Natural regeneration in the context of large‐scale forest and landscape restoration in the tropics

Large‐scale and long‐term restoration efforts are urgently needed to reverse historical global trends of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics. Restoration of forests within landscapes offers multiple social, economic, and environmental benefits that enhance lives of local people, mitigate effects of climate change, increase food security, and safeguard soil and water resources. Despite rapidly growing knowledge regarding the extent and feasibility of natural regeneration and the environmental and economic benefits of naturally regenerating forests in the tropics, tree planting remains the major focus of restoration programs. Natural regeneration is often ignored as a viable land‐use option. Here, we assemble a set of 16 original papers that provide an overview of the ecological, economic, and social dimensions of forest and landscape restoration (FLR), a relatively new approach to forest restoration that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well‐being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes. The papers describe how spontaneous (passive) and assisted natural regeneration can contribute to achieving multiple social and ecological benefits. Forest and landscape restoration is centered on the people who live and work in the landscape and whose livelihoods will benefit and diversify through restoration activities inside and outside of farms. Given the scale of degraded forestland and the need to mitigate climate change and meet human development needs in the tropics, harnessing the potential of natural regeneration will play an essential role in achieving the ambitious goals that motivate global restoration initiatives.     

Cultural Ecosystem Services and Popular Perceptions of the Benefits of an Ecological Restoration Project in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

It is essential to understand how ecological restoration (ER) improves human well‐being in order to justify more investments and upscaling in this emergent field of action. As part of a 22‐year‐old, 80 ha ER project being carried out around a water reservoir that supplies drinking water to the city of Iracemápolis (population 19,700), in the mega‐diversity Atlantic Forest biome of Brazil, we assessed local community perceptions of the tangible and intangible benefits expected to arise from this project. A detailed questionnaire was completed for 292 members of the local community to gauge perceptions of benefits arising from various cultural and provisioning ecosystem services (ESs; especially safe and clean drinking water) provided by the 80 ha forest restoration project. A striking 94% of those interviewed wanted more ER projects in their community. Participants reported an appreciation for cultural ESs such as esthetic landscape improvement, tourism, recreation, as well as various religious, spiritual, and educational services. In addition, 87% of interviewees believed that the restoration project improved the quality of their drinking water, and 63% said they would agree to an increase in water tariffs if the proceeds were to be invested in more forest restoration. Judging from this study, investigation and subsequent communication of popular perceptions of the various benefits of ER projects could promote consensus‐building and support for projects among stakeholders, and inform governmental and societal investments in restoration .     

Natural regeneration as a tool for large‐scale forest restoration in the tropics: prospects and challenges

A major global effort to enable cost‐effective natural regeneration is needed to achieve ambitious forest and landscape restoration goals. Natural forest regeneration can potentially play a major role in large‐scale landscape restoration in tropical regions. Here, we focus on the conditions that favor natural regeneration within tropical forest landscapes. We illustrate cases where large‐scale natural regeneration followed forest clearing and non‐forest land use, and describe the social and ecological factors that drove these local forest transitions. The self‐organizing processes that create naturally regenerating forests and natural regeneration in planted forests promote local genetic adaptation, foster native species with known traditional uses, create spatial and temporal heterogeneity, and sustain local biodiversity and biotic interactions. These features confer greater ecosystem resilience in the face of future shocks and disturbances. We discuss economic, social, and legal issues that challenge natural regeneration in tropical landscapes. We conclude by suggesting ways to enable natural regeneration to become an effective tool for implementing large‐scale forest and landscape restoration. Major research and policy priorities include: identifying and modeling the ecological and economic conditions where natural regeneration is a viable and favorable land‐use option, developing monitoring protocols for natural regeneration that can be carried out by local communities, and developing enabling incentives, governance structures, and regulatory conditions that promote the stewardship of naturally regenerating forests. Aligning restoration goals and practices with natural regeneration can achieve the best possible outcome for achieving multiple social and environmental benefits at minimal cost.     

