1 
Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental 
benefits and socially equitable outcomes 
  
  
David P. Edwards1*#, Gianluca R. Cerullo2*#, Susan Chomba3, Thomas A. 5 
Worthington2, Andrew P. Balmford2, Robin L. Chazdon4, and Rhett D. Harrison5 
  
1Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, 
Sheffield S10 2TN, UK 
  10 
2Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK 
  
3World Resources Institute, Nairobi, Kenya 
  
4Tropical Forests and People Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, 15 
Sippy Downs, Queensland 4556, Australia 
  
5World Agroforestry, Lusaka, 10101 Zambia 
  
*Joint first author and equal effort 20 
#Email:  david.edwards@sheffield.ac.uk; grc38@cam.ac.uk 
  
2 
Summary 
The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration offers immense potential to return 
hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded tropical landscapes to functioning 25 
ecosystems. Well-designed restoration can tackle multiple Sustainable Development 
Goals, driving synergistic benefits for biodiversity, ecosystem services, agricultural 
and timber production, and local livelihoods at large spatial scales. To deliver on this 
potential, restoration efforts must recognise and reduce trade-offs among objectives, 
and minimize competition with food production and conservation of native ecosystems. 30 
Restoration initiatives also need to confront core environmental challenges of climate 
change and inappropriate planting in savanna biomes, be robustly funded over the 
long term, and address issues of poor governance, inadequate land tenure, and socio-
cultural disparities in benefits and costs. Tackling these issues using the landscape 
approach is vital to realising the potential for restoration to break the cycle of land 35 
degradation and poverty, and deliver on its core environmental and social promises. 
 
 
Keywords  Forest and Landscape Restoration, FLR, REDD+, Silviculture, 
Reforestation, Agroforestry, Plantation, Secondary Forest, Biodiversity and 40 
Ecosystem Functioning, Poverty Alleviation 
  
3 
Introduction 
Severe ecosystem degradation from high-intensity logging, charcoal production, fire, 
and unsustainable agricultural practices have rendered 10% of remaining tropical 45 
forests1 and over 20% of global farmland2 degraded, affecting approximately 3 billion 
people. The capacity of tropical lands to support diverse species assemblages, 
mitigate climate change through carbon storage, and provide livelihood benefits, 
especially for poor and marginalised local communities, has dramatically deteriorated. 
In some regions, this has resulted in a vicious cycle of land degradation and poverty, 50 
with worsening outcomes predicted under climate change2.  
In recognising the diverse risks of land degradation, the international 
community has adopted major restoration efforts. These are embodied by the United 
Nations (UN) Decade on Ecosystem Restoration[A] 2021-2030 and the Bonn 
Challenge[B] to restore 350 million hectares of degraded land by 2030, in alignment 55 
with the Paris Agreement to restrict global temperature rise to under 1.5°C. These 
high-level commitments have enormous potential to deliver on societal goals. 
Ecosystem restoration can help meet objectives of the three conventions on 
biodiversity (CBD), desertification (UNCCD), and climate change (UNFCCC)3. In doing 
so, restoration can tackle multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 60 
including alleviating poverty (SDG1, No Poverty), increasing crop and livestock yields 
(SDG2, Zero Hunger), and generating fuelwood (SDG7, Affordable Energy), while 
reducing involuntary migration and conflict (SDG16, Justice), climate change (SDG13, 
Climate Action), and biodiversity loss (SDG15, Life on Land).  
Well-designed restoration, via a combination of agroforestry, silvopasture, 65 
woodlots, timber plantations, silviculture in selectively logged forests, and natural 
habitat regeneration, can reverse biodiversity loss, sequester vast amounts of carbon 
dioxide, and provide other ecosystem services4, with positive impacts for human well-
being5. The adoption of approaches that support local communities to shape 
restoration activities and sustainably govern natural resources across landscapes can 70 
entrain the positive potential of restoration to break the cycle of land degradation and 
poverty. 
 
[A] https://www.decadeonrestoration.org 
[B] https://www.bonnchallenge.org 
4 
Yet many previous well-supported restoration attempts have failed. 
Government-backed tree expansion programmes from Chile to Cambodia have, at 
times, backfired on climate, biodiversity, and livelihood goals6–10. Multi-billion dollar 75 
programmes—from the pan-African ‘Great Green Wall’ initiative to China’s ‘Grain-for-
Green’ programme (Figure 1AB)—are now attracting scrutiny for the potential 
unintended ecological and social consequences they might cause8,11,12 and the risk of 
under-delivery13,14. The danger is that these well-intentioned programmes plant 
inappropriate species (the wrong tree, in the wrong place15), marginalise the needs of 80 
local people, exacerbate gender and wealth inequalities, and further degrade 
ecosystems through displacement of agriculture and associated habitat clearance. 
Unless initiatives address governance barriers and confront inherent trade-offs 
between the different goals, benefits, and costs of restoration, there is a danger that 
billions of dollars of international investment will fail to tackle core environmental and 85 
social problems. Nevertheless, despite such risks, the potential net benefits of 
restoration vastly outweigh the environmental and societal costs of inaction16. Here, 
we review the opportunities and challenges of large-scale restoration and explore the 
evidence for how best to deliver tropical restoration success across multiple 
objectives, stakeholders, and scales.  90 
 
 
5 
Figure 1. Successes and challenges of restoration projects. (A) The Great Green Wall 
initiative aims to reduce land degradation, improve climate adaptation, and strengthen food 
security by restoring arid-resistant landscapes in a ~15 km wide belt across 7,775 kilometres 95 
of Africa. Costing ~US$43 billion by completion, 16% of the project was underway in 20208. 
Beyond climate and livelihood benefits, afforestation could negatively affect fauna. Images 
show native Acacia trees planted along terraces on the Ader-Doutchi Plateau, Niger, and 
Scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah, inset), a dryland-adapted species whose reintroduction 
in Chad may be negatively affected8. (B) China’s Grain-for-Green programme seeks to combat 100 
erosion, flooding, and landslides. The programme pays rural households to establish tree 
cover on sloped, marginal croplands, and between 1999-2014, ~$47 billion was invested in 
afforestation of 29.8 million hectares, chiefly using monoculture plantations. The project has 
been criticised for not considering biodiversity7 and negative impacts on hydrological 
processes17. Image shows plantations established to combat erosion. (C) Since 1993, 105 
INFAPRO has restored over 11,000 ha of selectively logged rainforest in Sabah, Malaysian 
Borneo, boosting carbon storage compared to naturally regenerating forest18. Images show 
strip clearing of competing climbers (upper left), along which nursery-grown dipterocarp 
seedlings (lower left) are planted, enabling rapid growth of strip-planted trees (right). (D) A 
landscape-scale restoration project in Pontal do Paranapanema, Brazil, has benefitted local 110 
communities by training landless families in agroforestry, while regrowing and reconnecting 
Atlantic forest19. Images show a 1300-ha reforested corridor planted with 3 million trees, part 
of a corridor network aiding movement of endangered Black lion tamarin (Leontopithecus 
chrysopygus, inset) between core forests19. Photo credits: (A) Gray Tappan, U.S. Geological 
Survey, EROS Center; (B) Laury Cullen, IPÊ (Institute for Ecological Research); (C) Gianluca 115 
Cerullo; others published under Wikimedia Creative Commons License. 
 
