Abstract:
Forest loss and degradation globally has resulted in declines in multiple ecosystem services and
reduced habitat for biodiversity. Forest landscape restoration offers an opportunity to mitigate these
losses, conserve biodiversity, and improve human well-being. As part of the Bonn Challenge, a global
effort to restore 350 million hectares of deforested and degraded land by 2030, over 30 countries have
recently made commitments to national forest landscape restoration. In order to achieve these goals,
decision-makers require information on the potential benefits and costs of forest landscape
restoration to efficiently target investments. In response to this need, we developed an approach using
a suite of ecosystem service mapping tools and a multi-objective spatial optimization technique that
enables decision-makers to estimate the potential benefits and opportunity costs of restoration,
visualize tradeoffs associated with meeting multiple objectives, and prioritize where restoration could
deliver the greatest benefits.Wedemonstrate the potential of this approach in Uganda, one of the
nations committed to the Bonn Challenge. Using maps of the potential benefits and costs of
restoration and efficiency frontiers for optimal restoration scenarios, we were able to communicate
how ecosystem services benefits vary spatially across the country and how different weights on
ecosystem services objectives can affect the allocation of restoration across Uganda. This work
provides a generalizable approach to improve investments in forest landscape restoration and
illuminates the tradeoffs associated with alternative restoration strategies.
