# Blockchain Applications in Forestry: A Systematic Literature Review
## 8 Conclusions  
This study investigated the current blockchain technology in forestry. To address the research objectives, a systematic review method was performed. A total of 570 articles were retrieved from four high quality databases. With a careful and specific data selection process, 21 highly relevant articles were selected from these 570 articles. The included articles were analyzed and discussed. The first and second research questions were addressed in Section 4. The third and fourth research questions were answered in Section 5.  
Our findings indicate that blockchain technology has a great potential in increasing purchasers' trust of wood products, sustainable forestry, minimize illegal logging, conserve biodiversity of tree species and many other areas related to forestry. However, managers and practitioners interested in using blockchain in the forestry sector should consider the potential risk of data breach and cyberattack. The study also shows there is limited research on challenges and risks of blockchain adoption in forestry. The blockchain is relatively complex and hard to apply in forestry because blockchain adoption requires cryptography and smart contract experts. The disadvantages of blockchain application should receive more attention from researchers and practitioners.  
The main contribution of this was to provide understandings and details of current blockchain applications/solutions in three categories of the forestry sector: forest management, traceability of wood products, and forest fire detection. This study also clarified the benefits, challenges, and opportunities that blockchain brings to forestry. It also helps practitioners and managers interested in the field of forestry to learn about the use and the application of blockchain technology in the forestry sector including identified benefits, risks, and challenges. It offers research gaps and future research directions for researchers to investigate related topics. To the best of our knowledge, this systematic review is the first study that presented a detailed systematic investigation of blockchain technology in the forestry sector.  
There are several limitations of this study. This study only considered and included articles written in English. There might be highly relevant research articles written in other languages but were excluded. Moreover, even though we carefully designed the search string and spent a considerable amount of time on article searching and selection, there might be potential flaws in the searching process.  
Blockchain technology is still in the early stage of development in forestry. It also has great potential in the forestry sector, especially in preventing illegal logging and sustainable forestry. However, the risks and threats of blockchain cannot be ignored. Future research directions could focus on the adoption of blockchain into forestry enterprises, threats on the security of blockchain and investigating blockchain-based IoT systems in forestry. The related topic is worth to investigated in further research.  
Conceptualization, Z.H. and P.T.; methodology, Z.H.; software, Z.H.; validation, Z.H. and P.T.; formal analysis, Z.H.; investigation, Z.H.; resources, Z.H.; data curation, Z.H.; writing--original draft preparation, Z.H.; writing--review and editing, Z.H. and P.T.; visualization, Z.H.; supervision, P.T.; project administration, Z.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.