 
Restoration types and societal goals 
Restoration of terrestrial vegetation, from tree-dominated to sparsely wooded savanna 120 
habitats, offers multiple potential benefits across the tropics (Figure 2A, B). It also 
offers benefits in open wetlands4 and mangroves (Box 1), but we concentrate on 
terrestrial ecosystems as the primary restoration frontiers. Across the diversity of 
restoration actions—spanning logged forest recovery, regeneration of abandoned 
farmland, plantation development, and on-farm restoration—environmental and social 125 
outcomes and challenges vary considerably, including across regions (Figure 2). 
 
6 
Logged forest recovery – Beyond allowing natural recovery, restoration of logged 
forest spans silvicultural interventions from liberation cutting of climbers that out-
compete recovering trees to enrichment planting of overharvested species20 (Figure 130 
1C). Timber and carbon recovery rates following post-logging silviculture are high. In 
Indonesian Borneo, strip-planting within twice-logged forests returned old-growth 
timber volumes within 40 years21, while in Malaysian Borneo, intensive liana cutting 
and enrichment planting boosted recovery rates of aboveground carbon over 50% 
(2.9-4.4 MgC ha−1 yr−1) relative to naturally regenerating logged forests (Philipson et 135 
al., 2020) (Figures 1C & 3A). Given persistent losses of soil carbon post-logging 
(reaching 4.9 MgC ha−1 yr−1)22, how different restoration options influence soil carbon 
is a major unknown. 
For biodiversity, logged forest restoration returns habitat suitable for iconic 
wildlife23. More broadly, while restored logged forests retain similarly high levels of bird 140 
and dung beetle diversity relative to naturally regenerating forest20, the additionality of 
active versus passive restoration is often modest24. Nevertheless, benefits are 
dramatic when the extended presence of forest managers defends against the 
devastating environmental impacts of conversion to agriculture20 or unsustainable 
wildlife harvest25. 145 
The extent to which logged forest restoration also provides socio-economic and 
ecosystem service benefits remains a research frontier and is likely to be strongly 
context-dependent20. For example, whereas targeted liana-cutting interventions may 
speed up post-logging recovery of economically important non-timber forest products 
(e.g. of Brazil nuts in Brazillian extractive reserves26), their intensive application can 150 
also entail negative livelihood consequences (e.g. the removal of medicinal plants in 
Indonesia27). Although enrichment planting can be expensive, opportunities exist to 
design post-logging restoration to make it financially viable and attract private 
investment28. In Indonesia, novel restoration concession licenses support companies 
to invest in multi-use forest management29. However, a lack of technical expertise, 155 
short-term concession licenses, and still-pervasive ‘cut-and-run’ mentalities within the 
timber industry, as well as the high prevalence of illegal operations, present 
socioeconomic barriers to the wider adoption of logged forest restoration. 
 
Restoration of abandoned farmland - Under suitable conditions, natural 160 
regeneration from pasture, croplands, and shifting agriculture rapidly recovers 
7 
biodiversity and carbon stocks24,30. Rates of aboveground carbon storage during 
natural regrowth vary twenty-fold across the tropics, reaching their highest levels in 
the lowland wet tropics, whereas savanna and seasonally dry forest biomes offer lower 
potential31 (Figure 2A). These rates may initially be lower than those of fully-stocked 165 
plantations, but the costs of storing carbon are significantly lower and benefits for 
biodiversity are significantly higher with natural regeneration24,32. Nevertheless, timber 
volumes in recovering secondary forests are often far lower than in plantations. In 
Southern Ghana, abandoned, naturally recovering ~45-year plantations have 5-fold 
higher timber values ($8577 ha−1) than similar-aged secondary forest ($1870 ha−1)33. 170 
Biodiversity value increases as regeneration proceeds over time30,34,35. For 
example, the similarity of secondary forest bird and dung beetle communities to 
primary forest communities increased over time in the Colombian Andes, becoming 
very similar after ~30 years34 (Figure 3B). Likewise, abandoned pastures in the 
Brazilian Cerrado increased plant diversity through time, resembling low-diversity 175 
unburned savannas within ~49 years, although floristic composition remained 
depauperate compared with old-growth grassy savannas36. Often, prior land use and 
surrounding landscape composition can override the effects of time37–39, especially if 
areas are too far from seed sources (Matos et al., 2020) or regeneration is arrested 
through competition with grasses or invasive shrubs and pioneers40.  180 
Natural regeneration can also provide many ecosystem service benefits, 
including hydrological regulation41,42 (Figure 3C) and reduced soil erosion36,43. Yet 
these benefits may not always align with project goals or economic needs of local 
communities (e.g., maximising timber production). Moreover, allocation of land for 
restoration can impose opportunity costs on farmers44, especially when benefits take 185 
a long time to accrue, land values and farming revenues increase over time, or carbon 
payments are low. These costs could in turn lead to leakage effects, with the 
displacement of foregone production undermining local benefits of natural 
regeneration45. Some of these issues can be tackled by assisted and managed natural 
regeneration, which can be tailored to provide a flexible nature-based solution for 190 
farmers and land managers46. For example, selective planting of economically or 
ecologically important tree species can help offset the costs of regrowing natural 
forest46,47.  
 
8 
Plantation development - Timber plantations are efficient ways of producing high 195 
timber volumes in a small spatial area, with yields in some cases 40-times greater in 
intensively managed plantations than natural forests (25-80 m3 ha-1 yr-1 versus 1-2 m3 
ha-1 yr-1, respectively)45. Plantation carbon stocks display ‘saw-tooth’ dynamics across 
rotations, differing with species-specific growth traits, rotation-length, management 
(multi- vs monoculture; different fertiliser regimes), end-product use, and displacement 200 
factors (whether wood replaces carbon-intensive building products like steel). Short-
rotation monocultures producing short-lived end products (pulp, charcoal) stock just 
2.5% of the time-averaged carbon stored by natural regeneration in moist tropical 
areas, whereas long-rotation plantations store significantly more carbon in both live 
and harvested biomass48. For instance, increasing rotation length by 50% in Costa 205 
Rican teak plantations delivers 29.7% higher carbon storage 49. 
Biodiversity is usually lower in plantations, especially those with exotic species, 
than in natural forests32,50. However, some plantations near native forest harbour 
surprisingly high biodiversity, including woody plants in the Ethiopian highlands51 and 
fauna in Amazonian Brazil32. Yet this biodiversity often represents spillover from 210 
nearby natural forests51. 
Plantations can be hydrologically costly, especially when exotic species are 
planted in areas that would normally not support trees. For example, China’s Grain-
for-Green programme to reduce flooding risk and soil erosion planted 28 million 
hectares of mainly non-native monocultures that reduced streamflow, surface runoff, 215 
and river discharge, appropriating 92% of annual rainfall in wet years in black locust 
plantations on the Loess Plateau17. Substituting tree monocultures with high-yielding, 
multi-species approaches offers significant restoration potential without additional land 
demands45,52, and delivers greater resilience to climate extremes and fire risk. For 
instance, 15-year monocultures in Panama had higher mortality during dry periods 220 
versus 2-5 species mixes53. Multi-species plantations can also support moderately 
higher biodiversity7 and improved water services, especially where native species are 
used54. 
  
