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CONSERVATION PRIORITIZATION

Restoration where it pays off

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 16–17 (2019)Cite this article

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Economic analysis of a large-scale restoration project in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest finds that spatial prioritization efforts could provide an eightfold increase in conservation cost-effectiveness.

International commitments to restore degraded or deforested land, such as the Bonn Challenge, are driving restoration efforts across the globe1. In the scramble to meet these ambitious spatial targets, we might risk making rash decisions, allocating restoration efforts in an opportunistic manner to places where the area goals are most easily met. At the same time, such goals present a uniquely extensive opportunity to apply methods for systematic conservation planning that have been developed over the past few decades2, and thereby achieve outcomes that are better for conservation and carbon sequestration without compromising local livelihoods. One such endeavour is taking place in the context of the revised Brazilian Native Vegetation Protection Law. Writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Strassburg et al.3 report how spatial prioritization could provide an eightfold increase in cost-effectiveness of conservation in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

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Fig. 1: Atlantic forest restoration.

André Nave, Bioflora Restoration Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Anni Arponen

  2. Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, HELSUS, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Anni Arponen

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  1. Anni Arponen
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Correspondence to Anni Arponen.

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The author declares no competing interests.

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Arponen, A. Restoration where it pays off. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 16–17 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0765-2

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