General
Agro-Successional Restoration as a Strategy to Facilitate Tropical Forest RecoveryBackgroundAbandoned agricultural lands have been increasingly around the world, forcing a recent drive to restore and reforest these lands. Yet, in the tropics there is often limited funding to meet the needs of restoration and the activities conflict with the uses of natural resources that contribute to human livelihoods. This paper outlines agro-successional restoration as a solution to these issues. Open access copy available |
Mangrove rehabilitation: a review focusing on ecological and institutional issuesBackgroundThis article addresses the pressures and threats and the impetus for rehabilitation in mangroves around the world. It also examines rehabilitation techniques from the institutional and biophysical planning systems, including an overview of the rehabilitation process. Finally, it includes a discussion on what the authors consider a major issue for rehabilitation: failure and success in different projects and integrated approaches Open access copy available |
Prioritizing sites for ecological restoration based on ecosystem servicesBackgroundOpen access copy available |
When is a forest a forest? Forest concepts and definitions in the era of forest and landscape restorationBackgroundThis article highlights the importance of creating forest definitions--what is meant by forest, what is meant by forest loss, what is meant by forest restoration--in order to create a conceptual, institutional, legal and operational basis for forest policies and interventions. Open access copy available |
The Restoration of Forest Biodiversity and Ecological ValuesBackgroundThroughout Asia there has been significant push to restore degraded lands yet many of these initiatives lack clear objectives. This paper explores the failures that have emerged from this trend, paying close attention to restoration schemes that were politically driven and unsuccessful in yielding the economic and environmental benefits due to the lack of clarity in defining the precise restoration objectives. Available with subscription or purchase |
Vital Landscape Attributes: Missing Tools for Restoration EcologyBackgroundThe authors introduce a series of 16 candidates quantifiable attributes, named “vital landscape attributes” (VLAs), for evaluating the results of ecological restoration or rehabilitation undertaken with a landscape perspectives. VLAs provide quantitative indicators of levels of landscape degradation. VLAs aim to monitor and compare restoration or rehabilitation projects whether or not the project designers fully realized the importance of a landscape perspective. Available with subscription or purchase |
Motivations for the Restoration of EcosystemsBackgroundThe underlying reasons to restore ecosystems are numerous yet they remain understated and unappreciated. Therefore, this article attempts to answer the question of why ecosystems are restored. The authors recognize and explore 5 rationales or motivations for restoration: technocratic, biotic, heuristic, idealistic and pragmatic Available with subscription or purchase |
Edge‐effects Drive Tropical Forest Fragments Towards an Early‐Successional SystemBackgroundThis paper assembles empirical and theoretical evidence to argue that “edge effects” trigger a rapid and inevitable successional process that drives most remaining neotropical forest fragments towards a persistent early-successional system. Open access copy available |
Before Bonn and beyond: the history and future of forest landscape restorationBackgroundThis article presents an overview of the history of restoration at an international scale. It begins with the origins of forestry in 1990s and goes to the landmark decision in 2011 to establish the Bonn Challenge. The authors focus specifically on the emergence of forest landscape restoration and how this concept has evolved over time. Open access copy available |
Forest Landscape Restoration: Progress in the Last Decade and Remaining ChallengesBackgroundDefined in 2000, forest landscape restoration (FLR) has recently been actively promoted as a means to provide both ecolocial and societal benefits. This article aims to reflect on the evolution of FLR since 2000, using a framework of 13 key issues put forth in 2005. It identifies both progress and challenges and provides suggestions for steps forward. Available with subscription or purchase |