On-farm restoration - Agroecological approaches, including agroforestry, conservation 225 
agriculture (CA), farmer-managed natural regeneration, silvopasture, and improved 
soil management, can deliver sustainable productivity gains55. For instance, CA using 
zero tillage, residue retention, and crop rotation increased yields (by 5.8%), water-use 
9 
efficiency (12.6%), and profitability (25.9%) across four cropping systems in South 
Asia55 (Figure 3D). In sub-Saharan Africa, average yield increases of six major crops 230 
under CA are modest (3.7%; maize yields with residue retention and crop rotation are 
higher, 8.4%)56, although impacts on profitability are unknown57. Yield increases 
further varied with environmental conditions, from 3.9% at 800-1200 mm to 12.5% at 
<400 mm average annual rainfall56, underlining the context dependence of benefits 
and need to tailor approaches to local conditions. On-farm trees can provide shade 235 
and yield benefits, with Faidherbia albida in Ethiopian wheat fields reducing 
temperatures and evapo-transpirative demand, and augmenting available nitrogen 
(35-55%), increasing average yields (23-26%)58 Similarly, silvopastoral systems 
provide shade and livestock fodder, and can improve cattle yield59. It has been 
estimated that the addition of trees to largely treeless agricultural landscapes could 240 
store an additional 0.94–9.4 Pg globally, representing 0.2%–7.6% of needed climate 
change mitigation by 203060. 
Restoration of within-farm riparian strips and forest fragments, and structurally 
diverse agroforestry or woodlots, can benefit disturbance-tolerant forest species and 
facilitate dispersal of forest species across landscapes37,6162. For instance, fallow- and 245 
forest-derived vanilla agroforestry in north-eastern Madagascar support high avian 
diversity, although substantially fewer endemics than old-growth forest62. However, 
payoffs of agroecological interventions for biodiversity are strongly baseline-
dependent63, and relative to primary, logged, and mature secondary forests tend to be 
limited50.  250 
Barriers to initial adoption and long-term maintenance of on-farm restoration 
include increased labour and capital demands, lack of knowledge and supply chains 
for novel crops, and short-term commitment from extension agencies, resulting in high 
abandonment rates following project termination (e.g., for CA64). In agroforestry 
systems, managing competition between trees and crops for light, nutrients and water 255 
is critical. Increasing tree cover within fields can lower yields65, potentially displacing 
agriculture elsewhere. But competition for space and resources can be managed 
successfully. For example, Faidherbia exhibits reverse phenology, shedding leaves 
during the crop growing season, simultaneously reducing competition for light and 
fertilising the crop66. More commonly, farmers plant trees on boundaries, where 260 
competition is reduced, although this often entails planting readily available, fast-
growing exotics, such as Gliricidia sepium and Eucalyptus. 
10 
 
 
 265 
Figure 2: Forest restoration opportunities and challenges in the tropics. (A) Predicted 
aboveground carbon accumulation rates (Mg C ha−1 yr−1) from natural regrowth in forest and 
savanna biomes, revealing particularly high accumulation in the lowland wet tropics of the 
Amazon, Congo, Sundaland, and Papua New Guinea, plus Guinean forests of West Africa 
and Brazilian Atlantic forests. Values are calculated by extrapolating 13,112 georeferenced 270 
measures of carbon accumulation across space using 66 environmental covariates. (B) 
Restoration opportunity score in lowland moist tropical forest, indicating that restoration 
hotspots (i.e., clusters of red cells with a normalised score >0.8) exist across the tropics. 
Higher scores denote areas where appropriate restoration may maximise benefits 
(biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, climate adaptation, and water security) 275 
while increasing the likelihood of effective implementation and long-term sustainability (low 
land opportunity cost, lower deforestation rates in surrounding area, and higher likelihood of 
biodiversity recovery). (C) Relative merit of avoided deforestation versus reforestation in 
providing cost-effective carbon benefits between 2020-2050. In red areas, reduced 
emissions from avoided deforestation at a carbon price of US$20 t-1 CO2 would yield higher 280 
11 
benefits (tCO2 ha–1) than can be achieved through increased removals via reforestation; 
vice-versa for areas in blue. In total, avoided deforestation offers 7.2–9.6 times as much low-
cost abatement as reforestation, but reforestation offers greater low-cost abatement than 
avoided deforestation in 21 countries (17 in sub-Saharan Africa). (D) Spatial distribution of 
bias in existing tree cover maps within arid biomes, which could result in inaccurate 285 
estimates of restoration benefits or, worse still, inappropriate restoration planting. Colours 
show regions where tree cover maps overestimate (red) or underestimate (blue) tree cover 
by more than 10%. Dark grey areas are places with limited (under +/-10%) over- or 
underestimation of tree cover bias; pale grey areas are moist biomes and not predicted. 
Plots redrawn from: (A)31; (B)5; (C)67; (D)68.   290 
12 
 
  
 
 
 295 
Figure 3. Various outcomes of tropical restoration for biodiversity and ecosystem 
services. (A) Improved carbon outcomes within selectively logged forest restored via intensive 
liana-cutting and enrichment planting in Malaysian Borneo. Violin plots show the distribution 
of aboveground carbon density (Mg ha−1) in naturally regenerating logged forest, actively 
restored logged forest, and primary forests. (B) Bird community similarity to primary forests in 300 
the Colombian Andes increases from cattle pasture (higher and lower intensity) to young 
secondary forest (<15 years) to advanced secondary forests (15-30 years), tracking the 
recovery of aboveground carbon stocks. Advanced secondary forests harbour similar 
communities to primary areas (Chao–Sørensen abundance-based similarity index), including 
13 
species of conservation concern. (C) Return of local hydrological functioning following early 305 
successional forest regrowth on degraded lands in eastern Madagascar. Box plots show 
surface saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) between forest, tree fallows undergoing early 
secondary forest regrowth, and degraded lands. Higher Ksat values indicate a likelihood of 
decreased overland flow, important for reducing flooding and erosion. Upper and lower bounds 
of box plots reflect the first and third quartiles, centre line is the median, extending lines denote 310 
most extreme values within the 1.5 interquartile range of the first and third quartiles, and points 
are sample site values for each land-use type. (D) High performance of conservation 
agriculture across cropping systems in Southeast Asia. Points show the percentage change 
in grain yield, water-use efficiency, and net economic return relative to conventional 
agricultural practices, calculated via meta-analysis from 9,686 paired site–year studies. Error 315 
bars indicate 95% CIs; effects are significant (P< 0.05) if CI does not overlap zero. Plots 
redrawn from: (A)18; (B)34; (C)41; and (D)55; data from42. 
 
