The 2030 Agenda highlights the importance of mountain ecosystems in the Life on Land category ‒SDG 15‒ whose objective is to “ensure the conservation of mountain ecosystems, including their biodiversity, in order to enhance their capacity to provide vital benefits for sustainable rural development.” Around 15% of the mountains are covered with forests, which accounts for 28% of the world’s forests. There are two types of temperate forests located in mid-latitudes: evergreen and deciduous forests. On the one hand, these forests provide more than a fifth of the livelihoods of the rural world. Mountain forests offer solutions to poverty if forest resources are exploited sustainably. Besides, they contribute to human well-being through the climatic and hydrological services they perform. On the other hand, they preserve a unique biodiversity and many of them are protected under different conservation regimes. Depending on the degree of involvement of local communities, access to forest capital may be limited and trade-offs could be created between conservation and poverty alleviation. Options to ensure that communities benefit from protected areas include ecotourism, sustainable use of forest products, and zoning to include sole community use areas. Global change alters the site properties and could modify the distribution of tree species, as well as forest ecosystems, towards mixtures of unknown species. Anthropogenic warming has caused an increase in temperature and the maintenance of rainfall in temperate regions, favouring the increase of forest area. Although, there are notable nuances, mainly a decrease in snowfall and a shorter cold season. In this context, different species of oak trees dominate many of these forests, playing an essential role in maintaining biodiversity and people’s livelihoods, as well as in regulating ecosystem services. However, deciduous broadleaf forests are under pressure due to climate change, land-use change, forest fragmentation, and reforestation with fast-growing species. Our goal is to discuss the role of deciduous broadleaf forests in temperate mountain regions, focusing the discussion on the ecosystem services they provide, as well as the biodiversity conservation. Therefore, the session is open to multidisciplinary experts, from foresters and forest managers to ecologists and botanists, as well as anyone else interested in the session topic, including both scientific and practical aspects.