Forest Ecosystem Restoration

Dear Colleagues,

Forests are precious resources that provide us with food, shelter, oxygen, fuel, and other means of livelihood. It also acts as home to many living organisms. However, forests around the world are under threat. Nearly half of the world’s forests are at high risk of deforestation or degradation. Both deforestation and degradation modify the structure and function of forests enormously. Forest loss and degradation are both causes and effects of our changing climate. Forest restoration is one of the best ways for facing the critical ecological and societal challenges of our time. Forest restoration is not just planting trees but also building ecological balance on multiple scales, such as population, ecosystem, landscape, and region. The goal of forest restoration is not only to restore the structure of forest ecosystems but also to recover the functions and services they provide. Given the growing interests in protecting biodiversity, restoring degraded forests, and promoting multiple ecosystem services, sharing knowledge from the relevant theories, techniques, and practices will guide future restoration attempts. The topic of “Forest Ecosystem Restoration” targets research that deals with restoring destroyed and degraded forests. This includes the regeneration of key species in various forest ecosystems, practices to modify the structure of existing forest ecosystems, as well as forest landscape reconstruction, or promoting the multiple services they used to provide.

Dr. Lin Qi
Dr. Dominick A. DellaSala
Dr. Wangming Zhou
Topic Editors