ASSESSING THE EVOLUTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FOREST LANDSCAPE RESTORATION: A REVIEW   by  Juliana Kaufmanis  B.Sc., The University of British Columbia, 2018  A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF  MASTER OF SCIENCE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Forestry)  THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver)  December 2022  © Juliana Kaufmanis, 2022 ii   The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled:  Assessing the evolution and implementation of forest landscape restoration: a review  submitted by Juliana Kaufmanis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Forestry   Examining Committee: Dr. Jeanine Rhemtulla, Associate Professor, Forest and Conservation Sciences, UBC Co-supervisor Dr. Terry Sunderland, Professor, Forest and Conservation Sciences, UBC Co-supervisor  Dr. Hosny El-Lakany, Adjunct Professor, Forest Resources Management, UBC Additional Examiner  Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Dr. Cindy Prescott, Professor, Forest and Conservation Sciences, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii  Abstract The Bonn Challenge is an initiative to restore 350 million hectares of land globally by 2030 guided by a restoration approach called Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). FLR was jointly defined by the WWF and IUCN as a “planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes”. Given the complexity of the social-ecological systems and the multi-year time frame of FLR projects, designing and managing restoration interventions is a challenge. Furthermore, FLR’s definition includes some terms with no agreed-upon definitions. As such, what FLR means in practical terms, and how FLR projects are being implemented in the field, remains unclear. Lesson-learning is thus critical so managers of FLR projects can adapt in response to feedback, and to suit changing needs, priorities, and conditions as they inevitably evolve through time. This is known as adaptive management and is a central tenet of FLR. However, adaptive management relies on an understanding of what FLR means and what it looks like on the ground. Thus, two decades after the introduction of FLR, in this thesis I seek to review the meaning, challenges, and progress of the FLR approach to help guide future projects. I conduct a systematic review of the literature to, first, undertake a comprehensive global assessment of how FLR is evolving in concept, and second, assess the state of its documented implementation in the field. Using qualitative content analysis, I show that although social themes dominated the FLR discourse in the beginning, ecological themes have become dominant in the last 5 years, showing convergence around a common concern over the quality of restored areas. Furthermore, I find limited detailed reporting on FLR implementation in the field and offer recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting. This research contributes to other efforts aimed at improving shared understanding of the evolving meaning of FLR and knowledge of its iv  implementation in the field. This research may help to inform adaptive management to guide current and future projects through the UN Decade on Restoration (2021-2030) the last decade to achieve the Bonn Challenge target.  v  Lay Summary The Bonn Challenge is an initiative to restore 350 million hectares of land globally by 2030 using an approach called Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). FLR is an approach that seeks to simultaneously improve both ecological function and human well-being in damaged forested landscapes. Given the complexity and unpredictability of landscapes and the societies that inhabit them, effective FLR must be able to adapt to changing conditions in pursuit of its goals. This research will contribute to other efforts seeking to increase the success of FLR.  vi  Preface The identification and design of the research program in this thesis was a joint effort between Dr. Jeanine Rhemtulla, Dr. Terry Sunderland, and Juliana Kaufmanis. Juliana Kaufmanis conducted the review and all the analysis with help from research assistant Franco Lopez Campomanes during the screening and coding phases of the review. Juliana Kaufmanis wrote the entire thesis with the editing help of Drs. Jeanine Rhemtulla, Terry Sunderland, and Cindy Prescott.                  vii  Table of Contents  Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary .................................................................................................................................v Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................x List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... xi Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... xii Dedication ................................................................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................1 1.1 The global restoration initiative ...................................................................................... 1 1.2 Forest landscape restoration takes centre stage .............................................................. 4 1.3 Controversies in FLR ...................................................................................................... 5 1.3.1 FLR is so flexible it is becoming ambiguous .......................................................... 5 1.3.2 Quality of forest Areas ............................................................................................ 6 1.3.3 Social concerns ....................................................................................................... 7 1.3.4 A lack of reporting and lesson-learning jeopardizes adaptive management ........... 7 1.4 Attention being paid to addressing FLR’s shortcomings ................................................ 8 1.5 Contribution to adaptive management in FLR ................................................................ 8 Chapter 2: The evolution and implementation of FLR ............................................................10 2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Methods......................................................................................................................... 10 viii  2.2.1 Literature search .................................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Screening & sorting .............................................................................................. 13 2.2.3 Data extraction/coding strategy for conceptual sub-review .................................. 17 2.2.4 Data analysis for my implementation sub-review ................................................ 20 2.2.5 Validity ................................................................................................................. 20 2.3 Results & Discussion .................................................................................................... 21 2.3.1 A common but ambiguous definition ................................................................... 21 2.3.2 Conceptual literature has increased in frequency and diversity ............................ 22 2.3.3 Social themes were most prevalent overall ........................................................... 24 2.3.4 The three most common themes ........................................................................... 25 2.3.5 Ecological concern over quality of implementation grows since 2016 ................ 33 2.3.6 A lack of comprehensive reports on FLR projects ............................................... 34 2.3.7 Monitoring and documenting FLR outcomes must be improved ......................... 37 2.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter 3: Recommendations for Improving Monitoring and Reporting in FLR ...............39 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 39 3.2 Research overview ........................................................................................................ 39 3.3 Discussion & analysis of research findings .................................................................. 40 3.3.1 Challenges persist around monitoring and reporting FLR outcomes ................... 40 3.3.2 Recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting in FLR .................... 40 3.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 4: Conclusion .................................................................................................................47 4.1 Summary of research findings ...................................................................................... 47 ix  4.2 Limitations .................................................................................................................... 47 4.3 Future research directions ............................................................................................. 48 4.4 Significance of my research .......................................................................................... 49 References .....................................................................................................................................51 Appendices ....................................................................................................................................62 Appendix A       Search testing ................................................................................................. 62 Appendix B       List of included literature ............................................................................... 64 B.1 Literature included in the conceptual sub-review ..................................................... 64 B.2 Literature included in the implementation sub-review ............................................. 70 Appendix C       Description of the search process ................................................................... 75 Appendix D       List of gold standard papers ........................................................................... 76  x  List of Tables  Table 1 - Criteria for inclusion at the title and abstract screening phase ...................................... 16 Table 2 - Criteria for inclusion and sorting at the full-text screening phase ................................. 16 Table 3 - Holistic codes and their definitions ............................................................................... 18 Table 4 - Categories used to classify the implementation literature ............................................. 20 Table 5 - Top-level descriptive codes (themes) in the conceptual articles ................................... 29  xi  List of Figures  Figure 1 - Methods schematic showing the two sub-reviews ....................................................... 11 Figure 2 - Prisma flow diagram .................................................................................................... 15 Figure 3 - Number of published articles included per year in the conceptual sub-review ........... 22 Figure 4 - The 33 descriptive codes (themes) organized into four categories .............................. 25 Figure 5 - Frequency of descriptive codes through time .............................................................. 32 Figure 6 - Overview of the 31 included reports on FLR projects worldwide ............................... 36                 xii  Acknowledgements  I wish to offer my gratitude to the faculty, staff, and students at UBC who helped make my experience memorable and challenged me in my academic pursuits. I wish to acknowledge the generous financial support provided to me through the Faculty of Forestry at UBC via the Faculty of Forestry Graduate Award, the Hamish Kimmins Scholarship in Forest Ecosystems, and the Mary and David Macaree Fellowship. I also owe great thanks to my family and friends who, as ever, supported me as a person in pursuit of my degree. I would like to thank Dr. Jeanine Rhemtulla and Dr. Terry Sunderland for being kind, understanding, and encouraging supervisors. I am grateful for the time and support you invested in me. Lastly I want to thank my fellow lab mates, who were always thoughtful. I also want to specifically thank my lab member Marcos Kavlin who began this journey at the same time and was there for me during the few years no one could have predicted. I would also like to thank my parents, who are always there to prop me up when I need some encouragement.   xiii  Dedication   Dedicated to my family, friends, and the kind people who have touched me with their kindness and wisdom along the way.  1 Chapter 1: Introduction  1.1 The global restoration initiative The Bonn Challenge is a global initiative aiming to restore 350 million hectares of land by the year 2030 in order to mitigate some of the planet’s most pressing threats including deforestation, biodiversity loss, and a changing climate (The Bonn Challenge 2022). Officially launched in 2011 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Government of Germany, the Bonn Challenge was later extended at the 2014 UN Climate Summit via the New York Declaration on Forests (IUCN 2022). The mechanism for achieving the Bonn Challenge is through voluntary individual national commitments to restore land. Sub-initiatives on different continents have also been created to support the Bonn Challenge goals. For example, Initiative 20X20 in Latin America pledges to restore 50 million hectares by 2030 and AFR100 in Africa pledges to restore 100 million hectares by 2030 (Initiative 20x20 2022; AFR100 2022). In the last decade, attention and political commitments to the Bonn Challenge have been growing, with a total of 210 million hectares pledged towards the goal to date (The Bonn Challenge 2022). Pledges can vary in magnitude such as Argentina which pledged to restore 1 million hectares, and Mongolia which pledged to restore 1 billion trees (The Bonn Challenge 2022; The Diplomat 2022). Furthermore, the United Nations (UN) has proclaimed the years 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration—a declaration which has further pushed the Bonn Challenge and efforts to reverse ecosystem degradation to the forefront of global consciousness (United Nations General Assembly 2019).     