The Economic and Employment Impacts of Forest and Watershed Restoration

Globally, ecological restoration activities are increasing in response to environmental, economic, and cultural trends that value ecological capital for the services provided by healthy functioning ecosystems. To ensure continued investment in ecological restoration, practitioners and researchers need to identify links to the benefits accrued to society from ecological restoration practice and policy. Nonetheless, a recent review of published literature on ecological restoration concludes that the policy and socioeconomic contributions of ecological restoration are often ignored. To help fill this gap, we describe the policy context of a sustained program of forest and watershed restoration in Oregon, U.S.A. and report on three related studies on the market structure and resulting economic impacts of this program of work in Oregon. The first study examines the experiences of watershed councils (n = 52) in mobilizing human resources for ecological restoration. The second focuses on the businesses and firms (n = 190) that participate in Oregon's restoration economy. The third analyzes the employment and economic impacts from a sample of Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board restoration grants (n = 99). We found that the sustained program of restoration work in Oregon has conferred significant benefits to Oregon's economy. These impacts largely accrue to rural areas in need of economic development opportunities due to declines in traditional resource management activities. In addition to approximately 16 jobs supported per million dollars invested in ecological restoration, a sustained investment in restoration has created both new local organizational capacity in watershed councils and other community‐based partners and business opportunities especially in rural Oregon.     

Growing biodiverse carbon‐rich forests

Regrowing forests on cleared land is a key strategy to achieve both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation globally. Maximizing these co‐benefits, however, remains theoretically and technically challenging because of the complex relationship between carbon sequestration and biodiversity in forests, the strong influence of climate variability and landscape position on forest development, the large number of restoration strategies possible, and long time‐frames needed to declare success. Through the synthesis of three decades of knowledge on forest dynamics and plant functional traits combined with decision science, we demonstrate that we cannot always maximize carbon sequestration by simply increasing the functional trait diversity of trees planted. The relationships between plant functional diversity, carbon sequestration rates above ground and in the soil are dependent on climate and landscape positions. We show how to manage ‘identities’ and ‘complementarities’ between plant functional traits to achieve systematically maximal cobenefits in various climate and landscape contexts. We provide examples of optimal planting and thinning rules that satisfy this ecological strategy and guide the restoration of forests that are rich in both carbon and plant functional diversity. Our framework provides the first mechanistic approach for generating decision‐makingrules that can be used to manage forests for multiple objectives, and supports joined carbon credit and biodiversity conservation initiatives, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation REDD+. The decision framework can also be linked to species distribution models and socio‐economic models to find restoration solutions that maximize simultaneously biodiversity, carbon stocks, and other ecosystem services across landscapes. Our study provides the foundation for developing and testing cost‐effective and adaptable forest management rules to achieve biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and other socio‐economic co‐benefits under global change.     

Opportunities and Challenges for Ecological Restoration within REDD+

The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism has the potential to provide the developing nations with significant funding for forest restoration activities that contribute to climate change mitigation, sustainable management, and carbon‐stock enhancement. In order to stimulate and inform discussion on the role of ecological restoration within REDD+, we outline opportunities for and challenges to using science‐based restoration projects and programs to meet REDD+ goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and storing carbon in forest ecosystems. Now that the REDD+ mechanism, which is not yet operational, has expanded beyond a sole focus on activities that affect carbon budgets to also include those that enhance ecosystem services and deliver other co‐benefits to biodiversity and communities, forest restoration could play an increasingly important role. However, in many nations, there is a lack of practical tools and guidance for implementing effective restoration projects and programs that will sequester carbon and at the same time improve the integrity and resilience of forest ecosystems. Restoration scientists and practitioners should continue to engage with potential REDD+ donors and recipients to ensure that funding is targeted at projects and programs with ecologically sound designs.     

