Processes of participatory forestry reform in the Global South in recent decades present us with a paradox. While ostensibly aimed at promoting participation by forest adjacent communities, these reforms more often appear to sustain domination by forest administrations or private enterprises and have increasingly been associated with inequitable social outcomes. Part of the explanation for this must be sought in the professionalization promoted by these reforms in the sense of scientific management approaches and structured and detailed systems of information gathering, dissemination and planning. Professionalization has its roots in the historical development of forestry bureaucracies with a basis in principles of scientific forestry that, more recently, has come to resonate with logics of development and neoliberalism. Professionalization emerges in participatory reform as technically and procedurally demanding framings that inhibit implementation, downplay politics and promote inequality. The contributions to this special issue illustrate empirical pathways to unpack and question the framing of participatory forestry as professionalization by pointing to its anti-democratic and social consequences and questioning its relevance and usefulness to actual forest management practice.