The reform of collective forestland tenure is important for realizing the sustainable growth of forest resources. In order to clarify the controversies of the research on the impact of collective forestland tenure reform on forest resources and analyze the disadvantages and future research directions from the perspectives of collective forest property rights and its structure, this article summarizes and analyzes the literature about the impact of collective forestland tenure reform on forest resource changes and the security of forest property rights from both the theoretical and empirical aspects. Most studies have found that collective forestland tenure reform can encourage farmers'afforestation and forestland management and reduce deforestation and forest degradation, effectively increasing the forest resources. Existing literature has provided valuable clues for further research, but the theoretical framework of analysis fails to consider the reality of off-farm employment in China and the interactions between various forest property rights. Moreover, the empirical research neglects the dynamic effects of forest property rights on the forest resources and fails to effectively avoid the endogeneity problem of forest property rights in the model. Therefore, this article suggests that future research should: (1) be based on the actual situation of laborers'non-agricultural employment in China, construct a theoretical model in line with national conditions and explore the interactions between various forest property rights; (2) scientifically identify the dynamic effects of forest property rights on the forest resources; and (3) pay attention to the endogeneity problems such as measurement bias of systems, variable omissions, self-selection bias, and reverse causality.