Is forest landscape restoration socially desirable? A discrete choice experiment applied to the Scandinavian transboundary Fulufjället National Park Area

Using an economic valuation approach, we assessed people's stated preferences for policy aimed at enhancing restoration of functional networks of naturally dynamic boreal forest habitats as a public good. Active landscape restoration can improve the functionality of boreal forest habitats as green infrastructure, which is essential for biodiversity conservation and delivery of multiple ecosystem services that production forests are poor at providing. In contrast, so far designation of protected areas in Fennoscandia has focused on remnant patches of near‐natural forests, and not on forest landscape restoration. We assessed citizens' preferences for forest landscape restoration in a transboundary region primarily managed for sustained‐yield wood production for the forest industry, and which hosts the transboundary Fulufjället National Parks in Sweden and Norway. We conducted a discrete choice experiment by asking Swedish and Norwegian citizens to choose among two options for the Fulufjället area, including (1) extension of passive protection on one side or both sides of the border, by additional area protection and restoration of forest naturalness, and (2) a status quo option. The scenario assumed that extension of the protected forest area would imply a compulsory tax administered bilaterally by the two countries. Just over half of the sample, in both countries expressed willingness to pay for forest landscape restoration. Alternatives that contemplated larger extensions of forest landscape restoration were assigned higher willingness‐to‐pay. Public awareness and support, combined with spatial planning, are necessary for forest landscape restoration to become a viable tool for biodiversity conservation in Scandinavia.     

Have we been successful? Monitoring horizontal forest complexity for forest restoration projects

Forest management today often seeks to restore ecological integrity and enhance human well‐being by increasing forest complexity, resilience, and functionality. However, effective and financially expedient monitoring of forest complexity is challenging. In this study, we developed a practical and inexpensive technique to measure horizontal forest complexity. This monitoring method uses intuitively understandable data (imagery) and facilitates stakeholder participation in the adaptive management process within collaborative projects. We used this technique to determine if current restoration projects are successfully achieving their spatial restoration goals. We focused on the Colorado Front Range Landscape Restoration Initiative (CFRLRI) as a representative of the typical collaborative restoration projects underway in formerly fire‐dependent dry conifer forests. The developed monitoring method is practical and cost‐effective by using free aerial imagery to map, quantify, and analyze the distribution of canopy cover pre‐ and post‐treatment. We found the CFRLRI has successfully reduced canopy cover (from 44 to 26% on average) and increased some aspects of horizontal forest complexity. The application of these monitoring techniques has allowed the CFRLRI collaborative group to objectively quantify changes to horizontal forest complexity, and has facilitated stakeholder communication about forest spatial patterns. These methods could be adapted for use by other similar forest restoration projects around the world by utilizing increasingly available satellite or aerial imagery.     

Defining and evaluating the ecological restoration economy

For decades, industry groups and many media outlets have propagated the notion that environmental protection is bad for business. However, missing from this public debate has been a detailed accounting of the U.S. economic output and employment that are created through conservation, restoration, and mitigation actions, which we call the “Restoration Economy.” In this paper, we review related literature, including 14 local and state‐level case studies of privately funded environmental restoration projects. We also review federal and state government programs that fund restoration throughout the United States, revealing the complex nature of this sector. We find growing evidence that the restoration industry not only protects public environmental goods but also contributes to national economic growth and employment, supporting as many as 33 jobs per $1 million invested, with an employment multiplier of between 1.48 and 3.8 (the number of jobs supported by every restoration job) and an output multiplier of between 1.6 and 2.59 (multiplier for total economic output from investments). The existing literature also shows that restoration investments lead to significant positive economic and employment impacts and appear to have particularly localized benefits, which can be attributed to the tendency for projects to employ local labor and materials. While these initial figures are promising, the extent of environmental restoration activities and benefits at a national level is not yet well understood. Our findings reveal the need for a methodological framework for more accurately and broadly estimating the size of the U.S. restoration sector and its impact on the U.S. economy.     

