The place of people in restoring nature

April 14, 2025

All too often, efforts to restore forests and ecosystems treat the human dimensions as an afterthought. Biodiversity, or carbon offset payments, tend to come first. Yet ultimately, it is people who shape the need for, take decisions on, carry out, and are impacted by restoration. In a pair of short policy perspective articles led by my colleague Stephanie Mansourian, we outline the importance and relevance of human dimensions. The first one presents a five-pillar framework – stretching across scales from local to global – to help policymakers and practitioners think through the diverse places where a human focus is crucial. The second one uses the forest transition curve to illustrate how people are relevant at every stage of forest loss and potential recovery.

Fig 1 from Mansourian et al. 2025b: A simplified forest transition curve from deforestation to reforestation showing the human dimensions at each stage.
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