  
14 
 320 
Synergies and tradeoffs in delivering restoration outcomes 
In principle, restoration can be optimised across landscapes to meet multiple societal 
goals whilst delivering ecosystem services, carbon, and biodiversity5,43. Yet this 
requires that restoration programmes capitalise upon synergies between restoration 
types and navigate trade-offs across appropriate temporal and spatial scales, 325 
including by minimizing competition with productive agricultural lands and alternative 
conservation investments.  
  
Synergies, trade-offs and scaling in benefits - Restorative interventions can yield 
significant environmental and social co-benefits, across a wide range of biophysical 330 
and socio-economic situations, including in the foothills of the northern Andes, 
Brazilian Atlantic forest, Guinean forests of West Africa, Madagascar, Indo-Burma, 
and the Philippines (Figure 2B)5. For instance, in the Brazilian Atlantic and Colombian 
Andes, ~30 year-old secondary forests harbour ~20% (72 Mg ha-1) and ~50% (120 Mg 
ha-1; Figure 3B) of primary forest above-ground carbon, respectively, as well as high 335 
tree, bird, and dung beetle diversity, including threatened and endemic species34,35. 
More broadly, integrating agroecological interventions with forest restoration can 
synergistically reverse the cycle of land degradation and poverty29. Forest restoration 
can provide additional income from non-timber forest products (NTFPs), including 
honey and mushrooms, as well as from carbon- or timber-focused business 340 
models28,29. 
Inherent within restoration actions are trade-offs between benefits, underpinned 
by stakeholder priorities and variation in the spatial and temporal recovery of different 
ecosystem services5. At their worst, inappropriate restoration interventions increase 
fire risk, or lead to land-use, water, human-wildlife, or food-security conflicts12,69. Less 345 
appreciated are inherent trade-offs within ecologically ‘successful’ restoration through 
time. In Mexican dry forests, early secondary regrowth results in farmer losses of $168 
ha−1 yr−1 in cattle fodder as thorny vegetation encroaches onto pasture, yet over time, 
older secondary forests (>25 years) deliver globally valuable carbon stocks and ~$80 
ha−1 yr−1 in forest-derived products and fodder44. Similarly, while young regenerating 350 
fallows in eastern Madagascar return key hydrological services (Figure 3C), more 
biodiversity- and carbon-rich older forest does not further reduce the risk of overland 
flow and might reduce streamflow through evapotranspiration41.  
15 
Across spatial scales, the optimal configuration for securing particular benefits 
varies. Whilst plantations, agroforestry, and other on-farm restoration approaches 355 
deliver modest biodiversity benefits, densities of most habitat-specialists are 
maximised where considerable areas of natural habitat are restored70. Large-scale 
restoration will potentially deliver other benefits, including stabilising regional 
precipitation dynamics71 and land-slide prevention near major road and energy 
infrastructure when tree roots open channels to deeper soil, reducing saturation72. Yet 360 
smaller-scale, mosaic approaches can return farm-level hydrological, soil, and food-
provisioning benefits73,74. The variation in beneficiaries—from local to global scales 
and from small landholders to environmental NGOs and major corporations—
highlights the putative trade-offs between restoration actions. This underscores the 
importance of equitable and just mechanisms to ensure that local people benefit from, 365 
rather than bear the cost of, restoration12. 
  
Synergies and trade-offs with alternative land-use options - Given the continued 
dramatic rise in food demand75 and that forest clearance is the main source of new 
tropical farmland76, maintaining or increasing yields on existing farmland is key to 370 
mitigating climate change and limiting species extinctions77. Undertaking large-scale 
forest restoration on currently farmed areas that generate high crop yields or support 
large numbers of rural livelihoods (or have the potential to do so) is thus unwise. 
Reforesting productive farmland will likely displace production and labour, locally or 
farther afield, with potentially negative impacts for carbon storage, biodiversity, and 375 
livelihoods12,78. It is instead prudent to focus large-scale reforestation on abandoned 
farmland and low-yielding agricultural areas where the opportunity costs of forgone 
production and income are lowest, especially where land-intensive animal products 
supply well-nourished urban markets34,79,80 (Box 2). 
At finer scales, because revegetated riverine buffers can deliver watershed 380 
services81, it could be beneficial to restore riparian zones - even at the expense of 
high-yielding farmland. Where tree-planting within agroforestry or silvopasture boosts 
landscape-level yields and livelihoods58,59,73, displaced production is not a risk. 
However, in both cases, these potentially beneficial effects should be assessed rather 
than assumed; to the extent yields are reduced, leakage problems are again likely. 385 
A second way in which restoration may impact other activities at a net cost to 
environmental outcomes is through competition for funding with interventions to tackle 
16 
forest loss and degradation. Conservation of intact habitats remains grossly 
underfunded82, with clearance and degradation of tropical forests a major source of 
greenhouse gas emissions1 and threat to biodiversity32,50. However, creation of 390 
protected areas49 and indigenous and community reserves83, land titling84, and 
payments for ecosystem services85 can work to retain intact old-growth and selectively 
logged forests, sometimes at relatively low cost34,85. 
Though still substantial, the potential environmental benefits from investing in 
forest restoration are likely to be lower than for forest conservation. Even very 395 
substantial forest regrowth offsets only a small fraction (estimated for the Amazon at 
<10% 86) of the emissions from ongoing losses of old-growth forests. Restoration is 
also often substantially more expensive than conservation, especially in the lowland 
moist tropics67 (Figure 2C). Benefits inevitably take decades to accrue and are more 
likely to be lost over the medium to long term. In Costa Rica, for instance, forest 400 
protection laws explicitly exclude young regenerating sites, which as a result are often 
targeted for clearing to prevent them being reclassified as forests87. More generally, 
across Latin America, between 2001-2014 forest regrowth areas were 10 times more 
likely to lose than gain forest cover10. This uncertainty can make funding restoration 
through ex ante carbon accreditation more vulnerable to concerns of permanency than 405 
the conservation of existing forests, for which robust ex post payments can be made. 
Because reforestation is not a substitute for protecting existing tropical forest, 
the current focus on reforestation should not draw funding or attention away from the 
pressing task of reducing rates of tropical forest conversion and degradation12. Yet 
evidence indicates that government reforestation policies may create perverse 410 
incentives for forest clearance. In southwestern China, the Grain-for-Green 
programme increased tree cover by 32% between 2000 and 2015 – mostly in 
monoculture plantations – but the resulting displacement of crop and timber production 
corresponded with a 6.6% loss of the region’s natural forests69. In Chile, econometric 
analysis of a 25-year programme subsidising 912,000 ha of exotic species plantation 415 
forestry revealed ~12,000 ha of local deforestation6. The response of G7 nations to 
the 2019 Amazonian forest fires – offering funds for reforestation, rather than better 
forest protection12 – suggests the disproportionate appeal of planting trees (and being 
seen to do so) has not diminished. Thus, while the UN Declaration on Ecosystem 
Restoration explicitly includes preventing and halting deforestation and degradation, it 420 
17 
remains challenging to ensure that restoration efforts do not harm prospects for 
conserving still-intact habitats. 
Despite these potential land-use and funding conflicts, reforestation might 
alleviate threats to existing forests and act in synergy with forest conservation goals in 
at least three ways. First, an alternative interpretation of the tendency for secondary 425 
forests to be poorly protected is that their clearance protects primary forest from 
conversion. Across the Brazilian Amazon, for instance, the proportion of deforestation 
accounted for by secondary forests rose from 37% in 2008 to 72% in 201488. Second, 
when restored logged or plantation forests provide timber or fuelwood, they could 
reduce harvesting pressure on old-growth20,45. Last, depending on their location, 430 
reforested areas can reduce existing forests’ exposure to edge effects, reconnect 
habitat fragments, and thus enhance the resilience of forest-dependent species to 
climate change and other anthropogenic stressors89. 
 