Carbon sequestration in riparian forests: A global synthesis and meta‐analysis

Restoration of deforested and degraded landscapes is a globally recognized strategy to sequester carbon, improve ecological integrity, conserve biodiversity, and provide additional benefits to human health and well‐being. Investment in riparian forest restoration has received relatively little attention, in part due to their relatively small spatial extent. Yet, riparian forest restoration may be a particularly valuable strategy because riparian forests have the potential for rapid carbon sequestration, are hotspots of biodiversity, and provide numerous valuable ecosystem services. To inform this strategy, we conducted a global synthesis and meta‐analysis to identify general patterns of carbon stock accumulation in riparian forests. We compiled riparian biomass and soil carbon stock data from 117 publications, reports, and unpublished data sets. We then modeled the change in carbon stock as a function of vegetation age, considering effects of climate and whether or not the riparian forest had been actively planted. On average, our models predicted that the establishment of riparian forest will more than triple the baseline, unforested soil carbon stock, and that riparian forests hold on average 68–158 Mg C/ha in biomass at maturity, with the highest values in relatively warm and wet climates. We also found that actively planting riparian forest substantially jump‐starts the biomass carbon accumulation, with initial growth rates more than double those of naturally regenerating riparian forest. Our results demonstrate that carbon sequestration should be considered a strong co‐benefit of riparian restoration, and that increasing the pace and scale of riparian forest restoration may be a valuable investment providing both immediate carbon sequestration value and long‐term ecosystem service returns.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of retention forestry to enhance biodiversity in production forests of Central Europe using an interdisciplinary,multi‐scale approach

Retention forestry, which retains a portion of the original stand at the time of harvesting to maintain continuity of structural and compositional diversity, has been originally developed to mitigate the impacts of clear‐cutting. Retention of habitat trees and deadwood has since become common practice also in continuous‐cover forests of Central Europe. While the use of retention in these forests is plausible, the evidence base for its application is lacking, trade‐offs have not been quantified, it is not clear what support it receives from forest owners and other stakeholders and how it is best integrated into forest management practices. The Research Training Group ConFoBi (Conservation of Forest Biodiversity in Multiple‐use Landscapes of Central Europe) focusses on the effectiveness of retention forestry, combining ecological studies on forest biodiversity with social and economic studies of biodiversity conservation across multiple spatial scales. The aim of ConFoBi is to assess whether and how structural retention measures are appropriate for the conservation of forest biodiversity in uneven‐aged and selectively harvested continuous‐cover forests of temperate Europe. The study design is based on a pool of 135 plots (1 ha) distributed along gradients of forest connectivity and structure. The main objectives are (a) to investigate the effects of structural elements and landscape context on multiple taxa, including different trophic and functional groups, to evaluate the effectiveness of retention practices for biodiversity conservation; (b) to analyze how forest biodiversity conservation is perceived and practiced, and what costs and benefits it creates; and (c) to identify how biodiversity conservation can be effectively integrated in multi‐functional forest management. ConFoBi will quantify retention levels required across the landscape, as well as the socio‐economic prerequisites for their implementation by forest owners and managers. ConFoBi's research results will provide an evidence base for integrating biodiversity conservation into forest management in temperate forests.     

Ecological outcomes of agroforests and restoration 15 years after planting

Large‐scale forest restoration relies on approaches that are cost‐effective and economically attractive to farmers, and in this context agroforestry systems may be a valuable option. Here, we compared ecological outcomes among (1) 12–15‐year‐old coffee agroforests established with several native shade trees, (2) 12–15‐year‐old high‐diversity restoration plantations, and (3) reference old‐growth forests, within a landscape restoration project in the Pontal do Paranapanema region, in the Atlantic Forest of southeastern Brazil. We compared the aboveground biomass, canopy cover, and abundance, richness, and composition of trees, and the regenerating saplings in the three forest types. In addition, we investigated the landscape drivers of natural regeneration in the restoration plantations and coffee agroforests. Reference forests had a higher abundance of trees and regenerating saplings, but had similar levels of species richness compared to coffee agroforests. High‐diversity agroforests and restoration plantations did not differ in tree abundance. However, compared to restoration plantations, agroforests showed higher abundance and species richness of regenerating saplings, a higher proportion of animal‐dispersed species, and higher canopy cover. The abundance of regenerating saplings declined with increasing density of coffee plants, thus indicating a potential trade‐off between productivity and ecological benefits. High‐diversity coffee agroforests provide a cost‐effective and ecologically viable alternative to high‐diversity native tree plantations for large‐scale forest restoration within agricultural landscapes managed by local communities, and should be included as part of the portfolio of reforestation options used to promote the global agenda on forest and landscape restoration.     

