Research papers on restoration ecology
Liana cutting accelerates the structural recovery of once-logged tropical forests at a fraction of the cost of tree planting
Toby Jackson et al.
Current Biology, 2026
Repeated airborne LiDAR at the Sabah Biodiversity Experiment in Borneo showed that liana cutting sequestered carbon at roughly US$2 per tonne of CO₂ versus US$58 for enrichment planting. The treatment accelerated canopy recovery three times faster than enrichment planting and reduced tree mortality by around 50%.
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Active restoration accelerates the carbon recovery of human-modified tropical forests
Christopher Philipson et al.
Science, 2020
Two decades of permanent-plot data combined with airborne LiDAR biomass maps in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo showed that active restoration accelerated carbon recovery by around 50% compared with natural regeneration. The study provides a rigorous empirical benchmark for quantifying the additional carbon gains delivered by restoration interventions in logged tropical forests.
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The road to recovery: a synthesis of outcomes from ecosystem restoration in tropical and sub-tropical Asian forests
Lindsay Banin et al.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2023
Synthesis of ecosystem restoration outcomes across tropical and sub-tropical Asia, evaluating tree mortality and growth at 176 sites and assessing structural and biodiversity recovery in actively restored versus naturally regenerating forest plots. Provides a rigorous empirical foundation for setting realistic expectations of restoration-based carbon and biodiversity outcomes in the Asian tropics.
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Biodiversity consequences of long-term active forest restoration in selectively-logged tropical rainforests
Nadine Keller et al.
Forest Ecology and Management, 2023
Long-term active restoration in logged tropical forests reshapes biodiversity alongside structural recovery.
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Three decades of post-logging tree community recovery in naturally regenerating and actively restored dipterocarp forest in Borneo
Robin Hayward et al.
Forest Ecology and Management, 2021
Thirty years of plot data from Borneo on dipterocarp community recovery under natural regeneration and active restoration.
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Positive effects of liana cutting on seedlings are reduced during El Niño-induced drought
Michael O'Brien et al.
Journal of Applied Ecology, 2019
The benefit of liana cutting on seedlings is reduced during El Niño drought, showing climate stress can erode restoration gains.
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The Sabah Biodiversity Experiment: a long-term test of the role of tree diversity in restoring tropical forest structure and functioning
Andy Hector et al.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2011
The seminal Sabah Biodiversity Experiment paper, designed to test how tree diversity affects restored tropical forest structure and function.
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What this research means for tree planting carbon projects
Every paper on this page asks the same question: how does a forest recover after disturbance, and what do people add when they help it along? A tree planting carbon project (afforestation, reforestation and revegetation, or ARR, in the methodologies) has to answer that question with numbers, because its credits are the difference between what grew and what would have grown anyway. Our 2020 paper in Science measured that difference in Sabah, Borneo: over two decades, active restoration moved logged forest towards recovery about 50% faster than natural regeneration.
Most projects do not have twenty years of permanent plots and a designed control. Verra's VM0047 methodology handles that by comparing the project with reference areas, real places matched to the project and measured over the same years. Producing those reference areas and the measurements behind them is specialist work, so Verra keeps a list of Data Service Providers for it; our guide to the three kinds of VM0047 Data Service Provider, and how to choose one, applies to any of them.
The restoration science shapes how we do that matching. Recovery depends on the starting point: how heavily a forest was logged, what is left standing, how far away the nearest seed sources are. So the places a project is compared with have to share that history, not only its climate and soil. It is the choice a VM0047 project carries longest, and the one these papers taught us to take seriously.
Want more on restoration ecology?
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Liana cutting, designed experiments, and carbon baselines
by Christopher D. Philipson
Liana cutting accelerates the recovery of logged tropical forest three times faster than tree planting, at one tenth of the cost. The Sabah Biodiversity Experiment shows why designed experiments matter for forest carbon baselines.
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