Environmental challenges for restoration 435 
Despite the potential benefits of restoration-based interventions, core environmental 
challenges remain (Figure 2C,D). Two critical ones are embedding long-term 
resilience against climate change and avoiding misapplied restoration practices within 
ecologically distinct rangeland and savanna woodland systems.  
   440 
Inappropriate planting in rangelands and savanna woodlands - Different processes 
maintain ecosystem health in forests and grasslands, where fire and mega-herbivores 
underpin community dynamics8,11. Restoration programmes often fail to distinguish 
ancient intact savannas8,11 or else have miscalculated the amount of natural tree cover 
already occurring in many dryland areas68 (Figure 2D). Thus, without proper spatial 445 
planning, well-intentioned but blanket restoration treatments can cause significant 
damage by failing to account for ecosystem characteristics90 (Box 2).  
Planting trees, preventing fires, and excluding grazing are emblematic of 
practical restoration efforts. Yet increasing tree density in savannas could alter 
biodiversity towards a community of closed-canopy species, fragment remaining 450 
savannas, undercut hydrological services, or have highly varied carbon accrual or 
storage, depending on drought and fire conditions90. For instance, ill-conceived fire 
suppression in the Brazilian cerrado encourages forest encroachment, reducing 
savanna-specialist plant and ant richness by 67% and 86%, respectively91.  
18 
In wooded savannas, the opposite management—removing certain trees, 455 
reinstating natural fire dynamics, and reintroducing extirpated herbivores—are truer 
forms of restoration90. For example, the reintroduction of large-mammal grazers into 
Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, after civil war reduced abundance of the 
exotic invasive shrub Mimosa pigra to its pre-war baseline92, while in the cerrado, 
clear-felling of pine plantations quickly returned native woody vegetation, although not 460 
herbaceous species93. More broadly, such ecosystem-tailored restoration can yield 
cascading benefits for livelihoods and carbon storage in savannas94. Carbon benefits 
are especially marked since most assimilated carbon is stored below-ground, where it 
is more protected from droughts and wildfires95. 
  465 
Embedding resilience to climate change - Climate change will increasingly determine 
restoration opportunities and outcomes - via warmer temperatures, altered 
precipitation dynamics, and increased frequency and magnitude of extreme weather96. 
Large-scale restoration of forests and farmland offers meaningful climate mitigation 
potential, amounting to 5 Gt C yr-1 97, but this carbon sink will, in places, be sensitive 470 
to intensifying climate-related risks, including fire, drought, and antagonistic biotic 
interactions with pathogens and pests98. Acting independently or in conjunction, these 
climate-related risks can alter the successional trajectory of regenerating 
environments, often in ways that curtail the provisioning of ecosystem services99. For 
instance, drought stress causes lower carbon balance and growth rates in Amazonian 475 
secondary forest during drier periods98. Securing restoration benefits under climate 
change will thus require programmes that embed resilience against multiple climate 
stressors (Box 1).  
  The climate-mitigation potential and probable resilience of planned restoration 
interventions varies considerably across landscapes97. For example, carbon 480 
sequestration within young secondary forest is ~60% higher in the western versus 
eastern Amazon100. Meanwhile, following the 2015-16 El Niño drought in heavily 
logged landscapes of Malaysian Borneo, forest regrowth was slower on hilltops and 
close to oil palm plantations, where exposure and edge effects are strongest101, while 
positive effects of liana-cutting on regeneration were reversed due to intense sunlight 485 
in the understorey102. Understanding such variation offers opportunities for climate-
smart restoration that avoids climate-mediated setbacks. In addition, climate-smart 
restoration should invest in multi-species, genetically diverse planting stock and utilise 
19 
trait-based matching that selects species based on their adaptation to forecasted 
conditions15,103. 490 
Restoration is underpinned by complex networks of positive biotic interactions, 
including seed-dispersal, pollination, and mycorrhizal fungal associations, which could 
each suffer climate-driven feedbacks that undermine recovery rates or restoration 
resilience. For instance, seed dispersers foster natural regeneration104, yet in the 
Australian wet tropics, the median seed-dispersal distance of frugivorous birds, bats, 495 
and marsupials is projected to fall 38.7% by 2100 under worst-case climate 
scenarios105. Furthermore, strong predicted declines in functional diversity of avian 
frugivores under medium emissions scenarios renders dispersal-dependent 
restoration particularly vulnerable across South America, New Guinea, and southern 
Congo106, intensifying existing seed-dispersal limitation from contemporary 500 
defaunation104. Hence, restoration efforts need also to protect overhunted fauna, 
thereby assisting migration of impacted trees. Climate change will also impact 
antagonistic interactions, including liana infestation and invasion by exotic 
grasses107,108, that modulate plant growth, reproduction, and mortality, and thus long-
term restoration outcomes. 505 
Human responses to climate have altered ecosystem states and successional 
pathways throughout history109, and will determine future restoration outcomes. First, 
climate change will impact the permanence of restoration by driving clearance or 
degradation as agribusiness exploits climate-driven agricultural frontiers (e.g. for 
coffee110) and smallholders resort to timber exploitation or compensatory agricultural 510 
expansion111. Second, growing demand for renewable energy, land-intensive wind-
farms, solar-infrastructure, and biofuel production will compete with restoration for 
marginal land112. Last, climate change could rewire the restoration investment 
landscape28 by rendering some areas too risky for market-orientated investment, 
redirecting capital away from nature-based climate solutions, or, alternatively, 515 
increasing demand for more resilient species-rich planting.  
 