Simplicity is key: restoration protocols for nonregenerating forests degraded by overabundant herbivores

Global forests are being lost and degraded at an alarming rate; hence ecological restoration becomes an integral component ensuring future forest health. Beneficial effects of restoration will depend on scientifically based practices within an adaptive management framework. On the island of Newfoundland, moose (Alces alces) have become overabundant since their introduction in the early 1900s causing regeneration failure of the balsam fir (Abies balsamea) forest. Intensive selective browsing by moose on this foundation species within naturally insect‐generated gaps has created “spruce‐moose meadows.” Experimental restoration to support Parks Canada Ecological Integrity targets was implemented in the boreal forest of Terra Nova National Park (Newfoundland, Canada), along a gradient of disturbance from closed canopy forest to large insect‐disturbed gaps. Seedling planting was carried out under various ground preparation treatments (field planting, aboveground suppression, and scarification). Seedling performance (survival, growth, and browsing occurrence) was monitored over 2 years and mixed‐effects models were constructed to determine seedling responses, which form the template of future forests. Results show minimally positive effects of the ground treatments along the gradient of disturbance, while environmental conditions and seedling individual traits explained the majority of seedling responses. Better growth, lower survival, and higher browsing intensity were observed with increasing forest disturbance, with taller seedlings at planting performing the best. Considering that no substantial biological benefits were detected following ground treatments, which are costly and time‐consuming to implement, active restoration in boreal forest can be implemented using standard forestry planting protocols, without any ground preparation, independently of the forest degradation state.     

Low‐cost agricultural waste accelerates tropical forest regeneration

Lower‐cost tropical forest restoration methods, particularly those framed as win–win business‐protected area partnerships, could dramatically increase the scale of tropical forest restoration activities, thereby providing a variety of societal and ecosystem benefits, including slowing both global biodiversity loss and climate change. Here we describe the long‐term regenerative effects of a direct application of agricultural waste on tropical dry forest. In 1998, as part of an innovative agricultural waste disposal service contract, an estimated 12,000 Mg of processed orange peels and pulp were applied to a 3 ha portion of a former cattle pasture with compacted, rocky, nutrient‐poor soils characteristic of prolonged fire‐based land management and overgrazing in Área de Conservación Guanacaste, northwestern Costa Rica. After 16 years, the experimental plot showed a threefold increase in woody plant species richness, a tripling of tree species evenness (Shannon Index), and a 176% increase in aboveground woody biomass over an adjacent control plot. Hemispheric photography showed significant increases in canopy closure in the area where orange waste was applied relative to control. Orange waste deposition significantly elevated levels of soil macronutrients and important micronutrients in samples taken 2 and 16 years after initial orange waste application. Our results point to promising opportunities for valuable synergisms between agricultural waste disposal and tropical forest restoration and carbon sequestration.     

A proposed process for applying a structured decision‐making framework to restoration planning in the Atchafalaya River Basin,Louisiana, U.S.A.

