About the Journal
Nature Scan Journal is a peer-reviewed, open access journal for research and field evidence across the nature sector: forests, biodiversity, ecology, agriculture, the environment and sustainability. It publishes full research papers alongside the field records, monitoring data and practice notes that rarely find a home elsewhere, and reviews each to a standard suited to its kind. The journal is published by Nature Scan LLP, Bengaluru, and is free to read and free to publish in.
The journal publishes rigorous work on living landscapes, the species in them and the people who depend on them. Its centre of gravity is South Asia, and comparable studies from other tropical regions are welcome.
Much of the most useful evidence in the nature sector never reaches print: a new distribution record, a decade of monitoring from one forest range, a restoration effort that partly failed, a farming practice documented with care. Nature Scan Journal exists to publish that evidence alongside conventional research.
The journal at a glance
- Publisher
- Nature Scan LLP, Bengaluru, India
- Editor-in-Chief
- Prof. R. Vasudeva
- Launched
- 2026
- Frequency
- Two issues a year, January to June and July to December. Articles are published online as soon as they are ready, then collected into the issue.
- Language
- English
- Access
- Open access. Every article is free to read from the day it is published.
- Licence
- Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Authors keep copyright.
- Fees
- None. There is no submission fee and no article processing charge.
- Peer review
- Double-anonymous
- ISSN (online)
- Applied for
- Identifiers
- A DOI for every article, registered with Crossref
- Preservation
- PKP Preservation Network
Aims and scope
The journal is deliberately broad within the nature sector. It publishes any rigorous study whose subject is a living landscape, the species in it, or the people who depend on it, across six subject areas.
- Forests and forestry. Silviculture, regeneration, non-timber forest produce, working plans, plantation and agroforestry systems, forest governance.
- Biodiversity and conservation. Taxonomy and distribution, threatened species, protected areas, human–wildlife interactions, community conservation.
- Ecology and ecosystem services. Population and community ecology, soil and freshwater systems, pollination, carbon and water regulation, valuation.
- Agriculture and food systems. Horticulture, medicinal and aromatic plants, crop diversity, organic and regenerative practice, farmer livelihoods.
- Environment and restoration. Land and water quality, pollution and impact assessment, mine and coastal restoration, green belts, urban ecology.
- Sustainability and policy. Climate adaptation, certification and standards, ESG and corporate practice, SDG-linked programmes, environmental education.
Work set in South Asia is the journal's focus. Studies from other tropical regions are considered where their findings bear on comparable landscapes.
Outside the scope of the journal
- Laboratory, clinical or engineering studies with no link to a natural system, species or landscape.
- Species lists and new records without verifiable evidence such as specimens, vouchers, photographs or sequence data.
- Opinion without supporting evidence. Perspectives must cite the evidence they rely on.
- Evaluations or descriptions written to promote a commercial product or service.
Manuscripts outside the scope are returned to the authors without review.
Sections
Each section has its own review standard and length. Word counts exclude the abstract, references, tables and figure captions.
| Section | What it publishes | Review | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research articles | Original studies with a stated question, methods and data | Two external reviewers | 4,000–8,000 words |
| Short communications | New distribution records, range extensions, first reports and brief findings | Two external reviewers | Up to 2,500 words |
| Review articles | Syntheses of published evidence, including systematic and scoping reviews | Two external reviewers | Up to 10,000 words |
| Field and practice notes | Management, restoration and extension case studies from practitioners, including approaches that did not work | One external reviewer and the handling editor | Up to 4,000 words |
| Data papers | Datasets, inventories and long-term monitoring records, described for reuse and deposited in a public repository | One external reviewer, assessing methods and data access | Up to 4,000 words, plus the dataset |
| Perspectives and policy | Evidence-based positions on policy, standards and practice | Editorial review, with external review at the editor's discretion | Up to 3,000 words |
Ownership and editorial independence
Nature Scan Journal is owned and published by Nature Scan LLP, Bengaluru, India, which meets the journal's operating costs. Editorial decisions are made by the editors on scholarly grounds alone and are independent of the publisher's other activities. Submissions from people connected with the publisher or the editorial board go through the same review as any other and are handled by an editor with no conflict of interest.