Investing in economically sustainable and equitable restoration interventions  
Staunching degradation and redirecting landscape trajectories towards restoration will 
require employing cost-effective interventions, unlocking novel forms of restoration 520 
finance, and ensuring investments are deployed fairly and justly within complex socio-
cultural systems. 
20 
 
Economic sustainability - Ensuring permanent land-use transitions towards restoration 
requires adoption of diverse, sustainable funding streams that match or surpass the 525 
net gains of alternative management pathways. Such streams must also cover the 
costs of community engagement and restoration interventions, including labour, 
transactions, monitoring, and protection. Although initial charitable-type funding for 
active ‘spades-in-the-ground’ activities is often high, the rarity of sustainable funding 
from donors or NGOs is an important driver of restoration failure113. Innovative 530 
interventions can help offset high upfront restoration costs. For instance, inter-planting 
timber species within native restoration plantings covers 44-75% of implementation 
costs in the Brazilian Atlantic47. Yet ensuring continued financial support hinges on 
forging novel business models that benefit local communities while providing 
sustainable long-term income29. Models include leveraging new sources of capital 535 
from the private sector and realigning financial incentives, including subsidies, 
payments for ecosystem services, and product certification28. A key challenge, 
however, is ensuring that social structures are in place to ensure that local 
communities have the political power to secure and access funding streams.   
Restoration costs vary substantially by type and location. Particularly important 540 
to consider are the costs of community engagement and protection, which are long-
term and considerable in areas with low governance, poor development, and 
substantial populations. For example, running a 40,000 ha restoration concession in 
Indonesia costs US$1 million annually, mostly for forest guards, police-supported 
enforcement activities, and community development programmes29. Opportunity costs 545 
of restoration also vary enormously. They can be substantially greater than 
implementation costs114, but can be particularly low when allowing natural 
regeneration on marginal agricultural lands, such as remote pastures in the Colombian 
Andes ($1.99 t-1 CO2)34 and the oldest fallow plots in shifting cultivation in North-east 
India ($0.89 t-1 CO2)115. Restoration will often make economic sense to society as a 550 
whole, but not necessarily to local communities, making long-term fiscal transfers 
essential if restoration is to be equitable or sustained116. 
Natural regeneration can be extremely cost-effective34,79,115, reducing 
implementation costs by ~US$90.6 billion across the Brazilian Atlantic compared with 
tree-planting approaches79. Costs of assisted natural regeneration, especially liana 555 
cutting or thinning of competing vegetation, are also modest. For example, thinning 
21 
pioneers in Sumatra, Indonesia, costs approximately US$200 ha-1 117. Moreover, 
removal of competing vegetation, including bamboos and pioneers, can generate 
income through sales of biomass, biochar, or other products. Conversely, the costs of 
restoration planting or controlling invasive species can be prohibitively high. 560 
Enrichment planting and liberation of timber species in logged forests of Malaysian 
Borneo reaches $1,854 ha-1 18, while hoeing of the invasive African grass Urochloa 
decumbens in the Brazilian cerrado costs $4,727 ha-1 118. Nevertheless, expensive 
interventions can yield dividends through time. For instance, high seed-sourcing costs 
of integrating more genetically diverse tree stock into restoration plantings are offset 565 
across the tropics by cost-savings associated with higher survival103.  
  
Governance and socio-cultural drivers of restoration beneficiaries - 
  
“Excluding indigenous people and local people from forest restoration poses 570 
ethical concerns: it forces some of the most multidimensionally poor people—
those who live in rural areas within low-income countries—to move or give up 
their current livelihood for a global carbon and biodiversity debt to which they 
contributed little.” 119.  
  575 
Restoration is a social-ecological endeavour119. Different actors and institutions—
operating at multiple scales and governance levels—hold varied interests and powers 
that structure funding, decision-making, behaviour, and ultimately the equitability of 
outcomes. In particular, by exploiting or manipulating regulatory processes and 
mechanisms, powerful international government, business, and NGO actors can 580 
complicate delivery of truly equitable restoration120 and may (inadvertently) promote 
neocolonialist tendencies (Box 3). Thus, beyond the environmental constraints 
underpinning a ‘right tree, right place’ approach15, projects must nurture local 
institutional, social, and governance structures for restoration to flourish and deliver 
multiple benefits12. 585 
Power asymmetries between actors determine whose interests and priorities 
prevail121, with international donors who prioritize conservation and climate change 
mitigation potentially overlooking local livelihood needs and interests. Restoration 
projects and planners have the power to influence social outcomes through their 
institutional choices during implementation, especially in deciding which institutions to 590 
22 
partner and who makes key restoration decisions. When projects partner with powerful 
institutions, such as big international NGOs, it can exacerbate power imbalances and 
shrink democratic space122,123. Despite such concerns, restoration in the Global South 
is defined and largely led by major international development and conservation 
organizations123,124. Although some have shifted narratives towards ‘community-led 595 
approaches’, many still engender minimal community leadership or representation of 
marginalised groups in funding, decision-making, and ownership125. 
Private sector actors invest in restoration for three broad reasons: to offset 
carbon emissions from production and supply chains; as a form of corporate social 
responsibility; or for long-term investment (e.g., pension-fund managers seeking 600 
returns from sale of carbon credits). Restoration of public lands funded through private 
finance models risks shifting decision-making power from public to private domains, 
including what types of restoration to fund and which communities to work with. This 
tends to select for restoration investment with ‘easy to work with’ or ‘easy to control’ 
communities that guarantee positive public relations126 (Box 3), generating inequity, 605 
since ‘difficult’ communities with a stronger sense of autonomy or less-structured local 
institutions are side-lined. Similar issues can occur with NGO- or government-
implemented projects, especially where they are under pressure to deliver on project 
goals from donor funding. 
Inequalities in restoration beneficiaries manifest within local communities, 610 
across gender, race, age, caste, wealth, and ethnicity127. These groups have different 
interests and powers to shape restoration decisions and outcomes. For example, men 
often dominate access and control of land, although women’s achievements on 
environmental issues indicate they are not just victims of the unequal resource 
allocation but also agents of positive change128. Policy and institutional structures must 615 
ensure full, effective representation and participation of marginalized groups (e.g., 
women, indigenous people, ethnic monitories) by addressing cultural and policy 
barriers that hinder their engagement in restoration129,130. Also critical is ensuring that 
marginalized groups have legal land tenure to reduce persecution, displacement, or 
infringements on land rights, and guarantee access to restoration goods and payments 620 
for ecosystem services121,131. 
 
 
 
