Beyond hectares: four principles to guide reforestation in the context of tropical forest and landscape restoration

Abstract

New climate change agreements emerging from the 21st Conference of the Parties and ambitious international commitments to implement forest and landscape restoration (FLR) are generating unprecedented political awareness and financial mobilization to restore forests at large scales on deforested or degraded land. Restoration interventions aim to increase functionality and resilience of landscapes, conserve biodiversity, store carbon, and mitigate effects of global climate change. We propose four principles to guide tree planting schemes focused on carbon storage and commercial forestry in the tropics in the context of FLR. These principles support activities and land uses that increase tree cover in human‐modified landscapes, while also achieving positive socioecological outcomes at local scales, in an appropriate contextualization: (1) restoration interventions should enhance and diversify local livelihoods; (2) afforestation should not replace native tropical grasslands or savanna ecosystems; (3) reforestation approaches should promote landscape heterogeneity and biological diversity; and (4) residual carbon stocks should be quantitatively and qualitatively distinguished from newly established carbon stocks. The emerging global restoration movement and its growing international support provide strong momentum for increasing tree and forest cover in mosaic landscapes. The proposed principles help to establish a platform for FLR implementation and monitoring based on a broad set of socioenvironmental benefits including, but not solely restricted, to carbon mitigation and wood production.

Resilience and restoration of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and grassy woodlands

“…C, D). Despite this hope, a great deal of confusion still exists over the activities that constitute ecological restoration (Suding et al ., ), particularly in the context of forest and landscape restoration (Brancalion & Chazdon, ) as applied to tropical savannas and grassland–forest mosaics (Veldman et al ., ). Through this review, we have sought to reduce this confusion by offering clarity about the distinct conservation values and ecological attributes of tropical grasslands that require a set of restoration tools that are distinct from the tools applied for forest restoration.…”

Intensive silviculture enhances biomass accumulation and tree diversity recovery in tropical forest restoration

“…Carbon‐centered restoration is indeed considered to be a risk for biodiversity conservation in many region of the world, notably through the use of exotic species, afforestation of native grasslands, alteration of natural disturbance regimes, and clearing of native vegetation to establish tree plantations (Lindenmayer et al. , Brancalion and Chazdon ). To the best of our knowledge, the effect of carbon‐centered intensive silviculture on the abundance and species diversity of spontaneous regeneration in native tropical plantations remain unexplored.…”

Participatory monitoring to connect local and global priorities for forest restoration

“…). Measuring changes in forest cover exclusively through satellite images is problematic because, for example, the replacement of native forests by commercial tree plantations, the ongoing loss of biodiversity, and distinguishing residual from new carbon stocks are often masked by increased tree cover (Brancalion & Chazdon ). Although recent technological advances, such as LiDAR, may improve the way forest changes are assessed remotely, involving the major local actors responsible for forest change in monitoring will more meaningfully identify the drivers of restoration success and failures and provide paths to adaptive management and improved outcomes.…”