Tropical forest recovery and restoration

R a week goes by without a news report sounding the alarm of the continued destruction of tropical forests and the concomitant loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, such as water retention, erosion control and carbon storage. Much of tropical deforestation, particularly in Latin America, is a result of land clearing for pasture and other agricultural uses1. Increasingly, these lands are being abandoned because of decreasing productivity and changing economic incentives2,3. Little is known, however, about whether tropical forest will ever fully recover on abandoned crop fields and pastures4. A recent conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico (23–30 May), organized by the International Institute of Tropical Forestry (Ariel Lugo and John Parrotta), the Society for Ecological Restoration (Don Falk) and the University of Puerto Rico (Mitch Aide and Jess Zimmerman) brought together scientists, conservationists and wildlife area managers to discuss the potential for tropical forest restoration in the new millennium. As most research on tropical forest recovery and restoration has been conducted over the past five to ten years, the meeting was one of the first opportunities for a critical mass of scientists to assess what is known about tropical forest recovery and restoration in degraded lands and where future research efforts should be focused.