Environmental decision‐making issues in the Atchafalaya River Basin (ARB), Louisiana require innovative approaches that combine scientific understanding and local stakeholder values. Management of the ARB has evolved from strong federal control to establish the ARB as a primary floodway of the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project to a state and federal collaboration to accommodate fish and wildlife resource promotion, recreational opportunities, and economic development. The management policy has expanded to include a growing number of stakeholders, but the decision‐making process has not kept pace. Current conflicts among many local stakeholder groups, due in part to their lack of involvement in the decision‐making process, impede restoration efforts. The absence of a long‐term collective vision for the ARB by both local stakeholder groups and management agencies further confounds these efforts. This paper proposes a process to apply a structured decision‐making framework, a values‐based approach that explicitly defines objectives, to promote stakeholder‐driven restoration efforts in the ARB and to better prepare for and manage long‐term environmental issues. The goals of this approach are: (1) to create a process founded on stakeholder values and supported by rigorous scientific assessment to meet management agency mandates and (2) to establish a transparent process for restoration planning in the ARB that incorporates current and future non‐governmental stakeholders into the decision‐making process. Similar frameworks have been successful in other river basins; we feel the structure of current restoration efforts in the ARB is well‐suited to adopt a values‐focused management framework.     

Towards a common set of criteria and indicators to identify forest restoration priorities: An expert panel-based approach

Ecological restoration of forest ecosystems is increasingly being implemented in many parts of the world, as a response to widespread forest loss and degradation. In common with other conservation management interventions, restoration efforts should be directed towards areas where the maximum benefits are likely to be achieved. Such prioritisation requires the development of appropriate criteria and indicators (C&I), an issue poorly addressed by previous research. In particular, there is need for C&I that are operational, suitable for spatial analysis and mapping and applicable to a broad range of contexts. This investigation aimed to verify whether this might be achieved through the elicitation of experts’ opinion, when considering biodiversity conservation as the main objective of restoration. A Delphi process was performed, aimed at defining the key ecological criteria and a broad set of indicators. 389 criteria and 669 related indicators were provided in total and grouped into clusters relating to individual criteria. A total of 20 criteria referred to the need for restoration and 18 to its feasibility. In the second round of the Delphi process, 8 definitive criteria were identified along with some 90 related indicators. Finally, a face-to-face meeting was conducted to show how ready-to-use C&I can be obtained for application to a specific context starting from the Delphi's results. The study highlights the potential value of combining the Delphi process and face-to-face meetings for identifying practically applicable C&I for planning ecological restoration. However, the diversity of views identified within a single group of stakeholders suggests that the development of a generally applicable set of C&I for forest restoration will be difficult to achieve in practice.     

Re‐forestation restores native dominance in an island beetle fauna

Native re‐forestation is a widely used restoration tool, typically undertaken with the expectation that planting native trees will initiate succession processes (including the re‐establishment of native fauna) that will eventually return the ecosystem to a native‐dominated state. Invertebrate groups can be used to assess restoration progress, as their life history traits enable them to respond more rapidly to environmental change than many other organisms. In this study, we assessed beetle responses to re‐forestation. Using two trapping methods (flight intercept traps and pitfall traps), we compared beetle assemblages in exotic pasture (pre‐restoration state), <10‐year‐old planted native forest (restoration intervention) and approximately 40‐year‐old unmanaged regenerating native forest (reference state). Analysis of the flight intercept‐trapped beetles suggests that re‐forestation has initiated a transition from an exotic‐dominated pasture fauna toward a native‐dominated fauna: in planted forests, 75% of all flight‐intercept‐trapped beetles were native (compared with 22% in pasture and 87% in unmanaged forest). Flight intercept‐trapped beetles also had higher native diversity and abundance in both forest types than in pasture. Pitfall‐trapped beetle species were predominantly native in both forest types, but there were few statistically significant differences between the forests and pasture in the pit‐fall trap data set. Both trapping methods detected significant compositional differences between the beetle assemblages in planted forest and unmanaged forest. Replanting native forest has increased native beetle diversity, abundance, and dominance (compared with the pre‐restoration state), but convergence with the unmanaged reference forest has not yet been achieved.     

