نبذة مختصرة : Ensuring the long‐term persistence of tropical forest restoration projects is vital to maintaining carbon stocks, biodiversity, and other benefits of restored ecosystems. But our understanding of the factors that determine restoration longevity—the age that a restored ecosystem attains before being converted to another land use—is limited, and derived primarily from studies based on remote sensing or observations at a single site over time. In this article, we apply a new approach by surveying restoration practitioners from across the tropics on the factors that they perceive to influence restoration longevity. Through an online survey (including categorical and open‐ended questions) we asked practitioners about the ecological and social characteristics of their restoration projects, and their views on what factors contribute to project longevity. We summarized the information on project characteristics, and conducted thematic analysis and coding of the longevity drivers discussed by respondents. A total of 29 respondents from 15 tropical countries completed our survey, with the majority of projects occurring on previously pastured lands in wet and lowland tropical forests. Practitioners discussed social factors more than twice as frequently as ecological factors. The most frequently cited social factor key to restoration longevity was engagement with multiple stakeholders, followed by long‐term funding, the need for innovative project design, as well as effective and inspirational leadership. Overall, the voices of practitioners underscore the critical need to address local social context in order to achieve long‐term forest recovery.
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