Restoring forest landscapes: Important lessons learnt

Forest restoration at large scales, or landscapes, is an approach that is increasingly relevant to the practice of environmental conservation. However, implementation remains a challenge; poor monitoring and lesson learning lead to similar mistakes being repeated. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the global conservation organization, recently took stock of its 10 years of implementation of forest landscape restoration. A significant body of knowledge has emerged from the work of the WWF and its partners in the different countries, which can be of use to the wider conservation community, but for this to happen, lessons need to be systematically collected and disseminated in a coherent manner to the broader conservation and development communities and, importantly, to policy makers. We use this review of the WWF's experiences and compare and contrast it with other relevant and recent literature to highlight 11 important lessons for future large-scale forest restoration interventions. These lessons are presented using a stepwise approach to the restoration of forested landscapes. We identify the need for long-term commitment and funding, and a concerted and collaborative effort for successful forest landscape restoration. Our review highlights that monitoring impact within landscape-scale forest restoration remains inadequate. We conclude that forest restoration within landscapes is a challenging yet important proposition that has a real but undervalued place in environmental conservation in the twenty-first century.