All manuscripts submitted to the Journal of Forest and Livelihood undergo a double-blind peer review process and follow the steps listed below;

* All submissions to the Journal of Forest and Livelihood are first screened by the editorial officer for basic structural elements and appropriateness of formatting. Those satisfying these requirements are then passed on to the Chief Editor.
* The Chief Editor assigns a member of the editorial team to review the theme, content, style of presentation and relevance.
* Only those papers that are judged to be of potential interest to our readership, and are most likely to meet the editorial criteria (quality, originality, accuracy and contribution to the field) are sent for formal review.
* Papers judged by the Chief Editor to be of insufficient interest or otherwise inappropriate for the journal are rejected out rightly without external review and the author(s) are advised accordingly.
* Manuscripts are sent for formal review, to at least two reviewers in a full ‘double blind’ refereeing process.
* The reviewers are asked to critically assess the overall quality of the paper and comment on several aspects such as relevance of the topic, methodology, quality of analysis, novelty of contributions, clarity of argument and the balance of theory and evidence.
* The Chief Editor then makes a decision on the paper based on the reviewers' reports, from among several possibilities, which will be shared with the author. These are:

Accept, with or without minor editorial revisions
Accept with major revisions (as suggested in the peer review reports)
Reject, but invite for resubmission after major rewriting or additional data collection and analysis
Reject out rightly

* Editorial decisions are based on the evaluation of the strength of the arguments raised by each reviewer and by the authors.
* The papers are sometimes reverted to the reviewers for reassessment. This is considered in terms of commitment to review subsequent revisions.
* Reviewers' critiques are taken seriously. Additional reviewers may be requested to resolve serious contradictions in a paper that is otherwise very promising.
* Editorial policy, procedures and criteria are reviewed periodically with contributions of the editorial advisory board, which provides additional editorial guidance and advice to the editorial team for enhancing the quality of the Journal.