The management of small private forests in the Western World has been under threat owing to rural and agricultural transformations since the Second World War. The actions put in place to preserve those forests are hard to implement because the forests are managed essentially in an unofficial way that is not clearly understood. Through multidisciplinary approaches, our aims were to understand local forest management processes, to assess the continuities and discontinuities of usages and practices in the Coteaux de Gascogne area of France, and to propose guidelines for future forest management. Forest management is shaped by a traditional but unrecognized social system called the house-centered system, which has contributed to a high degree of domesticity and diversity in forestry practices in this area. If forest management guidelines are to be effective, any guidelines put in place should take into account the roots of the traditional management system and attempt to comply with local social organizations. This is a major challenge regarding the long-term preservation of small private forests.