Local communities and individual farmers prefer to plant and grow fruit trees rather than forests. As a result, the demand for fruit tree seedlings in the market is much higher than for trees of typical forest-forming species. The obvious reason is that fruit trees yield product and bring profit immediately, in just a few years after being planted, while some forest tree species native to Tajikistan, in particular under harsh mountain climatic conditions, reach the optimal economic maturity for timber harvesting at the age of some 100 to 200 years. Another challenge for forest management is that fruit tree planting successfully competes for available land and funds with forest restoration.