23 
Essential role of the landscape approach and conclusions 625 
As we enter the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, it is critically important for 
scientists, policymakers, and other stakeholders to engage fully with the inherent 
complexities of upscaling restoration in the tropics. Supporting a transition from small- 
to large-scale restoration implementation will require a step-change in how restoration 
is targeted spatially, integrated across environmental and social objectives, monitored 630 
through time, and underpinned by quality science and innovation (Box 2). 
Wide-scale restoration in forest and woody-savanna biomes cannot be 
achieved just by planting trees, but requires multi-dimensional approaches to solving 
degradation problems14 and long-term commitment to improved governance of 
common-pool resources132. We agree with many of the core restoration principles 635 
proposed recently15,133. Restoration must firstly tackle on-going degradation 
pressures, must be supported by clearly stated and defined management plans, and 
requires a shift in how decision-making is integrated across scales and initiatives133 
(Box 2). Moreover, ensuring restoration interventions incorporate sufficient genetic 
diversity, embed participatory approaches from the outset, and invest heavily in both 640 
social (e.g., institutions and governance structures) and physical (e.g., seed supply 
chains) restoration capacity are non-trivial issues too often side-lined15.  
We highlight two additional principles that lie at the heart of whether restoration 
will ultimately deliver on its stated aims and potential. Firstly, the pivot to a restorative 
future must grapple with the fundamental requirement for an overhaul in global 645 
agricultural and forestry systems. Agriculture and timber production occupy the 
majority of potentially restorable areas in the tropics. Restoration-focused attempts to 
reshape landscapes without simultaneously delivering on food and timber demands, 
or considering agri- and timber-business interests, are surely doomed to be short-lived 
and suboptimal (Box 2). Second, restoration will not (and indeed cannot) achieve 650 
everything, for everybody, at once. As we have highlighted, trade-offs between 
stakeholder objectives, restoration approaches, and benefits are not only to be 
expected, but, crucially, must be planned for and communicated. Otherwise, the 
growing financial backing and political momentum currently driving the restoration 
agenda will not be sustained over the multi-decade timeframes needed to maximise 655 
impacts. 
The ‘landscape approach’, embodied in the idea of Forest and Landscape 
Restoration (FLR), will be central to navigating and communicating these restoration 
24 
trade-offs. It does so by maximizing landscape-wide benefits and steering landscapes 
towards improved socio-ecological conditions over time, underpinned by science-led 660 
decision-making that is negotiated through transparent multi-stakeholder processes. 
FLR is based on six core principles that guide these actions: (1) Focus on landscapes; 
(2) engage stakeholders and participatory governance; (3) restore multiple functions 
for multiple benefits; (4) maintain and enhance natural ecosystems within landscapes; 
(5) tailor to the local context; and (6) manage adaptively for long-term resilience134,135. 665 
Thus, broad stakeholder engagement occurs in all stages of FLR, and local 
governance helps to promote equitable distribution of benefits136.  
Putting these principles into practice when using a range of restoration 
approaches generates positive outcomes. For example, within a single catchment in 
Biliran, Leyte, Philippines, forestry plantings stabilize slopes and provide future timber 670 
sources, agroforestry provides food security, and native tree plantations enhance local 
biodiversity and carbon storage137. Community-based nurseries grow locally adapted 
seedlings, providing economic benefits for families and jobs for local women137. In the 
Pontal do Paranapanema, Brazil, a landscape-scale restoration and conservation 
project involved the active participation of hundreds of landless colonizing families, 675 
including in locally owned nurseries19. Biological corridors were reforested, linking 
riparian zones, core conservation areas, and wildlife reserves to protect endangered 
primates and predators19 (Figure 1D). 
Key questions in delivering FLR are understanding at what landscape scale and 
configuration can ecological, socio-economic, and cultural priorities be best balanced? 680 
Where landscapes are too small, or configurations too fragmented, we risk foregoing 
specific benefits that depend on larger, interconnected areas, including persistence of 
habitat-specialist biodiversity, catchment-scale water processes, or resilience to 
perturbations such as fire and drought. Yet where landscapes are too large, this 
introduces governance challenges of operating across jurisdictions with differing 685 
priorities, regulations, and funding constraints. A next generation of spatial planning 
and prioritisation can facilitate identification of appropriate landscape scales and 
configurations, given baseline biophysical contexts, socio-economic dynamics, and 
cultural histologies (Box 2). 
Another challenge is the need for strengthened governance capacity from 690 
communities to local and national governments15. This must be combined with robust 
information on the costs and benefits of different interventions (Box 2), and adaptive 
25 
management based on quality monitoring of outcomes for different stakeholder 
groups121,138. FLR can help tackle this complexity across landscape contexts by 
fostering the development of tailored frameworks for implementation and monitoring 695 
with key stakeholders based on a core set of shared principles139. Nevertheless, how 
multi-scale governance should optimise landscape approaches and embed local 
participatory involvement remains an important issue119 (Box 2). Engaging with some 
of the lessons learnt from sustainable forest management (SFM) would likely be 
fruitful140.  700 
The need for widespread restoration cannot be overstated and the dangers of 
inaction are severe, especially with growing human population and consumption, 
biodiversity loss, and climate change141. We thus have a moral imperative to act now. 
Fortunately, major international-level restoration commitments and emerging 
investment point towards a historical shift in land-management practices that place 705 
both the restoration of environmentally and socially important ecosystem services and 
the engagement of local communities at its core.  
This unprecedented momentum means that we are at an inflection point, where 
the consequences of how and where we choose to restore will play out over centuries 
to come. If we seize the opportunity and entrench restoration within economic and 710 
cultural systems that prioritise caretaking of the natural environment and follow best 
practice, restoration can deliver on multiple fronts. In doing so, restoration can help 
humanity to escape cycles of poverty, combat extinctions, limit climate change, and 
create a stable planet for future generations. 
  715 
26 
Glossary of terms 
Agroforestry: Integration of planted or naturally occurring trees in farming systems, 
including within pastures, arable, or perennial shade crops (e.g., coffee, cacao). 
Trees can provide shade, crop nutrition, resources for beneficial organisms (e.g., 
pollinators, pest enemies), and products (e.g., fruits, nuts, fuelwood, and fodder). 720 
Climate-smart agriculture (CSA): An approach for developing agricultural strategies 
to secure sustainable food security under climate change.   
Climate-smart restoration:  the process of enhancing the ecological function of 
degraded, damaged, or destroyed areas in a manner that makes them resilient to the 
consequences of climate change. 725 
Conservation agriculture (CA): Integration of three complementary technologies into 
arable crop management--minimum tillage, biomass mulching (often of crop 
residues), and crop rotation--to enhance soil condition. 
Enrichment planting (also known as line-, strip-, gap-, and under-planting): the 
introduction of ecologically or economically valuable species to degraded forests 730 
without the elimination of valuable individuals already present.  
Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR):  A low-cost, sustainable system to 
return degraded croplands and grazing lands to productivity. FMNR farmers select 
and protect existing trees sprouting from roots, stumps, and seeds rather than tree 
planting. 735 
Leakage:  The transfer of deforestation or degradation from an area receiving 
investment for environmental protection (or restoration) to another that has not. 
Liberation cutting:  Cutting or killing (via girdling) of climbers and competing shrubs 
to promote the growth of selected tree seedlings (e.g., late successional species, or 
those with high conservation or timber values).  740 
Restoration failure: Where predetermined restoration goals are unmet or partially 
unmet, or have major unintended consequences.  
Silviculture: Controlling the growth, composition, and quality of forest stands to meet 
values and needs, especially timber production. It involves planting, thinning 
(liberation cutting), and harvesting of timber, plus other elements (e.g. management 745 
of pests and disease).   
27 
Box 1:  Mangrove restoration 
Despite being relatively small in global area, mangrove forests sequester 
disproportionally large amounts of carbon dioxide, generating growing interest in their 
conservation and restoration for climate change mitigation and adaptation141. 750 
Mangrove forests also provide multiple co-benefits, including supporting small-scale 
fisheries142, protecting coastal communities143 and for tourism and recreation144. 
Mangrove restoration has been attempted pan-tropically, ranging from community 
projects restoring a few square metres to large-scale planting of millions of propagules. 
The dominant restoration strategy involves planting, often of monogeneric stands of 755 
Rhizophora species145. 
Many restoration efforts have been plagued by poor long-term success owing 
to selecting sites low in the tidal frame where access and land tenure is less contested, 
but outside the physiological tolerances of the planted individuals146. Restoring such 
locations has potential negative consequences for adjacent habitats, including 760 
seagrass meadows and mudflats. Furthermore, mangrove restoration attempts are 
often underpinned by inappropriate metrics of success, such as area increases or 
propagule planting targets147, and short-term funding that fails to adequately address 
the initial causes of mangrove loss or to appropriately engage communities148. Despite 
these shortcomings, there are ‘bright spots’ of mangrove restoration, with projects that 765 
show long-term persistence and patch expansion at relatively low cost, whilst providing 
socio-economic benefits149.  
Climate change provides various opportunities and challenges for mangrove 
restoration141. Elevated temperatures may support the poleward expansion of 
mangroves150, whereas increased magnitude and frequency of storms could result in 770 
widespread damage151. To negate future rises in relative sea level, mangroves must 
build their surface elevation; however, sediment accretion may not match the 
necessary rises, resulting in mangrove submergence152, a factor that will be 
exacerbated where coastal development limits the potential for inland expansion.   
28 
Box 2:  Future directions: taking restoration to scale 775 
Spatial targeting - A next generation of spatial prioritisation is needed to identify areas 
with a high probability of achieving effective restoration implementation and long-term 
sustainability in an ecologically judicious manner. These prioritisation schemes must: 
(1) integrate socio-economic, land tenure, and cultural realities, and consider diverse 
stakeholder perspectives, including via participatory mapping approaches, alongside 780 
more traditional inclusion of biophysical suitability153. (2) Map ‘no-go zones’ at high 
spatial and frequent temporal resolutions, where particular restoration approaches 
must be avoided11 or where restoration is likely to displace significant agricultural 
production and hence lead to leakage. (3) Map ‘go zones’ where restoration would 
have a high probability of successful establishment, low risk of leakage, and promising 785 
potential to enhance local livelihoods, landscape connectivity, and persistence of 
forest-dependent biodiversity4. 
 
