Restoring tropical forests from the bottom up

Background

Written in 2017, this article acknowledges that numerous countries around the world have committed to restoring large areas of forest in the next decade or so. Given these challenging targets, the authors seeks to understand how they can be met given competing land uses. She draws on several case studies to answer this broad question, including ones from Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. 

Conclusions & Takeaways

The author identifies the forest landscape approach, which aims to "simultaneously improve both ecological integrity and human well-being by balancing multiple restoration goals across the landscape", as a effective strategy in achieving large-scale targets. Moreover, she stresses the need for a multi-stakeholder approach that takes into consideration the costs and benefits of all involved in the initiative. The artile concludes, arguing that a bottom-up, multi-stakholder collaborations must become the norm in forest restoration in order to ensure long-term success.