Forwarding forest restoration: Seven key socio-ecological issues for advancing forest restoration in a world in flux

Restoring forests can help conserve biodiversity, mitigate climate change and enhance human well-being. Despite financial and political support for global forest restoration initiatives, projects continue to face persistent challenges and trade-offs between environmental, climatic and socio-economic goals. To better understand existing and future challenges and opportunities, we convened a diverse panel of 25 international experts from academia, science and policy organisations, funding agencies and the private sector. Through a structured expert elicitation process, we collectively identify seven key socio-ecological issues likely to substantially shape forest restoration in low and middle-income countries over the next decade. The identified issues are linked to: (i) adverse environmental impacts of poorly designed forest restoration initiatives; (ii) continued inattention to human well-being and diverse values; (iii) the funding gap for long-term restoration and challenges of private investment; (iv) new power dynamics and elites; (v) the looming technological revolution from Artificial Intelligence and related technologies; (vi) increasing need for adaptation to climate change to be built into restoration practice; and (vii) increasing competition and contestation for land. Our findings reinforce rising concerns that current restoration paradigms, which often favour large-scale carbon-centric interventions, risk undermining environmental and social outcomes. Whether emerging AI technologies and diversified private-sector funding mechanisms can support community-led, bottom-up restoration depends on establishing robust regulatory frameworks, equitable access to technology and capacity building. Raising awareness of these unresolved and emerging issues can help to inform forest restoration practice that is ecologically effective, more equitable and resilient to future change. Success depends on policymakers and practitioners seizing emerging opportunities while critically evaluating current practices to ensure they promote, rather than undermine, these goals. Building decentralised governance structures and diversified funding sources can help sustain and safeguard restoration efforts, particularly against policy volatility from political regime changes. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. Spanish translation: Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.