knowledge nor training to follow by all the guidelines when making a management plan.

Appropriate public policies and legislation serve to foster sustainable economic and social development in rural and urban areas. These policies work to safeguard the environment and protect flora, fauna and cultural heritage. Traditionally, environmental protection has been an element of forestry through emphasizing forest conservation and accounting for environmental impacts on soil and water. In common with other sectors, forestry has been affected by the emergence of environmental awareness and legislation in the last generation. This has brought greater emphasis on the protection of wilderness and aesthetic values.

Biological diversity and climate change have specifically influenced forest law. When forest management plans are created, biological diversity is represented in criteria for sustainability. Due to the Kyoto Protocol, the mitigation of climate change has become an objective of forest law and policy, complementing broader climate policies and programs. However, Rosenbaum and colleagues state that there is little legislation containing specific provisions for mitigating forest-based climate change.

The connections between forest and other areas of law have become more complex as they have grown in ambition and scope and as other areas directly and indirectly place guidelines on how forests are managed or used. Thus the links between a country's forest laws and its general environmental laws become more important as the environmental dimensions of forest legislation increase in complexity.

Forest legislation now recognizes the role of forests as a habitat for wildlife, a resource for grazing and agriculture, and a contributor to water and soil conservation. More recently, the general principles of environmental law and the more specific values of biological diversity have become a very visible part of forest law. The UN Forum on Forests, an intergovernmental policy forum created in 2000, has adopted resolutions on the sustainable development of forests, especially those on Social and Cultural Aspects of Forest and Traditional Forest-Related Knowledge.