2 The Bonn Challenge—and the restoration of ecosystems more broadly—has taken a central role in international discussions around climate change mitigation due to restoration’s potential to sequester carbon (IUCN 2017). Restoration is an integral part of the suite of ‘natural climate solutions’ (which falls under the umbrella of ‘nature-based solutions’) identified as key to keeping the planet below 2 degrees C of warming as set out in the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 (Griscom et al. 2017; Seddon et al. 2020; UNFCCC 2015). Griscom et al. (2017) provides quantitative estimates on the climate mitigation potential of different nature-based solutions, which show that reforestation offers the greatest potential. Furthermore, the estimates show that forest restoration offers over two-thirds of the mitigation options deemed most cost-effective. Laestadius et al. (2011) mapped opportunities for FLR and argued that there were more than 2 billion hectares worldwide which offer restoration opportunities. Similarly, Bastin et al. (2019) produced a global tree restoration potential map to show there is room for 0.9 billion hectares of additional canopy cover in areas that could naturally support woodland or forest. By Bastin et al.’s (2019) calculations, these 0.9 billion additional hectares could store 205.6 gigatonnes of carbon—a major contribution to global emission reduction commitments. While Bastin et al.’s findings were controversial and received criticism (Freidlingstein et al. 2019; Lewis et al. 2019a; Skidmore et al. 2019; Veldman et al. 2019), their research further illustrates the attention being paid to tree planting and restoration as a key solution to the climate crisis.   Beyond climate change mitigation, restoration under the Bonn Challenge has been heralded as a key contributor to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (International Institute for Sustainable Development 2022). Restoration can contribute to many SDGs, perhaps most notably SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 15 (Life on Land), SDG 6 (Clean Water and  3 Sanitation), SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 1 (No Poverty). However, though restoration has sometimes been shown to improve human well-being and the health of our ecosystems (Erbaugh & Oldekop 2018), many restoration projects have failed to achieve desired outcomes (Dudley et al. 2005; Djenontin et al. 2018). In practice, it can be a challenge to achieve these win-win outcomes for many reasons including diverse stakeholders having competing priorities (Stanturf et al. 2020). Another challenge is that sometimes livelihood improvement within a landscape may come at a cost to ecological priorities like biodiversity conservation.   A restoration initiative of the scale and complexity of the Bonn Challenge is unprecedented, and requires continual re-appraisals to inform adaptive management, which is integral to the success of a restoration project (Wells et al. 2020; Schultz et al. 2015). Given the complexity and unpredictability of social-ecological systems, restoration under the Bonn Challenge must be able to adapt to changing conditions and learn lessons along the way in order to course-correct where needed. Adaptive management, however, relies on accurate information on how restoration is progressing. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge on the implementation and outcomes of these large initiatives on the ground (Chazdon et al. 2020a). Baseline data are often missing, and many restoration projects lack monitoring systems (Djenontin et al. 2020). Beyond the uncertainty around FLR’s practical implementation on the ground, there is also considerable ambiguity on the definition of restoration (Mansourian 2018). As such, it is important to track and understand the evolution of restoration under the Bonn Challenge in concept and in practice. As a contribution to this area of scholarship, my thesis examines restoration under the Bonn Challenge. In particular, I focus on the conceptual evolution and implementation of Forest  4 Landscape Restoration, the Bonn Challenge’s principal restoration approach, over the past two decades.  1.2 Forest landscape restoration takes centre stage  FLR evolved partly in response to the criticism that traditional ecological restoration approaches were overly narrow and did not adequately incorporate the livelihood needs of the local people living in the landscape (Mansourian 2018; Wortley et al 2013). Dubbed a “flexible and creative” restoration approach, FLR is deliberately open-ended to enable it to guide restoration in diverse contexts all over the globe (Rietbergen-McCracken et al. 2007, p. xi). FLR also departs from the notion that restoration must aim to return landscapes to their original state and instead focuses on the resilience of the landscape (Rietbergen-McCracken et al. 2007). Instead of a more prescriptive approach, FLR has opted for guiding principles intended to assist planners and practitioners with best practices (César et al. 2021). Each country or organization which pledges to implement FLR is tasked with creating their own plan for a particular landscape that embodies these principles in their specific context.   In general, FLR principles from different sources and organizations are broadly similar even if they differ in their wording. César et al. (2021) conducted a meta-analysis and identified 12 commonly held principles, such as “landscape scale”, “enhance livelihoods”, “adaptive management”, “economic diversification”, and “landscape heterogeneity and connectivity”, among others. These guiding principles inform FLR processes without prescribing the specific actions that must be taken to accomplish them—providing the flexibility necessary for context-dependent solutions.   5  FLR’s flexibility and adaptability as well as its “double filter” approach—whereby both the livelihoods and the ecological integrity of an area must improve—is one of the reasons for its rise in popularity (Rietbergen-McCracken et al. 2007, p.2). Promising to provide “win-win” outcomes for both people and the environment at the landscape scale, FLR holds a lot of hope to solve the challenges facing our global community.   1.3 Controversies in FLR While FLR aims to improve both ecological integrity and human well-being, early critiques suggest that this may not always be the case in practice. Several important concerns about FLR have been raised in the literature, which I summarize in the following paragraphs.   1.3.1 FLR is so flexible it is becoming ambiguous While flexibility is a necessary component of an approach guiding global restoration across diverse landscapes, too much ambiguity is problematic. Neither of the two pillars of FLR—ecological integrity and human well-being— have broadly accepted definitions (Rohwer & Maris 2021). Though these words are likely left up to interpretation so that FLR doesn’t become too prescriptive, this lack of clarity may lead to other risks that impede progress (Chazdon and Laestadius 2016).   One risk is that practitioners may interpret the vague definition to suit their own objectives. FLR can also be interpreted in different ways depending on the discipline of study (Mansourian 2018). This range of interpretations has led to a diversity of means of implementation, and  6 eventual outcomes, around the world (Ota et al. 2020). While variations in what FLR looks like on the ground are to be expected (e.g., different interventions will be needed in the tundra than in the tropics), too much flexibility comes with the risk that FLR as an approach will be diluted and stray from its original intent (Chazdon et al. 2020a). Arguably the main concern is that implementation on the ground does not embody the ideals of FLR, or even worse, that it may cause harm to either local people or to the environment.   1.3.2 Quality of forest areas Another critique of FLR is that it is not sufficiently concerned with the quality of the forest (or restored) areas. For example, almost half of the area pledged under the Bonn Challenge is set for commercial tree plantations (Lewis et al. 2019b), including monocultures, which provide only a fraction of the benefits that diverse ecosystems provide (De La Cruz and Galicia 2017). Furthermore, achieving the FLR targets set by the Bonn Challenge may promote afforestation of grassland, rangeland, and savanna ecosystems to the detriment of both local people and these important non-forest ecosystems (Vetter 2020). Along the same lines, some argue FLR is not ecologically robust enough and does not include sufficient biodiversity safeguards (Wilson & Cagalanan 2016; Temperton et al. 2019). Lastly, FLR does not differentiate between existing forest and new forest (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017). This could mean that clearing old growth forest and replacing it with a monoculture plantation would ‘count’ as restoration under FLR without sufficient safeguards in place.   7 1.3.3 Social concerns Although improving human well-being is central in FLR’s definition, this may not always transfer into practice. For example, though stakeholder participation is touted as central to FLR, it is sometimes still lacking in FLR projects (Djenontin et al. 2020; de Urzedo et al. 2020; Höhl et al. 2020). Mansourian et al. (2017) notes that many restoration projects still appear top-down in their approach, with many restoration practitioners unaware of the techniques for local stakeholder engagement. Additionally, power imbalances between stakeholders have sometimes compromised the delivery of benefits to local groups, who generally depend the most on the forest for their livelihoods (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017; McLain et al. 2021).  1.3.4 A lack of reporting and lesson-learning jeopardizes adaptive management Adaptive management is essential for effective FLR as it provides the infrastructure for lesson-learning (Wells et al. 2020). Lesson learning in FLR is so essential that Mansourian and Vallauri (2020) dubbed it “as important if not more so than the outcome”. It is crucial to gather honest information on implemented projects to see if they are embodying the desired ideals, to hold implementing institutions accountable, and to course-correct when needed so FLR projects can be as effective as possible in the future.   Despite the importance of monitoring and assessing FLR projects (Höhl et al. 2020; Chazdon et al. 2020), rigorous monitoring and reporting protocols are not always articulated in FLR plans, nor are they always carried out (Mansourian & Vallauri 2014). Implementers and practitioners may not have the capacity nor resources to monitor in sufficient detail (Dudley et al. 2018). In other cases, a lack of monitoring and documenting outcomes may be a question of priorities.  8 Moreover, even when conducted, implementing agencies may be afraid to report negative outcomes lest it affects future funding, which can lead to over-reporting of positive outcomes (Catalano et al. 2019). Insufficient monitoring and reporting of FLR not only makes it harder to know what is happening on the ground, but it also means that practitioners, scientists, and other implementers cannot learn valuable lessons from prior initiatives (Stanturf et al. 2019).  1.4 Attention being paid to addressing FLR’s shortcomings More attention than ever before is being paid to Forest Landscape Restoration and addressing its shortcomings to increase the likelihood that it achieves its objectives. For example, at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, conserving and restoring forests was at the forefront of discussions on climate change mitigation (UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 2022). Notably, there was an emphasis on paying attention to the quality of forests and a focus on avoided deforestation in tandem with restoration, something that had previously been articulated as a concern in FLR planning (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017). The COP26 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use has the endorsement of 145 countries which covers 90% of earth’s forested area, demonstrating the immense political attention directed at forests and restoration on the global stage (UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 2022).   1.5 Contribution of this review to adaptive management in FLR Two decades after the introduction of FLR, in this thesis I seek to review the challenges and progress of the FLR approach to help guide future projects. Taking stock of the FLR discourse, my research will provide a comprehensive understanding of how the FLR approach has evolved, the challenges it faces, and opportunities that remain. Thus, in my research I conduct a  9 systematic review to, first, undertake a comprehensive global assessment of how FLR is evolving in concept, and second, assess the state of its documented implementation in the field. Understanding the current state of FLR can help to inform adaptive management and help to improve the success of FLR and the greater goals set out in the Bonn Challenge.    My research builds on the work of other recent reviews. For example, Wiegant et al. (2022) conducted a systematic review to understand how scale-sensitive governance has been implemented in FLR projects. César et al. (2021) examined FLR principles and their variations among practitioners and researchers in the literature. My systematic review adds to this body of work and offers a very broad thematic overview of the evolution of the FLR conceptual literature. In the first part of Chapter 2, I document all themes relevant to FLR in the discourse to a high level of detail and how they have evolved through time. In the second half of Chapter 2, I survey all available project reports found online. In particular, I examine both the scientific and grey literature to find reports on outcomes of implemented FLR projects to describe the state of knowledge on implemented FLR projects. In Chapter 3, I provide recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting in FLR projects.   Outcomes of this research are: • A figure showing themes in the FLR discourse and how they have changed through time  • An analysis of the broader patterns observed in the FLR discourse over last 20 years • An overview of implemented project reports describing the state of knowledge on implemented projects in the literature • Recommendations to improve reporting of FLR projects in the future   10 Chapter 2: The evolution and implementation of FLR  2.1  Introduction In this chapter, I undertook a review to understand how FLR is evolving in concept, and second, assess the state of its documented implementation in the field. My systematic review on Forest Landscape Restoration is guided by the following sub-questions:  1. What are the themes related to FLR in the English, peer-reviewed literature and how have they shifted since the term was coined in 2001?  2. What is the state of knowledge on implemented FLR projects as described in the English language materials online?  I conducted a literature search to identify all published articles on FLR, including scientific articles and implementation reports. I then addressed my study objectives by performing two separate sub-reviews (Figure 1) corresponding to each of my guiding questions. In the first sub-review (the conceptual sub-review) I analyze the conceptual FLR discourse. In the second sub-review (the implementation sub-review), I assess the state of implemented project reports on FLR and show that there is a lack of comprehensive and detailed reports of FLR outcomes. I end this chapter with a discussion on monitoring and reporting and why improving it is essential for FLR.  2.2 Methods In the conceptual sub-review, I screened the scientific literature for articles about FLR to assess dominant topics and themes and analyzed them to examine the evolution of the FLR discourse and approach over the last 20 years. In the implementation sub-review, I screened the academic  11 literature for implemented FLR project reports. After finding very few, I also conducted a grey-literature search for additional reports on implemented projects (Figure 1). I then read all implementation reports to assess how FLR is being implemented in the field.    