Integration across objectives - Governance and funding must integrate mechanisms 
to promote restoration and to reduce deforestation and degradation with system-wide 790 
changes in food systems and resource extraction. Achieving this requires aligning 
international, national, and subnational policies and initiatives to promote healthy 
ecosystems (e.g. REDD+), and integrating across currently-fragmented restoration 
initiatives12. Key questions include: (1) How can diet and food system constraints be 
overcome to best create space for large-scale ecosystem restoration154? (2) How 795 
should multi-scale governance optimise landscape approaches and embed local 
participatory involvement119? (3) Under what conditions do agroecological approaches 
and plantation-derived timber relieve conversion and harvesting pressures on intact 
forests13,48?  
  800 
Improved monitoring – Scientifically guided implementation and adaptive 
management requires accurate, timely monitoring and analyses of restoration 
successes and failures. This includes: (1) Applying performance metrics that 
appropriately measure outcomes to replace poorly conceived output-based metrics, 
such as area or number of saplings planted121. (2) Developing remote-sensing 805 
indicators, combined with crowd-sourced observation, that track carbon and 
biodiversity recovery over temporal and spatial scales. (3) Ground-truthing progress 
against national restoration (e.g., Bonn Challenge) commitments to detect 
29 
misreporting, verify additionality by avoiding double-counting of restoration, and 
ensure ephemeral land-use change or political shortcuts are not reclassified as 810 
restoration13,48.  
  
Innovation - We need to develop and scientifically test innovative restoration methods. 
This includes: (1) Investigating resilient, cost-saving, or ecologically-sound 
practitioner- or indigenous-led approaches47,155. (2) Experimenting with socially-driven 815 
business models, tenure structures, and benefit-sharing mechanisms to identify 
approaches that foster long-term benefits in populated landscapes29. (3) Building an 
open-source evidence-base of empirical restoration case studies, with embedded data 
sharing, that tracks successes and failures in progress towards desired outcomes, 
helping to crystallise specific guidelines for tailored restoration across variable local 820 
and regional contexts135,156. 
  
30 
Box 3:  Restoration and Neocolonialism 
Environmental epistemologies, including restoration, remain rooted in western 
philosophies and knowledge systems157, yet restoration research and implementation 825 
focus on the Global South. Equity outcomes of contemporary restoration will be 
conditioned by historical evolution of property rights and personal freedoms158, 
underpinned by colonial models of exploitation and dispossession. Restoration actors 
must therefore pay particular attention to intended and unintended mechanisms of 
subordination and marginalization. The imposition of Eurocentric worldviews causes 830 
harm to local people holding different knowledge systems (ontologies) and ways of 
being in the world (epistemologies), by rendering them invisible159,160. 
The western notion of property rights and ownership, including well-intended 
policies to position local populations as owners of ‘resources’ can clash with local 
beliefs and value systems. For a majority of forest-dwelling indigenous communities, 835 
land and forests have life in themselves and are not considered objects to be owned 
by people161. Indeed, the whole notion of land titling to secure tenure for individuals 
has proved counterproductive for many environmental initiatives. In Kenya, land titling 
and subdivision in pastoral areas has led to fragmentation of ecosystems as each 
individual fences off their parcel162. This restricts free movement of livestock and 840 
wildlife, undermining the centuries old drought-coping mechanism of migration by 
pastoralists, and causing ecosystem degradation via livestock overgrazing and 
seasonal loss of mega-herbivores. Hence, effective, sustainable, and participatory 
restoration efforts must embrace indigenous ontologies where humans are an intrinsic 
part of the natural world161. 845 
Another pervasive issue in restoration framing is the need for capacity building, 
which can perpetuate the notion that local communities in the Global South lack 
sufficient knowledge and innovations to restore their environment, or that their 
knowledge is inferior157. ‘Participation’ in restoration and conservation initiatives that 
local communities did not conceive, design, and drive can reproduce environmental 850 
injustices, with the same victims of the injustices used as rubber stamps157,163. For 
example, the evaluation of externally conceived REDD+ projects in Tanzania using 
“Eurocentric indicators of success” excluded the voices of those who viewed the 
projects to be negatively impacting their livelihoods, while amplifying the voices of 
those who viewed the projects positively163. 855 
31 
Lastly, because of historically greater contributions to carbon emissions, there 
is strong moral imperative for the Global North to fund restoration in the Global South 
to provide ecosystem services and improve resilience of local communities to climate 
change. Yet such investments may more often reflect a desire to obtain global benefits, 
in particular slowing climate change and saving biodiversity114. These investments can 860 
be perceived as hypocritical or counterintuitive when donor countries or industries fail 
to simultaneously tackle their own emissions, to invest in cost-effective restoration 
opportunities domestically164, or to effectively address their contribution to the 
degradation of tropical ecosystems165. In particular, the Global North continues to drive 
deforestation and degradation by offshoring its agricultural footprint, via importing of 865 
tropical commodities, including timber, palm oil, soybean, and beef165. It is thus critical 
that the Global North invests in tropical restoration that is geared to disseminate 
benefits at the local level and long-term, rather than focusing solely on global-level 
benefits or rapid profit.  
  870 
32 
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