Topicality. The current change in the ideology of forest management in Ukraine towards sustainable spatial development of forestry is due to the promising importance of ecosystem, economic and social values of forest resources, their multifunctional and intersectoral nature of the use of resource and ecological potential of forests, as well as the growing needs of society regarding the quality of the natural environment. Structural negative changes taking place in the forest sector during the transformation of the economy focus on the problem of sustainable spatial forestry. In particular, the restructuring of forest ownership forms, fiscal policy in the sector, forest management functions and integrated multi-purpose forest use are not consistent with the requirements of sustainable spatial development and a market-oriented model of forestry economics. More active implementation of institutional, ecological and economic, organizational and managerial mechanisms for ensuring sustainable spatial forestry requires conceptual and methodological reflection on the spatial approach to forestry.Aim and tasks. The purpose of the article is deepening the conceptual and methodological principles of sustainable spatial forestry in the context of modern environmental and economic problems of rational use of forest resource potential. Conceptually-methodological understanding of forestry requires: the disclosure of the substantive content of the spatial forestry; definition of features of formation and development of forest management; formation of criteria (classification) signs of the forestry space.Research results. The conceptual and methodological basis for the formation of forestry space is proposed in order to ensure sustainable development of the forestry complex. The basic economic-organizational principles of spatial development of forestry systems are considered. The content basis of sustainable forest management, in contrast to the forestry (in the broad sense), includes a wider range of organizational and technological components of forest-ecological, environmental, economic and social trends that are associated with sustainable use and the reproduction of forest resource potential and forestry space. Forestry space represents a combination of components of forest resource potential and socio-economic environment within a certain forestry region with their links and diverse relationships that are necessary for the sustainable development of society. The natural, informational, economic, financial, and intellectual components of forestry complement the institutional, which outline the legal norms for forest management. Forestry within the understanding of forestry space includes aspects of socio-ecological and economic equilibrium of forestry systems of different hierarchical levels of the organization.Conclusion. Research of the economic space of forestry goes beyond the substantive basis of the forestry economy, the theoretical and methodological basis of the regional economy, therefore, there is a problem of the formation of a new direction in the implementation of sustainable spatial forestry, which requires the consolidation of research into a coherent whole. It is the formation and development of an environmentally balanced, economic forestry space that is a prerequisite for rational use, reproduction and conservation of forest resource potential on an ecosystem basis.