Figure 1 - Methods schematic showing the two sub-reviews.  2.2.1 Literature search The search strategy was designed to capture all English-language articles in the scientific literature on FLR both conceptually as well as its implementation in the field. I used one search string and divided the articles into the two sub-reviews during the screening stage because it was most efficient. The following search terms were used: (“forest landscape restor*”) OR (“forest and landscape restor*), as both of those are used interchangeably to refer to FLR. Several other search terms were tested for relevance but ultimately not included (Appendix A). Although other restoration projects may embody the ideals of FLR, I only considered papers that used the specific terminology. In the end, 58 articles were included in the conceptual sub-review, and 31 reports were included in the implementation sub-review (Appendix B).   12  Academic database searching On January 4th, 2021, I searched the following academic databases: Web of Science core collection, CAB Direct, Agriculture and Environmental Science Database (AESD), and the United States Forest Service Treesearch database (see Appendix C for full search strings formatted for each database). To test the comprehensiveness of my search, I created a list of “gold-standard” papers; all were captured in the search (Appendix D). In accordance with the methods described by the Center for Reviews and Dissemination’s guidance for systematic reviews (2009), the database search process is described in detail in Appendix C. The references of the articles that were ultimately included at the full text stage were also screened for any additional articles or implementation reports. All articles were searched and screened by 2 researchers: myself and research assistant Franco Lopez Campomanes. Any disagreements in the screening process were revisited by both researchers to reach consensus.  Web-based search engines The search was also conducted in both Google and Google Scholar to retrieve the first 100 articles, which were then screened for articles not previously captured by the academic search.  Grey Literature Searches Due to the lack of articles on implemented projects in the academic databases, I expanded only the implementation sub-review to include grey literature sources. I targeted organizational websites to find additional reports specifically on implemented projects. I searched a dozen websites of organizations well-known for conducting applied conservation and restoration  13 projects: the IUCN, World Resources Institute (WRI), the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the International Union of Forest Resource Organizations (IUFRO), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the World Conservation Society (WCS), the Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration (GPFLR), and the Endangered Landscapes Programme (ELP) of the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. I searched each website directly or used the “site:” command through Google advanced searching if the website did not have a centralized publications portal. If I used Google advanced searching, each keyword was searched individually to return results as combining them with Boolean operators is not possible in Google.   2.2.2 Screening & sorting Screening articles followed the PRISMA guidelines (Figure 2) (Moher et al. 2009) using the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the respective phase outlined in Table 1 and Table 2. All inclusion criteria had to be satisfied to warrant inclusion of the document (unless otherwise specified), whereas only one exclusion criteria would warrant exclusion of the document. Articles were screened in two stages: first by title and abstract (Table 1), and then by full text (Table 2).   All articles were screened at the title and abstract stage in Covidence software (Veritas Health Innovation 2021). At the full-text stage, literature was imported into Papers citation management software (Digital Science Research & Solutions Inc. 2021). The entire text was read, and ineligible articles excluded. Also at this stage, the articles were sorted into either the conceptual  14 sub-review or the implementation sub-review based on distinguishing criteria. This method permitted me to distinguish between the evolution of the approach and its implementation in the field.   The conceptual sub-review included academic articles about FLR that contained discourse relevant to FLR in their novel contributions. Novel contributions were defined as articulating ideas about FLR (such as a concern or recommendation) in the article’s results or discussion sections, if the article followed the standard scientific methodology. If the article was conceptual or editorial and did not conform to those standard headings, all of it was considered for novel contributions. This was done to try not to capture articles that only cited existing articles in their introductions, for example, but made no new additions to the FLR discourse.   Implementation papers had to have a primary focus on a particular project; merely citing a project as an example to prove a point in a more theoretical article was not sufficient to be counted as an implementation report. Although some academic articles with a moderate amount of detail on an implemented project (e.g., a case study) fell in a grey zone between the two sub-reviews, it was most often very clear which choice was most appropriate. In the implementation sub-review, literature was included if it was a report (academic or grey literature) on the actual implementation of FLR in a given landscape.   The grey literature screening process was less systematized (for instance, not all publications had abstracts) but equivalent as much as possible to the full-text screening stage criteria for the  15 implementation sub-review. If an implementation article/report/document was about an FLR project that happened, it was included.      Figure 2 – Prisma flow diagram showing the search process, adapted from Moher et al. (2009).      16 Table 1 – Criteria for inclusion and exclusion used for screening article titles and abstracts.   Inclusion Criteria Exclusion Criteria Title Title includes FLR Title that is not on the topic of restoring land, ecosystems, landscapes, forests Title suggests article is on the topic of restoring land, ecosystems, landscapes, forests Abstract FLR is central Articles which are about another type of restoration, not about FLR Document is about FLR conceptually Articles which mention FLR but only tangentially (i.e., mention it at the very end as an implication of the research on something else) Document is a report/case study on an FLR project or plan FLR is not central. Article mentions FLR but centers on technical knowledge and clearly does not involve conceptual information nor an implemented project (e.g. a specific GIS prioritization model for FLR)  Table 2 – Criteria used for the full-text screening phase to determine inclusion and for sorting into conceptual and implementation articles1.  Inclusion Criteria Exclusion Criteria  Conceptual articles Implementation articles  Full-text review Acceptable format: Peer-reviewed journal article Acceptable format: Peer-reviewed or grey literature report Non-acceptable format Article centrally focusses on FLR, but it is not an implementation report (as in pile 2)** Document is on the implementation of FLR FLR found not to be the focus of the document, whether conceptually or its implementation.  Discourse on FLR is in article’s novel contributions  Article does not contain discourse on FLR in its novel contributions*   FLR is not defined and it is unclear what the authors mean by FLR   Implementation report is of insufficient detail to be considered**  1 An asterisk (*) denotes exclusion criteria unique to the conceptual sub-review, while two asterisks (**) denotes exclusion criteria unique to the implementation sub-review. The other exclusion criteria not marked apply to articles in both sub-reviews.  17  2.2.3 Data extraction/coding strategy for conceptual sub-review I analyzed the text of the conceptual literature using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), as described by Hsieh & Shannon (2005). QCA is a research method to analyze and provide an understanding of textual data “through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon 2005). I chose a type of QCA called Conventional Content Analysis because all my codes were derived from the text itself (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). This avoids imposing any pre-conceived ideas onto the text.   Within QCA, there are different coding strategies possible which can be chosen to suit the specific needs of the research. I chose to use an Eclectic Coding approach (Saldaña 2016, Ch. 4). Eclectic coding employs “a purposeful and compatible combination of two or more first cycle coding methods with the understanding that the analytic memo writing and second cycles of re-coding will synthesize the variety and number of codes into a more unified scheme” (p. 293). For my eclectic coding approach, I employed three coding types: attribute coding, holistic coding, and descriptive coding. All coding was done in NVIVO qualitative data analysis software (QSR International 2020). As in the screening process, coding in all phases was undertaken by two reviewers separately, and then reviewed by the other.   Attribute coding Attribute coding is assigning metadata to each article. I chose to code for year published and country/region of focus in the article. I attribute coded all included articles by year published as this allowed me to assess the evolution of the discourse through time.   18  Holistic coding Three holistic codes were used to organize the discourse on FLR: characteristics, concerns/challenges, and recommendations (see Table 3 for full definitions). Holistic coding can be described as classifying vignettes of text data (of any length) which are relevant to the research and is often done in preparation for more detailed coding of the data (Saldaña 2016, p.189). In my case, holistic codes were used to find the portions of articles which were speaking directly about FLR, in order to isolate that from non-relevant material. These holistic codes were first chosen by test-coding a subset of articles. However, throughout the coding process I remained open to including additional holistic codes, but no new ones were ultimately added.   Table 3 - Holistic codes and their definitions. Code Type Code Name Definition Holistic Characteristic Any text that answers the question “What is FLR?”, any definitions of FLR.  Concern/challenge Any text which articulates a concern as it relates to FLR, or a challenge to FLR’s implementation Recommendation Anything articulated by the author as key to improving the outcomes of FLR and/or mitigating the negative outcomes. Principles for good FLR were coded here, as well as any other guiding statements. Words such as “should” or “are needed” are examples of statements indicating a recommendation code might be appropriate.     19 Descriptive coding All text coded with a holistic code was then re-coded for content using descriptive coding to provide a succinct content summary of the text (Saldaña 2016). All descriptive codes emerged from the text itself. This descriptive coding phase produced 985 different lower-level codes which were later consolidated into 33 top-level descriptive codes in multiple phases of regrouping (Table 5). These top-level descriptive codes characterize the themes in the conceptual literature. In a final stage, I categorized each descriptive code into one of 4 overview categories (Figure 3) as a more intuitive way to visualize the discourse. In this thesis from here forward, the use of the term “descriptive code” and “theme” carry the same meaning. I will refer to them as “themes” when describing them qualitatively in the discussion, but as “codes” when describing certain quantitative measures about them (e.g. number of times it was mentioned) or describing my coding methodology.  In the end, each piece of data had both a holistic code and a descriptive code assigned to it. This permitted me to look at the intersection (via matrix query in NVIVO) of both of those code types. For instance, it was possible to query all the concerns (holistic code) that have to do with natural regeneration (descriptive code/theme). This was purposefully done to examine in what context the descriptive codes were mentioned for a more nuanced analysis and to answer my first research question.   Heatmap showing the evolution of the FLR discourse To illustrate the evolution of the concept through time (Figure 4), the data were queried via matrix query in NVIVO to view all descriptive codes and how many times they were mentioned  20 per year. The resulting matrix was exported as a .csv and then imported into RStudio software for statistical analysis (2020). The heatmap plot was created using the package ggplot2.   2.2.4 Data analysis for my implementation sub-review There was a great variety in the level of detail and style of reporting on implemented projects. Reports varied from just a few summary pages to up to 220 pages. Furthermore, reports varied in the metrics reported and the writing style, which made comparison across case studies challenging. Due to the length of some reports and the scope of this research, I opted to examine and group the implementation reports into informative categories (Table 4), instead of coding the implementation reports like the conceptual articles. These categories illustrate the state of knowledge on implemented FLR projects in the literature.   Table 4 - Categories used to classify the implementation literature. Category name Description Detailed & comprehensive Reports in this category had a relatively high level of detail on a wide range of aspects of an FLR project. Study site maps and interventions were outlined, as well as at least some outcomes reported.  Focussed on singular aspect of project Reports in this category had a high level of detail on one particular aspect of a project (e.g. governance), but detail was low or missing on the rest of the project. Low Detail Reports in this category had very little detail. It would be difficult to know much about what happened on the ground from reading them. Infographics or very short documents outlining some notes about a project were in this category.    