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Upscaling tropical restoration to deliver environmental benefits and socially equitable outcomes.

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Edwards, David P 
Cerullo, Gianluca R 
Chomba, Susan 
Worthington, Thomas A 
Balmford, Andrew P 

Abstract

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration offers immense potential to return hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded tropical landscapes to functioning 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. 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 degradation and poverty, and deliver on its core environmental and social promises.

Description

Keywords

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Conservation of Natural Resources, Ecosystem, Forests

Journal Title

Curr Biol

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0960-9822
1879-0445

Volume Title

31

Publisher

Elsevier BV
Sponsorship
Natural Environment Research Council (NE/W003708/1)