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Ambitious pledges to restore over 400 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030 have been made by several countries within the Global Partnership for Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR). Monitoring restoration outcomes at this scale requires cost-effective methods to quantify not only forest cover, but also forest structure and the diversity of useful species. Here we obtain and analyze structural attributes of forest canopies undergoing restoration in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil using a portable ground lidar remote sensing device as a proxy for airborne laser scanners. We assess the ability of these attributes to distinguish forest cover types, to estimate aboveground dry woody biomass (AGB) and to estimate tree species diversity (Shannon index and richness). A set of six canopy structure attributes were able to classify five cover types with an overall accuracy of 75%, increasing to 87% when combining two secondary forest classes. Canopy height and the unprecedented “leaf area height volume” (a cumulative product of canopy height and vegetation density) were good predictors of AGB. An index based on the height and evenness of the leaf area density profile was weakly related to the Shannon Index of tree species diversity and showed no relationship to species richness or to change in species composition. These findings illustrate the potential and limitations of lidar remote sensing for monitoring compliance of FLR goals of landscape multifunctionality, beyond a simple assessment of forest cover gain and loss.

Soil phosphorus (P) is a major driver of forest development and a critically limited nutrient in tropical soils, especially when topsoil is removed by mining. This nutrient can be present in soils in the form of different fractions, which have direct consequences for P availability to plants and, consequently, for restoration success. Therefore, understanding how the stocks of different soil P fractions change over the restoration process can be essential for guiding restoration interventions, monitoring, and adaptive management. Here, we investigated the recovery of soil P fractions by forest restoration interventions on bauxite mine sites in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We assessed the concentration of different fractions of soil organic and inorganic P at (1) a bauxite mine prepared for restoration; (2) two former bauxite mines undergoing forest restoration for 6 and 24 years; and (3) an old‐growth forest remnant. Overall, restored areas recovered levels of labile organic P (Pₒ‐NaHCO₃) at 5–40 cm and of moderately labile organic P (Pₒ‐NaOH) at different depths, exhibiting concentrations similar to those found in a conserved forest. The use of P‐rich fertilizers and forest topsoil may have greatly contributed to this outcome. Some other fractions, however, recovered only after 24 years of restoration. Other inorganic P fractions did not differ among mined, restored, and conserved sites: nonlabile Pᵢ (residual P and P‐HCl), labile Pᵢ (Pᵢ‐NaHCO₃), and moderately labile Pᵢ (Pᵢ‐NaOH). Forest restoration was able to promote efficient recovery of important soil P fractions, highlighting the value of restoration efforts to mitigate soil degradation by mining.