2.2.5 Validity To mitigate threats to validity in the review process, several strategies were employed. In addition to having two researchers independently screen and code all included articles, articles  21 were read and re-read multiple times in the coding phase to bolster a deep understanding of the content. Similarly, a coding audit trail was created to increase transparency and provide evidence of the thoroughness of the methods (available on request).   2.3 Results & discussion First, I discuss the themes in the FLR conceptual discourse and how they have evolved through time. Second, I assess the state of implemented project reports on FLR and show that there is a lack of comprehensive and detailed reports of FLR outcomes. I end with a discussion on monitoring and reporting and why improving it is essential for FLR.   2.3.1 A common but ambiguous definition FLR was most commonly defined as a process to improve “ecological integrity” and “human well-being” via restoration. The majority of papers either quoted or defined FLR very similarly to the original definition from the workshop in Segovia, Spain (Rietbergen-McCkracken et al. 2007). Though nearly all articles mentioned the two key elements of ecological integrity and social well-being in their definitions of FLR, these terms lack precise definitions and assessment criteria and thus can create considerable ambiguity (Rohwer & Marris 2021). These findings support the assertions of Mansourian (2018) who identified that the ambiguity of the FLR definition has led to different interpretations of FLR depending on the discipline of study. Despite the differences in interpretations reported by Mansourian (2018), my research shows that nearly all articles were using very similar definitions, which underscores that the definition itself may be allowing for that diversity of interpretation.    22 2.3.2 Conceptual literature has increased in frequency and diversity Though FLR was first coined in 2000, the first reference to FLR coded in this research was published in 2004. Between 2004 and 2010, I found only two articles published. The number of published articles on FLR has increased exponentially over the last twenty years, and especially since 2015 (Figure 3). Given that the Bonn Challenge raised FLR’s profile on the global stage in 2011, the increase in publishing may in part be attributed to this.   Figure 3 - Number of published articles included per year in the conceptual sub-review. 2021 is not shown as the search was performed in January 2021 and thus the data for that year are not fully represented.  Early articles published before 2010 (n=2) focused primarily on stakeholder participation, which may reflect the evolution of FLR as a response in part to the lack of local participation in ecological restoration approaches (Mansourian 2018; Wortley et al 2013). The articles included examples advocating for the inclusion of all stakeholders in order to ensure social viability of a project. Other themes mentioned more than once in these first two articles were collaboration & communication, ecology & resilience, guidance for FLR, institutional issues and integration, and identity of FLR. From 2010 to 2015, there was a more diverse set of themes mentioned (Figure 5). Biodiversity and genetic diversity, governance, planning FLR, and trade-offs were new  23 themes that entered the discourse in those years. Identity of FLR was the most frequently mentioned theme across all years because that included any definitions of FLR.       After 2015, as the number of papers increased rapidly, the themes became even more diverse and frequent. Ten themes were only mentioned after 2016: carbon accounting; fuelwood; grassland, savanna, and rangeland ecosystems; knowledge systems; natural regeneration; plantations & monocultures; research knowledge gaps; seed & planting materials; technology; and timelines and time. For example, fuelwood was first mentioned in 2021 when Harvey and Guariguata (2021) dedicated an entire paper to arguing how “one issue that seems overlooked is the need to address woodfuel production and use in a FLR context”. Similarly, the issue of carbon accounting was only mentioned in articles published since 2017. Most of the cases of carbon accounting are concerns relating to the way that carbon accounting had been done to date in FLR, or the challenges associated with doing it correctly due to its complexity. Technology is another recent theme (since 2016) that includes almost exclusively recommendations to incorporate new or improved technologies in FLR such as cookstoves or drones (Harvey & Guariguata 2020; Uriarte & Chazdon 2016).   The increase in articles included in this review coincides with the increase in themes mentioned. This proliferation of both papers and diversity of topics reflects the growing popularity of FLR on the world stage alongside the Bonn Challenge and other prominent initiatives, as it has gained a wider audience of both academics and practitioners. It may also be attributed to the time that interventions take to be implemented and see even short-term results, as well as the time required to carry out and publish research.   24  2.3.3 Social themes were most prevalent overall  I found 33 descriptive codes that characterize the themes in the discourse on FLR (Table 4), which I organized into four categories: identity, social, ecological, and administrative (Figure 4). The social category included topics such as local community participation, equity, well-being, and governance. The ecological category included codes covering the ecological integrity component of FLR such as biodiversity, genetic diversity, and resilience. The administrative category included codes relevant to planning, guiding, enabling, incentivizing, and researching FLR. The identity category contained codes related to FLR’s identity such as its definitions, principles, and characteristics. Overall, social codes were the most frequently mentioned in the literature (n = 391 mentions across all articles for all years) while ecological codes had somewhat lower representation (n = 282 total mentions). Some codes in the administrative category (n = 340 mentions) had strong social components such as enabling & incentivizing FLR. Although this code was put into the administrative category as it deals with administering FLR, much of the text in this theme related to social strategies to incentivize FLR participation and thus has a strong social aspect. In general, it was difficult to delineate at times between what should go between the social and administrative categories as they had considerable overlap. This further bolsters the case that overall, the social themes were most prevalent.    25  Figure 4 - The 33 descriptive codes (themes) organized into four categories.   2.3.4 The three most common themes  Three themes emerged as the most frequently discussed in the conceptual literature: Stakeholder participation, governance, and enabling & incentivizing FLR. Stakeholder participation and governance are in the social category. While enabling & incentivizing FLR is classified in the administrative category, it is more social than ecological as it dealt with topics such as how to motivate local people to participate in FLR and financial instruments that could be used on a larger scale to make it economically viable. That all three of the most discussed themes IDENTITY • Identity of FLR • Ambiguity of FLR • Gaps • Scale  26 throughout the conceptual discourse are predominantly social (versus ecological) underscores that social themes were more prevalent overall.   Stakeholder participation Stakeholder participation was mentioned at least once in the highest number of papers (n=37), as well as tied for the highest number of mentions overall (n=97). Several articles expressed concern that insufficient local stakeholder participation was leading to FLR project failure (de Urzedo et al. 2020; Djenontin et al. 2018; Höhl et al. 2020). Other studies emphasized that local stakeholder participation was not a “panacea to solve the frequent failure of top-down schemes” (Djenontin et al. 2018) nor to solve the injustice that can present itself in forest restoration projects (Erbaugh et al. 2020). Reasons that local stakeholder participation was low included: local participation not having institutional groundwork or support (Soutsas et al. 2004), limited space for community participation (Sapkota et al. 2019), somewhat artificial or inadequate engagement workshops or strategies (Schweizer et al. 2019; Newton et al. 2012), and local communities not perceiving tangible benefits from participation (Höhl et al. 2020). The heterogeneity of local community groups and competing priorities was highlighted as a challenge to stakeholder engagement and participation (Chazdon & Laestadius 2016; Cronkleton et al. 2017). Most examples spoke about only one type of stakeholder: local people. This suggests that the concern around participation is not as significant an issue for other stakeholders such as the state or corporate actors.   Frequently, recommendations were quite general and may be difficult to interpret into concrete, practical actions. This is a common thread amongst many of the recommendations across all  27 themes which were often high-level and general. Within stakeholder participation, the most frequent recommendation in the articles was that engaging local stakeholders is essential for successful FLR (e.g. Erbaugh et al. 2020). While this recommendation may be true, in isolation it lacks the concrete actions or steps that can be taken by practitioners and planners to improve local stakeholder participation. Only a few of the recommendations go further to provide concrete steps that can be taken to improve it. For instance, Wilson and Cagalanan (2015) state that “engaging stakeholders early” is critical, while Soutsas et al. (2005) caution that “accusations regarding inappropriate practices in the past should be avoided” and instead bring forward positive examples. Another suggestion is from Newton et al. (2012) who argue that “stakeholder participation needs to be underpinned by a philosophy that emphasizes empowerment, equity, trust, and learning”. Though these examples do offer recommendations for the future, these recommendations are still high-level and may be challenging to interpret in practice. Not all questions have answers which can be translated into concrete actions across diverse contexts. Perhaps an underlying fear that anything too prescriptive may be used in an inappropriate context and cause undue harm belies the generalist recommendations.   Governance Governance was the second most common theme, mentioned in 29 articles. A central concern articulated was that governance and FLR was highly complex, and evidence on FLR governance is limited (Mansourian 2016; Mansourian & Sgard 2019). Mansourian (2016) claims that while there exists literature on forest governance, it cannot be simply applied to FLR as the latter deals with a social-ecological system and increased levels of complexity. The issue of scale in governance was raised, and particularly how landscapes often transcend multiple governance  28 structures which can create the challenges of coordinating between different levels of government, different jurisdictions, diverse stakeholder groups, and sometimes even international bodies (Wiegant et al. 2020; Wilson & Cagalanan 2016). Navigating existing power imbalances and corruption was also highlighted as a challenge (Chazdon et al. 2020b; Djenontin et al. 2018; Ota et al. 2020).   Recommendations for FLR governance included suggesting that FLR governance move towards decentralization and accountability (Djenontin et al. 2018), both formal and informal network collaboration (Guariguata & Evans 2020), and polycentric governance embedded in existing frameworks (Mansourian 2017; Mansourian & Vallauri 2014). Mansourian (2016) stated that governance must be adaptive and seen as a process rather than a steady state. A common thread amongst the recommendations was that of connectivity between different stakeholders and levels of governance, such as Indigenous communities and different levels of government (Mansuy et al. 2020), as well as between different sectors such as forestry and agriculture (McLain et al. 2021). Ota et al. (2020) suggests that FLR governance “must take the shape of overlapping networks of stakeholders that act across ecological, geographical, and political scales, rather than a linear process focused on a single outcome”.  Enabling & incentivizing FLR Mentioned at least once in 27 articles was enabling and incentivizing FLR. Some of the challenges to enabling and incentivizing FLR were: incomplete or absent markets (Brancalion et al. 2017), perceived risks of FLR affecting investment (Lofqvist & Ghazoul 2019), missing incentives altogether (Mansourian et al. 2017a), and supporting agency withdrawal leading to  29 loss of funding and support after a project cycle (Ota et al. 2020; Wainaina et al. 2021; Wiegant et al. 2020). To incentivize FLR, Bernal et al. (2018) argue for improved communication campaigns to educate and raise awareness about the benefits of FLR to critical ecosystem services. Others offer more complex recommendations involving financial instruments, market subsidies, or certification schemes (Brancalion et al. 2017; Lofqvist & Ghazoul 2019). However, Wainaina et al. (2021) cautioned against using cash-based incentives unless they are very well-designed. Others point to intrinsic motivators, cultural incentives, and ties to the landscape to enable FLR (Wainaina et al. 2021; Mansourian et al. 2019). Some of the recommendations have close ties with governance, with articles listing government intervention as the catalyst for incentivizing and enabling FLR (Sapkota et al. 2019).   Table 5 - The top-level descriptive codes (themes) in the conceptual articles  Descriptive Code/Theme  Definition Adaptive management  Text related to adaptive management, adaptive capacity, and capacity building, frequently discussed in the context of building capacity to be able to adaptively manage projects. Biodiversity and genetic diversity Text about biodiversity and genetic diversity in restoration and FLR.  Carbon accounting Text on carbon accounting such as CO2 removal rates and CO2 turnover rates.  Climate change Text on FLR as it relates to climate change. Collaboration & communication Text on collaboration, communication, information dissemination, public understanding, and knowledge-sharing. Ambiguity of FLR & related concepts Text on the ambiguity, vagueness, and interpretations of FLR and related concepts.  Documenting and monitoring FLR Text on monitoring, documenting, and reporting in FLR including indicators, compliance, tools, protocols, and other commentary. Ecology & resilience Text on ecological considerations for FLR and resilience including, for  30 example, ecosystem services and functionality.  