Abstract: The Forest Chief System, as an important institutional innovation in forestry governance, is a key practice for advancing ecological civilization in the new era. Using the panel data from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China from 2011 to 2023, this study constructs an evaluation index system for comprehensive forestry benefits from three dimensions: ecological benefits, economic benefits, and social benefits. The entropy method is used to measure the level of comprehensive forestry benefits in each region, and a multi-period difference-in-differences model is employed to evaluate the governance effect of the Forest Chief System. The results show that the Forest Chief System significantly improves comprehensive forestry benefits, and this conclusion remains robust after controlling for concurrent policy interventions, applying winsorization, and using one-period-lagged control variables. Mechanism analysis indicates that the Forest Chief System exerts its effect mainly by strengthening ecological management and protection, promoting industrial structure upgrading, and increasing residents' income. Moreover, its positive effect is more pronounced in regions with higher forest coverage rates. Accordingly, it is necessary to further improve the mechanisms for responsibility implementation and collaborative governance under the Forest Chief System, strengthen forest management and ecological value transformation, and improve ecological benefit-sharing and differentiated assessment mechanisms, so as to enhance the sustainability of policy effects.