Climate and social changes place strong demands on forest managers. Forest managers need powerful approaches and tools, which could help them to be able to react to the rapidly changing conditions. However, the complexity of quantifying forest ecosystems services as well as the complexity of current decision theories, technologies and operation research methods, complicate the creation of one general tool. The continuous research and development in this area is an indispensable part of the success of adaptive management as well as the sharing of knowledge and information between research teams around the world. The Community of Practice of Forest Management Decision Support Systems provides a platform for broad discussion among scientists, researchers as well as forest professionals. This special issue provides papers which resulted from a conference session of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations’ (IUFRO) 125th Anniversary Congress in Freiburg, Germany in 2017. The joint sessions and other meetings (and resulting publications) are appropriate opportunities for knowledge sharing on these important methods and systems for protecting and managing forest ecosystems in the future.