Enabling and Incentivizing FLR Text on enabling, incentivizing, or promoting FLR such as subsidies, incentives, market instruments, and political commitment.  Financing FLR  Text related to finance, including topics such as markets, funding, investment, certification, commodification, payments for ecosystem services, and more. Fuelwood Text on fuelwood or the wood fuels sector as it relates to FLR.  Gaps Text about gaps between concept and implementation, science and practice, policy-research, theory and action, and enthusiasm.  Governance Text relating to FLR governance and capacity building such as governance arrangements, frameworks, strategies, capacity, leadership, and policies among others.  Grassland ecosystems Text relating to grassland, savanna, dryland, and rangeland ecosystems in the FLR context.  Guidance for FLR Text on the topic of guidance for FLR such as Principles for FLR, best practices, guiding frameworks, and techniques. Identity of FLR  Text on the identity or characteristics of FLR, including definitions.  Institutional issues & integration Text on institutions and FLR such as institutional integration, cross-disciplinarity, constraints, trust, and more. Knowledge systems Text on knowledge systems used in FLR such as incorporating local and indigenous knowledge and on the topic of integration between knowledge systems.  Lesson learning Text about learning lessons in FLR such as what it is, if reporting lessons learned should be required, and how to communicate them.  Local livelihoods and well-being Text on local livelihoods and well-being in an FLR context. Including but not limited to addressing socioeconomic needs, diversification of local livelihood sources, and local benefits. Natural regeneration Text on natural regeneration in FLR.  Planning FLR Text on the planning of an FLR project.  Plantations & monocultures Text about plantation forestry or monoculture plantations including the associated risks.  Power and equity Text about power and equity in an FLR context such as power imbalances, exacerbating inequality, power dynamics, relative power of different  31 stakeholders, conflicting interests, intergenerational equity, and more.  Research knowledge gaps Any research or knowledge gaps about FLR indicating unknowns or areas for future research according to the author(s).  Scale Text on the (large) scale of FLR.  Seed and planting materials Text on seed and planting materials in an FLR context such as quality of planting materials, diversity of the seed supply chain, barriers to native and local seed production, seed selection in the face of climate change, and more.  Stakeholder participation Text on the topic of stakeholder participation in FLR such as inclusion of stakeholders, involvement, transparency or lack thereof, participatory approaches, and more.  Targets Text on the hectare-based targets in FLR (and the Bonn Challenge).  Technology Text about technology in the context of FLR such as efficient stoves, drones, and landscape visualization tools.  Tenure & rights Text about tenure and rights in FLR projects such as rights to land management, rights to harvesting, rights actualization, and tenure conflicts.  Timelines & time Text on time in the context of FLR such as the varying timescales of FLR, issues with mismatch in timelines between restoration and politics, among others.  Trade-offs Text about trade-offs in FLR.    32 Figure 5 – Heat map showing frequency of descriptive codes (themes) through time. The shade of the cell corresponds to the number of times that each descriptive code was mentioned in published literature that year. Some descriptive category code names have been shortened for clarity.  33 2.3.5 Ecological concern over quality of implementation grows since 2016  Since 2016, a central emerging concern was that hectare-based targets were being prioritized above the quality of implementation and thus the social and ecological benefits (Bloomfield et al. 2019; Mansourian et al. 2017b). While there continued to be attention paid to social themes, several new themes entered the discourse from 2016, the majority of which were ecological such as fuelwood; grassland, savanna, and rangeland ecosystems; natural regeneration; plantations & monocultures; and seed & planting materials. This, coupled with the prominence of themes including biodiversity and genetic diversity, ecology and resilience, and targets all support this assertion that a new wave of ecological concerns has emerged in the discourse since 2016.   Within the theme of plantations and monocultures, a number of articles warned against the risks of industrial monoculture tree plantations for reasons including: negative impacts on downstream hydrology (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017), failure to generate benefits for local people (Chazdon et al. 2020a; Mansourian et al. 2017b), limited biodiversity benefits (Mansuy et al. 2020), vulnerability to pests and pathogens (Uriarte & Chazdon 2016), and adverse impacts on local people (Vetter 2020; Chazdon et al. 2020b). These concerns were partly in response to FLR permitting exotic monoculture tree plantations as ‘forest’ and nearly half of the pledged land in the Bonn Challenge being currently marked for plantations (Vetter 2020; Lewis et al. 2019). Similarly, articles containing the theme of grassland ecosystems outlined the risks associated with afforestation in ecosystems that are naturally non-forested (Vetter 2020; Brancalion & Chazdon 2017). Natural regeneration was posited as a viable and cost-effective option that led to more complex and diverse restoration (Chazdon 2017; Chazdon & Guariguata 2016; Schweizer et al. 2021; Uriarte & Chazdon 2016). Articles discussing the theme biodiversity and  34 genetic diversity articulated the need for safeguarding biodiversity in FLR projects (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017; Temperton et al. 2019). Articles with the theme seed and planting materials emphasized the importance of quality seedlings as well as diverse seed sources to achieve FLR goals (de Urzedo et al. 2020; Gregorio et al. 2017) while warning that there was a lack of capacity to meet seed and planting material demand at the scale required in FLR pledges. Similarly, there was concern that the hectare-based targets themselves were unrealistic at given rates of restoration (Brancalion et al. 2017; Fagan et al. 2020). Finally, a worry that restored areas might not persist in the long term and gains would be reversed was also articulated (Ota et al. 2020). Brancalion and Chazdon (2017) advocated for going “beyond hectares” to prioritize impact over area pledged. All this data converged around the concern over the quality of restored areas (instead of over quantity of hectares).   2.3.6 A lack of comprehensive reports on FLR projects In the implementation sub-review, there were 31 implemented project reports which varied in the level of detail (Figure 6). Only 14 of the 31 were comprehensive reports on implemented FLR projects (Appendix E), which is lower than expected given the global importance of FLR and the magnitude of the 350-million-hectare target. However, this may also reflect the relatively short length of time needed for the launch of a project compared to the time needed to plan, implement, monitor, and then publish a report. Ten reports focussed on a singular aspect of the project and thus lacked the holistic view integral to FLR. For example, Long et al. (2018) looked at an FLR project in China but focused on the transition from state-controlled to polycentric governance. Though very insightful about that specific governance transition, broader lessons about FLR implementation were limited. There were seven reports in the “low detail” category,  35 and they offer few lessons useful for implementers. As Chazdon et al. (2020a) characterized it, “brief case studies and stories are of little use to researchers, practitioners, and implementers looking for local solutions”. Though some reports in the “low detail” category were longer documents, they did not provide much beyond brief case studies and stories about an implemented FLR project.   Although there may be internal organizational reports of FLR implementation, these would not have been captured in this review given that I only searched public information. Furthermore, simply because reports are not written does not mean that there are no examples of good FLR in practice, only that information sharing is impeded. Given the global Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions on fieldwork and travel, a review of existing literature was the next best proxy for the state of implemented projects at the time of this research. In future, building upon this study with more accounts of its implementation in any form would be a beneficial research contribution, as well as considering reports in other languages.     36  Figure 6  Overview of the 31 included reports on FLR projects worldwide. The number corresponds to the number of papers within that category.   At times, the implementing body of an FLR project may be a local institution, a cooperative, or citizens participating of their own free will and initiative. In such cases, the burden of reporting may be heavy (e.g., they are short on time or capacity), and if so, alternatives such as external evaluation could help to overcome these challenges. Given the importance of improved reporting of FLR project outcomes in light of the lack of evidence to date, monitoring and reporting must not be overlooked in future initiatives. Clear indication of who will bear the responsibility for reporting project outcomes as well as how monitoring will be carried out is essential before implementation begins. Best practices are needed when it comes to accountability on the part of implementing institutions, especially those who receive public funding.   37 2.3.7 Monitoring and documenting FLR outcomes must be improved  The lack of comprehensive, detailed reports on FLR implementation highlights the importance of monitoring and reporting. Monitoring and documenting of FLR projects was mentioned in 31 articles in my conceptual sub-review. Chazdon et al. (2020a) notes that well-documented case studies are lacking, which is supported by my implementation sub-review which found only 14 comprehensive FLR project reports. Erbaugh & Oldekop (2018) mention that there is a lack of focus on FLR failures or trade-offs. Another challenge to monitoring and reporting FLR outcomes was that a longer timeframe is needed to judge whether outcomes were achieved, but this requires more time to monitor (Höhl et al. 2020). Despite these challenges, Erbaugh & Oldekop (2018) note that understanding FLR failures is crucial to improving implementation in the field. Similarly, Höhl et al. (2020) note that setbacks can be learning opportunities to draw insights for projects all over the world. Fagan et al. (2020) notes that more clearly defined criteria of what is considered restoration would be helpful for improving reporting. My review of the implementation literature accessible online is an important step in beginning to catalogue the state of knowledge on implemented FLR projects. It is a starting point at which steps can be taken to improve monitoring and reporting moving forward.   2.4 Conclusion The FLR restoration approach has evolved from an idea to a global phenomenon targeting 350 million hectares of the global terrestrial land surface. Along with a proliferation of the literature on FLR has come a diversification of the themes discussed as they relate to the FLR approach itself. Though overall social themes were more prevalent, a wave of ecological discussion around the quality of restored areas has emerged more recently. On the ground accounts of what is  38 happening are needed to address these concerns and improve FLR in the future in order to maximize positive benefits for society and nature. However, on-the-ground reporting accessible to the public has been scarce to date.  With the advent of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, FLR looks to be a prominent force in efforts to reverse land degradation and fight climate change in the years to come. As a result, society—and particularly proponents and implementing institutions—have an obligation to ensure that it is implemented in accordance with its principles and that it is causing no harm. The only way to be sure of this is to have detailed monitoring and reporting of its outcomes. This research provides a detailed assessment of FLR in concept and in practice as seen from the literature after two decades to help inform adaptive management and improve the likelihood of FLR’s success in the years to come.        39 Chapter 3: Recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting in FLR  3.1 Introduction Reporting the outcomes of FLR projects is necessary for assessing if projects are effective, for accountability, and for adaptive management, the latter of which is one of the central principles of FLR (Besseau et al. 2019; Chazdon et al. 2016; Guariguata et al. 2020; Lofqvist & Ghazoul 2019). Reporting can only exist; however, with effective monitoring in place. Monitoring is necessary to know if stated objectives are being achieved (Dudley et al. 2018). Yet 20 years after FLR was coined, only 14 detailed reports of project outcomes were found in the online English literature (Chapter 2). In this chapter, I analyze the academic discourse on monitoring and reporting in concert with the implementation reports to synthesize and provide recommendations for improving it in the future.  3.2 Research overview Building from the systematic literature review on FLR carried out in Chapter 2, I asked: How can we improve FLR project reporting and information sharing? Using the 58 conceptual academic articles and the coded data from my previous review, I followed the same methods of Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) to review, code, and organize data relevant to this research question. I also support my findings with evidence from the implemented project reports found in my implementation sub-review. I end with recommendations rooted in this evidence for improving FLR project reporting moving forward.    40 3.3 Discussion & analysis of research Findings   3.3.1 Challenges persist around monitoring and reporting FLR outcomes  Despite the importance of monitoring and reporting, I found a lack of detailed project reports, which can be attributed to several challenges. Monitoring and reporting can be mired by technical constraints (Chazdon et al. 2017a); suffer from limited resources and capacity (Dudley et al. 2018; Guariguata et al. 2020; Mansourian et al. 2017); struggle to deal with the long time-scale needed to witness restoration and carry out monitoring activities and produce reports (Höhl et al. 2020); and suffer from a bias towards positive stories and outcomes due to external pressures on implementing institutions (Chazdon et al. 2020a), among other challenges. Of all the many different challenges to effective monitoring and reporting that exist, some are more difficult to address than others. For example, issues related to the large scale innate in FLR projects may be difficult to solve completely (Brancalion & Chazdon, 2017). On the other hand, issues related to funding (Höhl et al., 2020) may have a higher likelihood of improvement with concerted action from policy makers. In the face of these many challenges, authors offered diverse suggestions on improvements to consider in monitoring and reporting FLR in the future.   