While international efforts in the development of short rotation woody crops (SRWCs) have historically focused on the production of biomass for bioenergy, biofuels, and bioproducts, research and deployment over the past decade has expanded to include broader objectives of achieving multiple ecosystem services. In particular, silvicultural prescriptions developed for SRWCs have been refined to include woody crop production systems for environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration, water quality and quantity, and soil health. In addition, current systems have been expanded beyond traditional fiber production to other environmental technologies that incorporate SRWCs as vital components for phytotechnologies, urban afforestation, ecological restoration, and mine reclamation. In this Special Issue of the journal Forests, we explore the broad range of current research dedicated to our topic: International Short Rotation Woody Crop Production Systems for Ecosystem Services and Phytotechnologies

This volume is a collection of 31 multi-authored, rigorously peer-reviewed chapters on different aspects of agroforestry, produced as a compendium on the occasion of the 1st World Congress of Agroforestry, June 2004. Its contenst include a tropical-temperate mix of topics, which is a rare feature of a publication of this nature. Several of the chapters are on topics that have not been discussed or described much in agroforestry literature. A third feature is that some of the authors, though well known in their own disciplinary areas, are somewhat new to agroforestry; the perceptions and outlooks of these scholars who are relatively uninfluenced by the past happenings in agroforestry gives a whole new dimension to agroforestry and broadens the scope of the subject. Finally, rather than just reviewing and summarizing past work, most chapters take the extra effort in attempting to outline the next steps. Agroforestry stands to gain enormously from the infusion of these new and different ideas and bold initiatives, thus making the title "New Vistas" quite justifiable.