Ecosystem restoration conventionally focuses on ecological targets. However, while ecological targets are crucial to mobilizing political, social, and financial capital, they do not encapsulate the need to: integrate social, economic, and ecological dimensions and systems approaches; reconcile global targets and local objectives; and measure the rate of progress toward multiple and synergistic goals. Restoration is better conceived as an inclusive social-ecological process that integrates diverse values, practices, knowledge, and restoration objectives across temporal and spatial scales and stakeholder groups. Taking a more process-based approach will ultimately enable greater social-ecological transformation, greater restoration effectiveness, and more long-lasting benefits to people and nature across time and place.

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Tedesco, A.M., López-Cubillos, S., Chazdon, R., Rhodes, J.R., Archibald, C.L.,  Pérez-Hämmerle, K.V.,  Brancalion, P.H.S., Wilson, K.A., Oliveira, M.,  Correa, D.F., Ota, L., Morrison, T.H., Possingham, H.P., Mills, M. Santos, F.C., Dean, A.J. 2023 (In press). Beyond ecology: ecosystem restoration as a process for social-ecological transformation, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2023.02.007