3.3.2 Recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting in FLR The following recommendations for improving monitoring and reporting in FLR come from synthesizing the evidence and recommendations of other authors throughout the review, as well as examples from implemented project reports.   1. Fund monitoring and information dissemination activities adequately. Projects should only be allowed to proceed with robust monitoring protocols and budgets in place.  41 To date, there has not been adequate resources allocated to monitoring FLR project outcomes (Mansourian et al 2017). Short planning and funding cycles of FLR projects also impede monitoring of real, long-term outcomes (Djenontin et al. 2018; Mansourian et al. 2017a, Chazdon et al. 2020a). Funding should include resources to support the collection of baseline data before interventions begin so that change can be monitored most effectively (Djenontin et al. 2020). If possible, funding for monitoring should extend beyond project implementation, and measure years after the project has been implemented. After all, FLR is intended to have impacts that extend many years after initial implementation.   2. Tie funding to mandatory outcome reporting and knowledge-sharing activities.  Detailed monitoring is important on a project-level to inform adaptive management, but it is also important for the global FLR community to extract lessons that can improve project planning elsewhere. Reporting is the essential part of turning monitoring knowledge and sharing it with the world. Institutions funding FLR projects should make funding contingent on a robust monitoring system being in place, carried out, and reported (Chazdon & Guariguata 2016). Reporting FLR project outcomes is a key piece of holding implementing institutions accountable for their achievements—an understandable requirement particularly in cases where said institutions have been given resources (sometimes several million dollars) to carry out these restoration projects (Dudley et al. 2018; Guariguata & Evans 2020). Furthermore, these projects are sometimes funded by the public, at least in part (e.g. Mansourian et al. 2018a).       42 3. Ensure both social and ecological indicators for monitoring are included and clearly defined at the outset and have broad support from the widest possible range of stakeholders Indicators should move from solely a target-based number of trees or hectares to a comprehensive suite of indicators that represent the broad goals of FLR: social and ecological (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017; Mansourian et al. 2017b). Furthermore, indicators (and the interventions they measure) should be chosen so as not to overlook valuable non-forest ecosystems like grassland and savanna (Vetter 2020). There is much yet unknown about how to measure return of ecosystem services and function at the scale required (Mansourian et al. 2017). Assessing ecological progress may be best via measures emphasizing ecological functional diversity, structural diversity, and composition such as species diversity of sites or vertical structural complexity of forests (Djenontin et al. 2018; Erbaugh 2018). Social indicators should similarly be included much more often than they are today (Dudley et al. 2018). Indeed, some implementation reports were lacking any social monitoring indicators at all (Mansourian et al 2018a; Vinceti et al. 2020). There were exceptions; however, including the FLR report on the project in Tanzania’s East Usambara landscape where the income of local villagers was measured and the change in cookstove use to show socio-economic impacts of the project (Mansourian et al. 2018b). Similarly, in the Phewa Lake Watershed in Nepal, focus group discussions with local people showed that their wood availability, food, and forage had increased since landscape restoration (Paudyal et al. 2017). A variety of biotic and abiotic indicators can be used to measure FLR, but progress indicators are very project-specific and will depend on the context (Dudley et al. 2018). Both social and ecological progress  43 indicators should be agreed upon by all stakeholders in the planning phase of an FLR project to ensure buy-in and that needs are being met (Dudley et al. 2018). However, Newton et al. (2012) notes the challenge of getting every stakeholder group to agree in practice. Thus, satisfying the widest possible range of stakeholders should be the goal, with careful attention to equity issues of whose voices are prioritized (Cronkleton et al. 2017; Newton et al. 2012).  4. Encourage honest reporting which may include unsuccessful or unintended outcomes A common theme amongst the evidence was that failure was underreported or not reported at all (Chazdon et al. 2020a; Erbaugh 2018; Höhl et al. 2020; Stanturf et al. 2019). Changing the culture from fear of failure to a focus on the process of planning, implementing, and monitoring FLR can shift the mentality in a direction where learning from mistakes becomes the norm. One way to achieve this may be via funders explicitly acknowledging the possibility of failure and encouraging high risk approaches (where appropriate)—so long as lessons-learned are reported. This may increase the likelihood that implementers would be willing to share “failures”. Additionally, failures when reported could be synthesized and published in a more generic format to avoid ‘shaming’ any one person.   5. Improve knowledge transfer and lesson learning via an open-source online hub  Many authors argued for knowledge transfer and lesson-learning to be improved by creating networks or hubs for that purpose (Guariguata et al. 2020; Van Oosten et al. 2014; Höhl et al. 2020; Mansuy et al. 2020; Stanturf et al. 2019). As shown in Chapter 2,  44 some reports on FLR’s implementation do exist today, such as the case study series undertaken by the WWF (Mansourian et al. 2020). These reports are important, but today they are found on their respective organizational websites and linked on other sites. The Society for Ecological Restoration also has their own central publications portal where restoration case studies can be found. However, it will be important to have one centralized place where any and all FLR reports can be found from any author. There is opportunity here to have an even more accessible, open-source, innovative hub than simply an electronic library of case studies. I see the opportunity to use modern technology to create an open-source hub which would accept contributions of all forms: audio recordings, photos, videos, surveys, and more. Specific calls to participate (e.g., a survey) could be posted as well as voluntary uploads permitted at any time. An open-source hub where contributions could be geo-tagged and uploaded at any moment could address the need to de-centralize monitoring and move to a more bottom-up, collaborative approach (Wiegant et al. 2020) more accepting of diverse knowledge systems (Ota et al. 2020), at a much lower cost. Citizen science apps such as iNaturalist (www.inaturalist.org) have had great success on a similar premise: accessible science aided by a mobile device. Today, the RESTOR platform (Google & Crowther Lab ETH Zurich) provides an example of the use of open-source mapping technology to provide a global database for restoration (though not specific to any type of restoration, e.g. FLR). Anybody can upload restoration plots as well as see biophysical characteristics of sites alongside types of species that may grow there. However, the RESTOR map is largely missing the social dimension save for anecdotal notes under the project description or statistics on population. Given the importance of social themes to FLR, this is something  45 that would need to be improved if it were to more effectively serve FLR and the broader goals of ecological integrity and human well-being. To be sure, academic studies and professional reports will still be needed and will be essential amongst the other more novel information types in the hub. This is a fruitful area for future research and exploration.   6. Distinguish by forest cover type when monitoring hectare-based targets so that old growth and existing forest is distinct from new forest or plantations A common concern articulated was the need to go beyond hectare-based targets (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017; Mansourian et al. 2017b). Focussing on monitoring the ecological and social benefits that restoration provides is more important than the area under tree cover (Mansourian et al. 2017), especially because nearly half the area pledged to the Bonn Challenge is set for commercial tree plantations (Lewis et al. 2019b). However, given that the Bonn Challenge is based upon hectare-based targets today, it may be simplistic to think that it will completely depart from measuring number of hectares. As a result, improving this metric by differentiating existing forest from new forest is an important start to ensure existing forest is not quietly being replaced by new forest or plantations and considered “restoration” (Brancalion & Chazdon 2017). Distinguishing qualitatively by forest cover type (e.g., stand structure, species composition, etc.) also helps improve our ability to accurately calculate the carbon storage impact of different FLR interventions (Temperton et al. 2019).     46 3.4 Conclusion Improving FLR monitoring and reporting is critical for accountability, adaptive management, and to assess if desired goals are being realized. Honest and transparent reporting and sharing the outcomes of FLR projects can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes, help to garner public support, and justify investment in FLR. Reporting of project outcomes is also an important part of ensuring if scientific inquiry is relevant to issues in the field. These recommendations are the result of synthesizing both implemented project reports and academic literature and can contribute to improving monitoring and reporting of FLR outcomes in the future.     47 Chapter 4: Conclusion   4.1 Summary of research findings In this research, I showed that the conceptual discourse on FLR in academia has proliferated, with the number of publications on FLR increasing, as well as the diversity of topics discussed, in the years since 2001. Specifically, I show that social themes related to FLR were the most dominant in the discourse overall. I elaborated on the three most common descriptive codes across all the years: stakeholder participation, governance, and enabling & incentivizing FLR. I then showed that though social themes dominate overall, there has been an increase in ecological themes in the years since 2016 which converge around a common concern over the quality of restored areas. In Chapter 2, I also showed the lack of detailed and comprehensive reports on implemented FLR projects, finding just 14 of them online via a systematic search.   To address the lack of implementation reports, in Chapter 3 I made recommendations to incentivize monitoring and reporting on FLR projects, rooted in the academic literature and implementation reports from my systematic review. Funding monitoring and reporting adequately; tying funding to mandatory knowledge-sharing; ensuring that both social and ecological indicators are included and agreed-upon; encouraging honest reporting; establishing an open-source online hub for lesson-learning; and distinguishing existing forest from new forest in monitoring are all highlighted as keys to improving reporting of FLR project outcomes.  4.2 Limitations The first limitation of my study is that I was only able to conduct the literature search in English, and only included articles and reports that could be freely available for download online. As  48 such, there may have been reports which could have been missed that did not match these criteria. Furthermore, a second limitation is that I assessed the status of FLR’s implementation based solely on written material. This may not provide a complete picture of FLR projects on the ground. Given that most FLR occurs in the tropics in non-English speaking countries with practitioners who do not have access to the literature, there is clearly a barrier to reports being written down and made available online. This also raises questions about how widely academic work is even being read, especially by practitioners outside of academia. Lastly, I only screened projects for this review which were under the name FLR, even if projects called by other names may have satisfied all the principles of FLR. Assessing all restoration project types for whether they qualified as FLR in principle was beyond the scope of this thesis, but would be a valuable addition to this work in future.   Originally, I had planned to do some field work to investigate restoration outcomes on the ground, but this became impossible with the onset of the covid-19 pandemic. Thus, I investigated FLR via the written material instead. Despite missing the on-the-ground perspective that field work could have provided, this review still contributes to shared understanding of what FLR means in concept and in practice to help guide future efforts.  4.3 Future research directions Given that this research relied on written material, it would be beneficial if future research examined FLR outcomes from the field. Field-work-based research would provide a valuable perspective that may be missed with a literature review alone. Although this research sought to compare implemented reports with academic literature, there is still uncertainty around whether  49 the published implementation literature is an accurate reflection of the reality on the ground—as unintended consequences or “failures” go underreported in most cases (Catalano et al. 2019). Field research could solve this by determining in real life whether published project reports are accurate reflections of outcomes in the field. This field research could further inform whether the concept of FLR in the academic literature is relevant to the field—or whether there is a gap between academic concerns and practical concerns (Dubois et al. 2019). Furthermore, research that examines some of the shortcomings identified in this review would be beneficial. For example, investigating reasons for a lack of monitoring of a specific FLR project could provide lessons for future projects.   