Co‐benefits of biodiversity and carbon sequestration from regenerating secondary forests in the Philippine uplands: implications for forest landscape restoration

Shifting cultivation is a widespread practice in tropical forested areas that policy makers often regard as the major cause of forest degradation. Secondary fallow forests regrowing after shifting cultivation are generally not viewed as suitable for biodiversity conservation and carbon retention. Drawing upon our research in the Philippines and other relevant case studies, we compared the biodiversity and carbon sequestration in recovering secondary forests after shifting cultivation to other land uses that commonly follow shifting cultivation. Regenerating secondary forests had higher biodiversity than fast growing timber plantations and other restoration options available in the area. Some old plantations, however, provided carbon benefits comparable the old growth forest, although their biodiversity was less than that of the regenerating forests. Our study demonstrates that secondary forests regrowing after shifting cultivation have a high potential for biodiversity and carbon sequestration co‐benefits, representing an effective strategy for forest management and restoration in countries where they are common and where the forest is an integral part of rural people's livelihoods. We discuss the issues and potential mechanisms through which such dynamic land use can be incorporated into development projects that are currently financing the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of tropical forests.     

Differences in stakeholder perceptions about native forest: implications for developing a restoration program

Ecological restoration is a global priority. Incorporating stakeholders' perceptions has been established as a critical factor to improve the success of restoration and conservation initiatives and decrease future social conflicts; however, it has barely been incorporated. Our objective was to analyze and compare the differences in the perceptions of Chilean dryland forest restoration of three groups: local community, experts, and government managers. We asked about: (1) what is the knowledge, importance, and uses that they have and give to the native forest and its restoration? (2) What is the willingness to restore the native forest? (3) What are the most valuable goods and services provided by the forest? (4) Where to begin to restore? (5) What criteria must be considered to prioritize areas to restore? To determine if the criteria selected were related to the stakeholder group, a semi‐parametric multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed. Semi‐structured interviews were carried out with 61 stakeholders. The community gave greater importance to restoring the ravines and creeks, the experts to restoring areas that increase landscape connectivity, and both experts and government managers to restoring areas of greater biodiversity and ecological value. The experts gave a lower value to both social and economic criteria compared to the local community and government managers. The differences among stakeholder perceptions must necessarily be considered in the restoration programs. Research on perceptions can contribute to decision‐making and will favor the social approval and long‐term success of restoration programs.     

Probabilistic measures of climate change vulnerability,adaptation action benefits,and related uncertainty from maximum temperature metric selection

Predictions of the projected changes in species distributions and potential adaptation action benefits can help guide conservation actions. There is substantial uncertainty in projecting species distributions into an unknown future, however, which can undermine confidence in predictions or misdirect conservation actions if not properly considered. Recent studies have shown that the selection of alternative climate metrics describing very different climatic aspects (e.g., mean air temperature vs. mean precipitation) can be a substantial source of projection uncertainty. It is unclear, however, how much projection uncertainty might stem from selecting among highly correlated, ecologically similar climate metrics (e.g., maximum temperature in July, maximum 30‐day temperature) describing the same climatic aspect (e.g., maximum temperatures) known to limit a species’ distribution. It is also unclear how projection uncertainty might propagate into predictions of the potential benefits of adaptation actions that might lessen climate change effects. We provide probabilistic measures of climate change vulnerability, adaptation action benefits, and related uncertainty stemming from the selection of four maximum temperature metrics for brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), a cold‐water salmonid of conservation concern in the eastern United States. Projected losses in suitable stream length varied by as much as 20% among alternative maximum temperature metrics for mid‐century climate projections, which was similar to variation among three climate models. Similarly, the regional average predicted increase in brook trout occurrence probability under an adaptation action scenario of full riparian forest restoration varied by as much as .2 among metrics. Our use of Bayesian inference provides probabilistic measures of vulnerability and adaptation action benefits for individual stream reaches that properly address statistical uncertainty and can help guide conservation actions. Our study demonstrates that even relatively small differences in the definitions of climate metrics can result in very different projections and reveal high uncertainty in predicted climate change effects.