Human activities in forests contribute more than one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. Forests face serious risks from climate change due to more intense and frequent mega-fires, drought and loss of ecosystem resilience resulting from biodiversity loss, which in turn impact the provision of ecosystem services. Priorities for mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change are: avoiding emissions by protecting carbon stocks in natural ecosystems; sequestering carbon through restoration of degraded ecosystems; and reducing emissions through transferring wood production to plantations on existing cleared land, improving efficiency of wood processing, reducing waste, producing higher value wood products with longer lifetimes, substituting emissions-intensive building materials with wood, and recycling. Many co-benefits arise from forest management strategies for mitigation through protection and restoration. Effective governance and policy are critical to supporting and incentivising these mitigation and adaptation strategies to invest in restoration of native forests and development of plantation forests. Alternative policy development frameworks are discussed.