It would be another valuable contribution if future research continued to map the discourse around FLR and the themes mentioned as this next decade progresses. The heat map showing the themes within the FLR discourse can provide valuable insight and nuance on the concept of FLR for audiences both within and outside academia. By publishing this thesis and sharing it openly, my data can be used by others interested in the adaptive management of FLR. An example of its practical use is that policy-makers may lean on the findings from the implementation sub-review to justify the enactment of policies and protocols to improve monitoring and reporting of FLR.  4.4 Significance of my research  As FLR is one of the suite of solutions identified as key to mitigating the climate crisis—and contributing to many SDGs—we have a collective interest in ensuring its effectiveness through the next decade and beyond. I hope that my research findings will contribute to improved effectiveness of FLR. The conceptual map provides clarity and shared understanding of the FLR  50 approach – something that has been identified as important to mitigate risks to FLR’s effectiveness (Chazdon & Laestadius 2016). It also uncovered the increasing concern over the quality of reforestation and restoration that has emerged in the literature published since 2016—something that deserves our collective attention in planning future FLR projects. The evidence that FLR lacks reports on its implementation in landscapes on the ground draws attention to the dearth of reporting and provides needed empirical evidence to bolster prior statements expressing this concern (Chazdon et al 2020a). Lastly, the recommendations I provide to improve monitoring and reporting in FLR projects (Chapter 3) are important for adaptive management, accountability on the part of implementing institutions, and to know if our goals are being achieved.   A better understanding of the evolution of the FLR approach and its implementation in the field will be helpful to inform adaptive management to guide current and future projects through the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030) –and the last decade to achieve the 350-million-hectare Bonn Challenge target (United Nations, August 18, 2022). Research findings from this thesis can be used by FLR stakeholders to regroup and mitigate risks to FLR, increasing the likelihood that FLR will be an effective restoration strategy into the future. Fundamentally, the FLR objective of restoring ecosystems while providing livelihood benefits is a good one, but in practice it can be hard to achieve those win-win outcomes. This research contributes to understanding the challenges to achieving our desired outcomes to maximize the chances that human well-being and ecological integrity may improve in the years to come.       51 References  AFR100 (2022) AFR100 Home. https://afr100.org/. Accessed September 24, 2022    Bastin JF, Finegold Y, Garcia C, Mollicone D, Rezende M, Routh D, Zohner CM, Crowther TW (2019) The global tree restoration potential. Science 365(6448), 76-79  Bernal B, Murray LT, Pearson TRH (2018) Global carbon dioxide removal rates from forest landscape restoration activities. 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World Development Perspectives 4:11-15  Wortley L, Hero JM, Howes M (2013) Evaluating ecological restoration success: a review of the literature. Restoration Ecology 21(5): 537-543  WWF and IUCN (2000) Minutes of the Forests Reborn Workshop, Segovia (unpublished)   62 Appendices  Appendix A  Search Testing The following table shows my search testing process to decide on which search terms to use carried out in December 2020. The formatting in this table is done in Web of Science (core collection). Ultimately, I chose to use search #2 as my query. It was replicated in the rest of the databases.   Date # String Results  Notes 15-Dec 1 TI =("forest landscape restor*" OR "FLR" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AB =("forest landscape restor*" OR "FLR" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AK = ("forest landscape restor*" OR "FLR" OR "forest and landscape restor*") 1534 Phrase searching for all variants of FLR as seen in the literature based on discussions amongst the review team. 15-Dec 2 TI =("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AB =("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AK = ("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*")  206 (1) but without FLR acronym (as in query #1 we saw that FLR was written out in full in the title or the abstract). The acronym FLR was returning literature on the liver, plasma, and other irrelevant topics that shared the acronym.   Note: All gold standard papers were returned in this query.  15-Dec 3 #1 NOT#2 1328 This query was to see if any of the articles that the FLR acronym was retrieving were relevant. I scanned the first 12 pages (120 articles) to see if any were relevant, and none were. Thus, it appeared that FLR is not a necessary inclusion in the search string.      63 My focus after these initial queries became discovering if there were any search terms that I could add to query #2 that would yield me articles relevant to my study. 15-Dec 4 TI = (forest SAME landscape SAME restoration)  178 This query attempted to make my search less restrictive by removing phrase searching. This query tests to see if FLR was being referred to in various ways by searching for articles where all words in the term just had to appear in the title somewhere, not necessarily in that order or next to eachother. 15-Dec 5 #4 NOT #2 81 This query is to see if any of the articles in (4) are relevant that are not already showing up in (2). Based on my study criteria, these results were not relevant to my review.  16-Dec 6 TI = (Bonn SAME Challenge) OR AB = (Bonn SAME Challenge) 140 This query attempted to find articles that would not have FLR in either the title or abstract but would still be relevant. I thought conceptual papers speaking about global restoration targets or the Bonn Challenge may yield relevant articles.  16-Dec 7 #6 NOT #2 125 This query was to see if any articles in (6) are relevant that are not already captured in (2). I scanned them and none of them are relevant. They are often near to the topic, but FLR is not central enough for it to pass as relevant and be included. The "close" articles are too general and do not provide discourse on FLR in their novel contributions.   16-Dec 8 TI = (forest SAME landscape SAME restoration) OR AB = (forest NEAR/5 landscape NEAR/5 restoration) 375 This query searched for each term near each other in abstract and title to see if I am missing anything relevant that way.  16-Dec 9 #8 NOT #2  201 This query let me see if any articles in (8) were not captured in (2) but were relevant. My scanning of the first 7 pages yielded no relevant results.   64  Appendix B  List of Included Literature B.1 Literature included in the conceptual sub-review  ID Title Authors Year Journal 1 Global carbon dioxide removal rates from forest landscape restoration activities Bernal B, Murray LT, Pearson TRH,  2018 Carbon Balance and Management  2 Strategic insights for capacity development on forest landscape restoration: implications for addressing global commitments Bloomfield G, Meli P, Brancalion PHS, Terris E, Guariguata MR, Garen E 2019 Tropical Conservation Science 3 Beyond hectares: four principles to guide reforestation in the context of tropical forest and landscape restoration Brancalion PHS, Chazdon RL 2017 Restoration Ecology 4 Using markets to leverage investment in forest and landscape restoration in the tropics Brancalion PHS, Lamb D, Ceccon E, Boucher D, Herbohn J, Strassburg B, Edwards DP 2017 Forest Policy and Economics 5 Landscape restoration, natural regeneration, and the forests of the future Chazdon RL 2017 Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 6 A policy-driven knowledge agenda for global forest and landscape restoration Chazdon RL, Brancalion PHS, Lamb D, Laestadius L, Calmon M, Kumar C 2017 Conservation Letters 7 Natural regeneration as a tool for large-scale forest restoration in the tropics: prospects and challenges Chazdon RL, Guariguata MR 2016 Biotropica 8 Co-creating conceptual and working frameworks for implementing forest and landscape restoration based on core principles Chazdon RL, Gutierrez V, Brancalion PHS, Laestadius L, Guariguata MR 2020 Forests 9 Forest and landscape restoration: toward a shared vision and vocabulary Chazdon RL, Laestadius L 2016 American Journal of Botany  65 10 How do property rights reforms provide incentives for forest landscape restoration? comparing evidence from Nepal, China and Ethiopia Cronkleton P, Artati Y, Baral H, Paudyal K, Banjane MR, Liu JL, Tu TY, Putzel L, Birhane E, Kassa H 2017 International Forestry Review 11 Seed networks for upscaling forest landscape restoration: is it possible to expand native plant sources in Brazil? de Urzedo DI, Pina-Rodrigues FCM,  Feltran-Barbieri R, Junqueira RGP, Fisher R 2020 Forests 12 Ultimately, what is forest landscape restoration in practice? Embodiments in Sub-Saharan Africa and implications for future design Djenontin INS, Zulu LC, Etongo D 2020 Environmental Management 13 Revisiting the factors shaping outcomes for forest and landscape restoration in Sub-Saharan Africa: a way forward for policy, practice and research Djenontin INS, Foli S, Zulu LC 2018 Sustainability 14 Measuring progress in status of land under forest landscape restoration using abiotic and biotic indicators Dudley N, Bhagwat SA, Harris J, Maginnis S, Moreno JG, Mueller GM, Oldfield S, Walters G 2018 Restoration Ecology 15 A stepwise approach to increasing ecological complexity in forest landscape restoration Dudley N, Maginnis S 2018 Ecological Restoration 16 Global forest restoration and the importance of prioritizing local communities Erbaugh JT, Pradhan N, Adams J, Oldekop JA, Agrawal A, Brockington D, Pritchard R, Chhatre A 2020 Nature Ecology & Evolution 17 Forest landscape restoration for livelihoods and well-being Erbaugh JT, Oldekop JA 2018 Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 18 How feasible are global forest restoration commitments? Fagan ME, Reid JL, Holland MB, Drew JG Zahawi RA 2020 Conservation Letters 19 Regulating the quality of seedlings for forest restoration: lessons from the National Greening Program in the Philippines Gregorio N, Herbohn J, Harrison S, Pasa A, Ferraren A 2017 Small-Scale Forestry 20 A diagnostic for collaborative monitoring in forest landscape restoration Guariguata MR, Evans K 2020 Restoration Ecology  66 21 Raising the profile of woodfuels in the forest landscape restoration agenda Harvey CA, Guariguata MR 2020 Conservation Science and Practice 22 Forest landscape restoration-what generates failure and success? Höhl M, Ahimbisibwe V, Stanturf JA, Elsasser P, Kleine M, Bolte A 2020 Forests 23 Forest and landscape restoration severely constrained by a lack of attention to the quantity and quality of tree seed: insights from a global survey Jalonen R, Valette M, Boshier D, Duminil J, Thomas E 2018 Conservation Letters 24 Private funding is essential to leverage forest and landscape restoration at global scales Lofqvist S, Ghazoul J 2019 Nature Ecology & Evolution 25 Identifying governance problems and solutions for forest landscape restoration in protected area landscapes Mansourian S, Walters G, Gonzales E 2019 Parks Journal 26 Governance and forest landscape restoration: a framework to support decision-making Mansourian S 2017 Journal for Nature Conservation 27 In the eye of the beholder: reconciling interpretations of forest landscape restoration Mansourian S 2018 Land Degradation & Development 28 Understanding the relationship between governance and forest landscape restoration Mansourian S 2016 Conservation & Society 29 Forest landscape restoration: progress in the last decade and remaining challenges Mansourian S, Dudley N, Vallauri D 2017 Ecological Restoration 30 From addressing symptoms to tackling the illness: reversing forest loss and degradation Mansourian S, Parrotta J 2019 Environmental Science & Policy 31 Putting the pieces together: integration for forest landscape restoration implementation Mansourian S, Parrotta J, Balaji P, Bellwood-Howard I, Bhasme S, Bixler RP, Boedhihartono AK, Carmenta R, Jedd T, de Jong W, Lake FK, Latawiec A, Lippe M, Rai ND, Sayer J, Van 2019 Land Degradation & Development  67 Dexter K, Vira B, Visseren-Hamakers I, Wyborn C, Yang A 32 Diverse interpretations of governance and their relevance to forest landscape restoration Mansourian S, Sgard A 2019 Land Use Policy 33 Forest landscape restoration: increasing the positive impacts of forest restoration or simply the area under tree cover? Mansourian S, Stanturf JA, Derkyi MAA, Engel VL 2017 Restoration Ecology 34 How to learn lessons from field experience in forest landscape restoration: a tentative framework Mansourian S, Vallauri D 2020 Environmental Management 35 Restoring forest landscapes: important lessons learnt Mansourian S, Vallauri D 2014 Environmental Management 36 Scaling up forest landscape restoration in Canada in an era of cumulative effects and climate change Mansuy N, Burton PJ, Stanturf J, Beatty C, Mooney C, Besseau P, Degenhardt D, MacAfee K, Lapointe R 2020 Forest Policy and Economics 37 Toward a tenure-responsive approach to forest landscape restoration: a proposed tenure diagnostic for assessing restoration opportunities McLain R, Reed J, Guariguata MR, Lawry S 2021 Land Use policy 38 Balancing land sharing and sparing approaches to promote forest and landscape restoration in agricultural landscapes: land approaches for forest landscape restoration Meli P, Rey-Benayas JM; Brancalion PHS 2019 Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation 39 Forest landscape restoration in the drylands of Latin America Newton AC, del Castillo RF, Echeverria C, Geneletti D, Gonzalez-Espinosa M, Malizia LR, Premoli AC, Rey Benayas JM, Smith-Ramirez C, Williams-Linera G 2012 Ecology and Society 40 Achieving quality forest and landscape restoration in the tropics Ota L, Chazdon RL, Herbohn J, Gregorio N, Mukul SA, Wilson SJ 2020 Forests 41 Incentives for landscape restoration: lessons from Shinyanga, Tanzania Wainaina P, Minanga PA, Nzyoka J, Duguma L, Temu E, Mand L 2021 Journal of Environmental Management 42 Discourses across scales on forest landscape restoration Reinecke S, Blum M 2018 Sustainability  68 43 Key challenges for governing forest and landscape restoration across different contexts Chazdon RL, Wilson SJ, Brondizio E, Guariguata MR, Herbohn J 2020 Land Use Policy 44 Optimizing synergies on forest landscape restoration between the Rio Conventions and the UN Forum on Forests to deliver good value for implementers Saint-Laurent C 2005 Review of European Community & International Environmental Law 45 Translating global commitments into action for successful forest landscape restoration: lessons from Ing watershed in northern Thailand Sapkota LM, Aektasaeng N, Daisai A, Greijmans M, Gritten D, Jihadah