Forest landscape restoration activities are often misunderstood as involving high upfront costs and low rates of return. To address this gap in knowledge, this report presents a cost-benefit framework for accounting for the ecosystem services and economic impacts of forest landscape restoration activities in a way that allows the results to be structured to inform multiple types of restoration decision-making that can help decision makers understand the trade-offs of different restoration scenarios.

The two responses to climate change - mitigating emissions and adapting to impacts - are often pursued as separate actions. But some ecosystem-based responses, like forest landscape restoration, can serve as both mitigation and adaptation tools. A new report from IUCN examines where and how restoration can serve mitigation and adaptation goals across the world and in key countries.

Drawing on state-of-the art scientific knowledge through analysis of restoration case studies and review of scientific literature, IUFRO scientists developed a framework to demonstrate how forest landscape restoration (FLR) can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. One of the major results of this study was the identification and detailed description of the many different ways in which FLR contributes to both mitigating climate effects and helping ecosystems and society to adapt to adverse effects of a changing climate.

The Government of the UK and Norway have supported the production of an independent report to help inform the decision-making process on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) at the upcoming United Nations climate change negotiations in Doha in December 2012.

"Landscape approaches" seek to provide tools and concepts for allocating and managing land to achieve social, economic, and environmental objectives in areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity goals. Here we synthesize the current consensus on landscape approaches. This is based on published literature and a consensus-building process to define good practice and is validated by a survey of practitioners.

The Restoration Diagnostic is a structured method for determining the status of enabling conditions within a landscape being considered for restoration and for designing the requisite policies, practices, and measures needed for successful restoration. The Diagnostic was developed as part of the Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM) by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The importance of restoration continues to grow, and this book integrates the restoration of forest functions into landscape conservation plans. The global conservation organization WWF has made forest landscape restoration a key topic and priority for its environmental work.  Due to the WWF’s extensive global reach, and together with its many partners and counterparts, it has acquired a significant level of experience on the topic of forest restoration at large scales.

Paul Richards argues that the war in Sierra Leone and other small wars in Africa do not manifest a "new barbarism". What appears as random, anarchic violence is no such thing. The terrifying military methods of Sierra Leone's soldiers may not fit Western models of warfare, but they are rational and effective. The war must be understood partly as "performance", in which techniques of terror compensate for lack of equipment.

Local finance for forest and landscape restoration. Featuring Lucy Garrett, Specialist on financing mechanisms for sustainable food systems and landscape restoration at FAO. Facilitators: Maria Nuutinen (FAO) and Natalia Krasnodebska (LFL) and participants from around the world. Join us for a lively discussion. The Landscape Finance Lab is an initiative of the WWF (the Worldwide Fund for Nature) and made possible through support from EIT Climate-KIC and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

New global forest restoration initiatives present an unparalleled opportunity to reverse the trend of deforestation and forest degradation in the coming years. This effort will require the collaboration of stakeholders at all levels, and most importantly, the participation and support of local people. These ambitious restoration initiatives will also require monitoring systems that allow for scalability and adaptability to a range of local sites.

For generations, people have managed natural resources in such a way that their multiple needs for food, fibre, fodder, fuel, building materials, medicinal products and drinking water were largely fulfilled. Farming, livestock, forestry and fisheries systems have evolved, and been adapted to variable and changing environmental and socio-economic conditions. Not only natural factors, but also population growth or loss, tenure arrangements, labour availability, access to markets and economic growth, as well as cultural traditions and political strategies, have shaped landscapes over time.

Variants of Indigenous forest management reflect distinct historical and political-economic contexts. Indigenous forest management was largely unrecorded in the colonial period and, in the present, can range from industrial to ecosystem-based forest management, autonomous management and rentier practices. Evidence of Indigenous forest management has assumed political importance in those nation-states that require historical evidence of past land use and occupancy as the basis for negotiation of Indigenous-titled lands.