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Rationale and Methods for Conserving Biodiversity in Plantation Forests

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When compared to degraded lands, developed lands, or areas of intensive industrial agriculture, forest plantations can positively contribute to biodiversity conservation. However, when monoculture stands of exotic trees, or native trees not typically found in single-species stands are used for plantations, they have been found to have impoverished flora and fauna compared with natural forest.

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Promoting Biodiversity Co-Benefits in REDD

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This article describes the potential for maximizing biodiversity conservation as a co-benefit of REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation).

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Large-scale Ecological Restoration of Degraded Tropical Forest Lands: The Potential Role of Timber Plantations

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This study offers suggestions for how timber plantations can be designed to yield timber and improve biodiversity on cleared and degraded lands.

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Opportunities and Challenges for Ecological Restoration within REDD+

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This article discusses the possibilities for the inclusion of restoration as part of REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) as well as  benefits for biodiversity and income for communities.

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Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: Contributing to Food Security and Sustainability in a Changing World

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This report identifies challenges in current agricultural production and argues for the incorporation of biodiverse agricultural practices to best realize sustainable development goals.

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Dipterocarp Forest Ecosystems: Towards Sustainable Management

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This book describes the difficult problem of sustainably managing the valuable resources of Dipterocarp forests in Southeast Asia. It highlights the social, economic, and forest management challenges associated with Dipterocarp governance and attempts to reconcile the often disparate roles of forest scientists and local community managers. 

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Assessing Forest Degradation: Towards the Development of Globally Applicable Guidelines

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This FAO report defines forest degradation and provides guidelines for assessing levels of degradation with the purpose of influencing policies and forest management plans towards restoration. The report provides directions on how to measure four markers: 1) growing stock and biomass, 2) biodiversity, 3) production of forest goods, and 4) soil erosion. 

Open access copy available

The Potential for Species Conservation in Tropical Secondary Forests

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The importance of tropical secondary forests for conserving biodiversity increases with the degradation of old-growth forests, yet little is known about the role that these forests play in promoting biodiversity. Geospatial and temporal factors influence the role of secondary forests in species conservation, and this synthesis of case studies evaluates the significance of these factors on regional and landscape scales.

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Restoration of Degraded Tropical Forest Landscapes

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Leaders in Action: Achieving Forest Landscape Restoration Through Online Learning

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Multiple successional pathways in human-modified tropical landscapes: new insights from forest succession, forest fragmentation and landscape ecology research

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With the rise of deforestation, secondary forests and human-modified tropical landscapes (HMTL) have become an important source of ecosystem services yet there is limited knowledge concerning the successional process of these ecosystems. 

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The State of the World’s Forest Genetic Resources

Introduction

Produced by FAO, this document reviews the state of the world forests as of 2020. The authors cite that forest provide valuable goods and services that benefit human well-being, particularly forest genetic resources (FGR). Yet these are threatened by an exponentially increasing human population, overexploitation, and landscape conversion. 

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Biodiversity guidelines for forest landscape restoration opportunities assessments

Introduction

This document acknowledges that there has been a novel global push for landscape restoration but stresses that these practices must support the biodiversity of the ecosystesm being restored. As a companion of the ROAM methodology, the authors provide guidelines to support knowledge and practices concerning the interaction between biodiversity conservation and forest landscape restoration. 

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Restoration of plant species and genetic diversity depends on landscape‐scale dispersal

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The article cites the importance of restoration efforts that leads to resilient, self-sustaining ecosystems in order to combat immense global change. Though biological and species diversity are key to this venture, they are rarely considered a factor. Thus, this review article highlights the connection between seed dispersal and species richness and diversity to landscape restoration. 

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Understanding the value and limitations of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges

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Controlling invasive plant species in ecological restoration: A global review

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Invasive plant species are known to impede the growth and establishment of many native plant species while influencing other ecosystem features such as soil properties, fire regimes, hydrology, and human well-being. This article presents the findings of a literature review of 372 articles to better understand the impact of invasive species and control methods to highlight gaps in overall knowledge of the topic.

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Overcoming biotic homogenization in ecological restoration

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Regional, or gamma, diversity is often lower in restored landscapes compared to reference landscapes due to the selection of few desirable species for planting. Lowered diversity in restored landscapes is leading to overall biotic homogenization which puts ecosystems and humans in a more vulnerable position for adapting to environmental changes.

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Active restoration of secondary and degraded forests in the context of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

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Why bees are critical for achieving sustainable development

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Bees are the most dominant group of pollinators and they may hold a key to achieving the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They have a great potential for promoting agricultural success, providing people with crop pollination services. However bee populations are declining due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Knowing the extent to which bees contribute to SDGs  and identifying their critical roles within SDGs is important for conservation targeting.

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Latitudinal trends in plant-pollinator interactions: Are tropical plants more specialised?

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Taxon diversity often correlates positively or negatively with latitude. Though much is known about species trends, species interaction trends have not been studied as much. Specifically, plant pollinator interactions in the tropics are a lesser known topic that must be explored.

Goals and Methods

The authors conduct a literature review searching for information on the latitude of study sites, pollinator species diversity and abundance, plant species, and interactions.

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