L, Sato M, Wiset K 2019 Land Use Policy 46 Implementing forest landscape restoration in Latin America: stakeholder perceptions on legal frameworks Schweizer D, Meli P, Brancalion PHS, Guariguata MR 2021 Land Use Policy 47 Narratives across scales on barriers and strategies for upscaling forest restoration: A Brazilian case study Schweizer D, van Kuijk M, Meli P, Bernardini L, Ghazoul J 2019 Forests 48 The concept of forest landscape restoration in the Mediterranean basin Soutsas KP, Papageorfiou AC, Tampakis S, Arabatzis G, Kasimiadis D 2004 Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment 49 Implementing forest landscape restoration under the Bonn Challenge: a systematic approach Stanturf JA, Kleine M, Mansourian S, Parrotta J, Madsen P, Kant P, Burns J, Bolte A 2019 Annals of Forest Science 50 Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration Temperton VM, Buchmann N, Buisson E, Durigan G, Kazmierczak L, Perring MP, de Sa Dechoum M, Veldman JW, Overbeck GE 2019 Restoration Ecology 51 Incorporating natural regeneration in forest landscape restoration in tropical regions: synthesis and key research gaps Uriarte M, Chazdon RL 2016 Biotropica  69 52 Is forest landscape restoration socially desirable? A discrete choice experiment applied to the Scandinavian transboundary Fulufjallet National Park Area Valasiuk S, Czajkowski M, Giergiczny M, Zylicz T, Veisten K, Mata IL, Halse AH, Elbakidze M, Angelstam P 2018 Restoration Ecology 53 Forest landscape restoration: who decides? A governance approach to forest landscape restoration van Oosten C 2013 Natureza & Conservacao (Brazilian Journal of Nature Conservation) 54 Governing forest landscape restoration: cases from Indonesia van Oosten C, Gunarso P, Koesoetjahjo I, Wiersum F 2014 Forests 55 With power comes responsibility - a rangelands perspective on forest landscape restoration Vetter S 2020 Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 56 Social as much as environmental: the drivers of tree biomass in smallholder forest landscape restoration programmes Wells GJ, Fisher J, Jindal R, Ryan CM 2020 Environmental Resource Letters 57 Five scale challenges in Ecuadorian forest and landscape restoration governance Wiegant D, Peralvo M, van Oel P, Dewulf A 2020 Land Use Policy 58 Governing restoration: strategies, adaptations and innovations for tomorrow's forest landscapes Wilson SJ, Cagalanan D 2016 World Development Perspectives       70 B.2 Literature included in the Implementation sub-review  ID___ Title Authors  (if available) Organization____ Year______ Type Location_________ Category_________ 1 Bonn Challenge and India  IUCN 2018 Grey India Detailed & comprehensive 2 Change in land use and ecosystem services delivery from community-based forest landscape restoration in the Phewa Lake watershed, Nepal Paudyal K, Baral H, Putzel L, Bhandari S, Keenan RJ   2017 Academic Nepal Detailed & comprehensive 3 Enhancing food security through forest landscape restoration: lessons from Burkina Faso, Brazil, Guatemala, Viet Nam, Ghana, Ethiopia and Philippines Multiple, depends on which section IUCN 2015 Grey multiple countries Low detail 4 How do property rights reforms provide incentives for forest landscape restoration? Comparing evidence from Nepal, China and Ethiopia Cronkleton P, Artati Y, Baral H, Paudyal K, Banjane MR, Liu JL, Tu TY, Putzel L, Birhane E, Kassa H   2017 Academic Nepal, China, Ethiopia Focussed on singular aspect of project 5 Lessons learnt from 12 years restoring the orangutan’s habitat: the Bukit Piton Forest Reserve in the Malaysian state of Sabah Mansourian S, Fung MC, Lobinsiu FP, Vallauri D WWF 2020 Grey Malaysia Detailed & comprehensive 6 Lessons learnt from 13 years of restoration in a moist tropical forest: the Fandriana-Marolambo landscape in Madagascar Mansourian S,  Razafimahatratra A, Vallauri D WWF 2018 Grey Madagascar Detailed & comprehensive 7 Lessons learnt from 15 years of integrated watershed Mansourian S, González Mora ID, Palmas WWF 2020 Grey Mexico Detailed & comprehensive  71 management and forest restoration: the Copalita-Zimatán-Huatulco landscape in Mexico Tenorio MA, Spota Diericx G,Vallauri D 8 Lessons learnt from 17 years of restoration in New Caledonia’s dry tropical forest Mansourian S, Géraux H, Do Khac E, Vallauri D WWF 2018 Grey New Caledonia Detailed & comprehensive 9 Lessons learnt from 20 years of floodplain forest restoration: the Lower Danube Landscape Mansourian S, Doncheva N, Valchev K,Vallauri D WWF 2019 Grey Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova Detailed & comprehensive 10 Lessons learnt from 10 years of restoration of coastal and sub-montane tropical forests: the East Usambara Landscape (Tanzania) Mansourian S, Sumbi P, Bonifasi E, Meshack C, Malugu I, Vallauri D WWF 2019 Grey Tanzania Detailed & comprehensive 11 Shared strengths and limitations of participatory forest management and area exclosure: two major state led landscape rehabilitation mechanisms in Ethiopia Kassa H, Birhane E, Bekele M, Lemenih M, Tadesse W,  Cronkleton P, Putzel L, Baral H   2017 Academic Ethiopia Focussed on singular aspect of project 12 Case study: Dominican Republic. The model forest concept for forest restoration, timber and cocoa production  Oro Verde & Global Nature Fund 2019 Grey Dominican Republic Low detail 13 Restoring forests and landscapes: The key to a sustainable future (case studies in the annex) Besseau P, Graham S, Christophersen T (eds.)  GPFLR 2018 Grey Brazil, Burkina Faso, Nepal, China, USA Low detail  72 14 Forest landscape restoration implementation: lessons learned in selected landscapes in Africa, Asia, and Latin America Stanturf JA, Mansourian S, Darabant A, Kleine M, Kant P, Burns J, Anjulo A, Batkhuu N-O, Ferreira J, Foli E, Guerra A, Miah D, Ranjatson P, Sabogal C   IUFRO 2020 Grey multiple countries Low detail 15 A local initiative to achieve global forest and landscape restoration challenge-lessons learned from a community-based forest restoration project in Biliran Province, Philippines Gregorio N, Herbohn J, Tripoli R, Pasa A   2020 Academic Philippines Detailed & comprehensive 16 Collaboration and conflict-developing forest restoration techniques for Northern Thailand's upper watersheds whilst meeting the needs of science and communities Elliott S, Chairuangsri S, Kuaraksa C, Sangkum S, Sinhaseni K, Shannon D, Nippanon P, Manohan, B   2019 Academic Thailand Detailed & comprehensive 17 Novel governance for forest landscape restoration in Fandriana Marolambo, Madagascar Mansourian S, Razafimahatratra A, Ranjatson P, Rambeloarisao G   2016 Academic Madagascar Focussed on singular aspect of project 18 Engaging communities in forest landscape restoration: experiences from Biliran province, Philippines Pasa A, Gregorio N, Herbohn J, Gravoso R, Goltiano H, Ferarren A, Polinar B, Fernandez J, Tripoli R   2016 Academic Philippines Focussed on singular aspect of project 19 Forest landscape restoration: building assets for people and Barrow E, Timmer D, White S, Maginnis S IUCN, WWF, IFID 2002 Grey East Africa Low detail  73 nature: experience from East Africa 20 Collaborative forest landscape restoration program 5 year report USDA USDA 2015 Grey USA Low detail 21 How improved governance can help achieve the biodiversity conservation goals of the Philippine National Greening Program von Kleist K, Baynes J, Gregorio N, Herbohn J   2019 Academic Philippines Focussed on singular aspect of project 22 Realities of forest landscape restoration: the case of Barobbob Watershed, Philippines Combalicer EA, Perez MR, SangJun I, Combalicer MS, SuJung A   2007 Academic Philippines Low detail 23 Collaborative restoration effects on forest structure in ponderosa pine-dominated forests of Colorado Cannon JB, Barrett KJ, Gannon BM, Addington RN, Battaglia MA, Fornwalt PJ, Aplet GH, Cheng AS, Underhill JL, Briggs JS, Brown PM   2018 Academic USA Focussed on singular aspect of project 24 From State-controlled to Polycentric Governance in Forest Landscape Restoration: The Case of the Ecological Forest Purchase Program in Yong’an Municipality of China Long H, Tu C, Liu J, Fu Y   2018 Academic China Focussed on singular aspect of project 25 Lessons learned from the Water Producer Project in the Atlantic Forest, Brazil Viani RAG, Bracale H, Taffarello D   2019 Academic Brazil Detailed & comprehensive 26 Nadi Bachao Samriddhi Lao - a forest landscape restoration Saigal S, Kumar C, Chaturvedi R   2016 Academic India Focussed on singular aspect of project  74 initiative in Harda district, Madhya Pradesh, India 27 Restoring degraded forest land with native tree species: the experience of "Bosques Amazonicos" in Ucayali, Peru Chavez Rodriguez J, Sabogal C   2019 Academic Peru Detailed & comprehensive 28 Short-term ecological consequences of collaborative restoration treatments in ponderosa pine forests of Colorado Briggs JS, Fornwalt PJ, Feinstein JA   2017 Academic USA Focussed on singular aspect of project 29 Silviculture of the Colorado Front Range Landscape Restoration Initiative Underhill JL, Dickinson Y, Rudney A, Thinnes J   2014 Academic USA Focussed on singular aspect of project 30 How is forest landscape restoration being implemented in Burkina Faso? Overview of ongoing initiatives Vinceti B, Valette M, Bougma AL, Turillazzi A   2020 Academic Burkina Faso Detailed & comprehensive 31 Bonn Challenge barometer of progress report  IUCN 2019 Grey Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, USA Detailed & comprehensive           75 Appendix C  Description of the search process This table describes the search process, adapted from Systematic Reviews: CRD’s guidance for undertaking reviews in health care (2009, p. 249). It also shows the final search strings formatted for each database. No indexes or limits were placed on the search. Note that for the USDA Treesearch database, “forest and landscape restoration” yielded no results and so was omitted from the string.   Name of Database Date the search was run Years covered by search Search String # of results Web of Science (core collection) January 4th, 2021 all available  TI =("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AB =("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*") OR AK = ("forest landscape restor*" OR "forest and landscape restor*") 208 CAB Direct January 4th, 2021 all available  title:("forest landscape restor*") OR title:("forest and landscape restor*") OR ab:("forest landscape restor*") OR ab:("forest and landscape restor*") 231 AESD (ProQuest) January 4th, 2021 all available  ti("forest landscape restor*") OR ti("forest and landscape restor*") OR ab("forest landscape restor*") OR ab("forest and landscape restor*") 326 USDA Treesearch January 4th, 2021 all available  "forest landscape restoration" 30 Google Scholar February 1st, 2021 all available  forest landscape restoration 100 Sum of papers 895 Duplicates 490 Total eligible for screening 405      76  Appendix D  List of gold standard papers Bernal B, Murray LT, Pearson TRH (2018) Global carbon dioxide removal rates from forest landscape restoration activities. Carbon Balance and Management 13(1):1-13 Brancalion PH, Chazdon RL (2017) Beyond hectares: four principles to guide reforestation in the context of tropical forest and landscape restoration. Restoration Ecology 25(4):491-496 Chazdon R, Gutierrez V, Brancalion PHS, Laestadius L, Guariguata MR (2020) Co-Creating conceptual and working frameworks for implementing forest and landscape restoration based on core principles. Forests 11:706 doi:10.3390/f11060706 Jalonen R, Valette M, Boshier D, Duminil J, Evert T (2018) Forest and landscape restoration severely constrained by a lack of attention to the quantity and quality of tree seed: insights from a global survey. Conservation Letters 11(4): e12424 Chazdon RL, Brancalion PHS, Lamb D, Laestadius L, Calmon M, Kumar C (2015) A Policy driven Knowledge Agenda for Global Forest and Landscape Restoration. Conservation Letters 10:125-132 Dudley N, Bhagwat SA, Harris J, Maginnis S, Moreno JG, Mueller GM, ... & Walters G (2018) Measuring progress in status of land under forest landscape restoration using abiotic and biotic indicators. Restoration Ecology 26(1):5-12 Mansourian S, Parrotta J, Balaji P, Bellwood‐Howard I, Bhasme S, Bixler RP, Boedhihartono AK, Carmenta R, Jedd T, de Jong W, Lake FK, Latawiec A, Lippe M, Rai ND, Sayer J, Van Dexter K, Vira B, Visseren‐Hamakers I, Wyborn C, Yang A (2019) Putting the pieces together: integration for forest landscape restoration implementation. Land Degradation & Development 31(4):419-429 Mansourian S. (2018) In the eye of the beholder: Reconciling interpretations of forest landscape restoration. Land Degradation & Development 29:2888–2898 Mansourian S, Dudley N, Vallauri D (2017) Forest landscape restoration: Progress in the last decade and remaining challenges. Ecological Restoration 35(4):281-288  77 Mansourian S, Stanturf JA, Derkyi MAA, Engel VL (2017b) Forest Landscape Restoration: increasing the positive impacts of forest restoration or simply the area under tree cover? Restoration Ecology 25(2):178-183 doi: 10.1111/rec.12489 Mansuy N, Burton PJ, Stanturf J, Beatty C, Mooney C, Besseau P, Degenhardt D, MacAfee K, Lapointe R (2020) Scaling up forest landscape restoration in Canada in an era of cumulative effects and climate change. Forest Policy and Economics 116:102177 Meli P, Rey-Benayas JM, Brancalion PHS (2019) Balancing land sharing and sparing approaches to promote forest and landscape restoration in agricultural landscapes: Land approaches for forest landscape restoration. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation 17:201-205 Newton AC, Del Castillo RF, Echeverría C, Geneletti D, González-Espinosa M, Malizia LR, Premoli AC, Rey Benayas JM, Smith-Ramírez C, Williams-Linera G (2012) Forest landscape restoration in the drylands of Latin America. Ecology and Society 17(1):21 Van Oosten C, Gunarso P, Koesoetjahjo I, Wiersum F (2014) Governing Forest Landscape Restoration: Cases from Indonesia. Forests 5:1143-1162 Ota L, Chazdon RL, Herbohn J, Gregorio N, Mukul SA, Wilson SJ (2020) Achieving quality forest and landscape restoration in the tropics. Forests 11(8):820 Pistorius T, Carodenuto S, Wathum G (2017) implementing forest landscape restoration in Ethiopia. Forests doi:10.3390/f8030061  Reinecke S, Blum M (2018) Discourses across scales on forest landscape restoration. Sustainability 10(613):1-19 doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102177  Stanturf JA, Kleine M, Mansourian S, Parrotta J, Madsen P, Kant P, Burns J, Bolte A (2019) Implementing forest landscape restoration under the Bonn Challenge: a systematic approach. Annals of Forest Science 76(2):1-21 doi.org/10.1007/s13595-019-0833-z   Valasiuk S, Czajkowski M, Giergiczny M, Żylicz T, Veisten K, Mata IL, Halse AH, Elbakidze M, Angelstam P (2018) Is forest landscape restoration socially desirable? A discrete choice experiment applied to the Scandinavian transboundary Fulufjället National Park Area. Restoration Ecology 26(2):370-380