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Governments are negotiating actions intended to halt biodiversity loss and put it on a path to recovery by 2050. Here, we show that bending the curve for biodiversity is possible, but only if actions are implemented urgently and in an integrated manner. Connecting these actions to biodiversity outcomes and tracking progress remain a challenge.

1. The global food system is causing large-scale environmental degradation and is a major contributor to climate change. Its low diversity and failure to produce enough fruits and vegetables is contributing to a global health crisis. 2. The extraordinary diversity of tropical tree species is increasingly recognized to be vital to planetary health and especially important for supporting climate change mitigation. However, they are poorly integrated into food systems. Tropical tree diversity offers the potential for sustainable production of many foods, providing livelihood benefits and multiple ecosystem services including improved human nutrition. 3. First, we present an overview of these environmental, nutritional and livelihood benefits and show that tree-sourced foods provide important contributions to critical fruit and micronutrient (vitamin A and C) intake in rural populations based on data from sites in seven countries. 4. Then, we discuss several risks and limitations that must be taken into account when scaling-up tropical tree-based food production, including the importance of production system diversity and risks associated with supply to the global markets. 5. We conclude by discussing several interventions addressing technical, financial, political and consumer behaviour barriers, with potential to increase the consumption and production of tropical tree-sourced foods, to catalyse a transition towards more sustainable global food systems.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ecological restoration, when implemented effectively and sustainably, contributes to protecting biodiversity; improving human health and wellbeing; increasing food and water security; delivering goods, services, and economic prosperity; and supporting climate change mitigation, resilience, and adaptation. It is a solutions-based approach that engages communities, scientists, policymakers, and land managers to repair ecological damage and rebuild a healthier relationship between people and the rest of nature. When combined with conservation and sustainable use, ecological restoration is the link needed to move local, regional, and global environmental conditions from a state of continued degradation, to one of net positive improvement. The second edition of the International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration (the Standards) presents a robust framework for restoration projects to achieve intended goals, while addressing challenges including effective design and implementation, accounting for complex ecosystem dynamics (especially in the context of climate change), and navigating trade-offs associated with land management priorities and decisions. The Standards establish eight principles that underpin ecological restoration. Principles 1 and 2 articulate important foundations that guide ecological restoration: effectively engaging a wide range of stakeholders, and fully utilizing available scientific, traditional, and local knowledge, respectively. Principles 3 and 4 summarize the central approach to ecological restoration, by highlighting ecologically appropriate reference ecosystems as the target of restoration and clarifying the imperative for restoration activities to support ecosystem recovery processes. Principle 5 underscores the use of measurable indicators to assess progress toward restoration objectives. Principle 6 lays out the mandate for ecological restoration to seek the highest attainable recovery. Tool

Restoring degraded lands is high on the international agenda and the number of restoration projects in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has increased considerably over the past decades. However, the variety of approaches used have not been systematically documented and analyzed. We aimed to develop a restoration typology as a function of the geographical and socio-economical setting, planning, timeframe, finances, implementation, monitoring and potential impact, which will help to discern broad patterns and identify gaps in project implementation in LAC. We categorized 97 restoration projects using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and a Hierarchical Clustering on Principal Components. Three main restoration types emerged from the clustering, with the main defining variables being: (1) project area under restoration, (2) amount of funding received, (3) source of funding and (4) monitoring efforts. The first type are large-scale projects, which receive high amounts of funding provided by international donors, and with a well-established monitoring plan; the second type are projects financed with private money, typically lacking a sound monitoring program; and the third type represents small projects with low amounts of funding, financed with public funds from national governments, often with a rudimentary monitoring plan. The typology enables a comparative analysis of the status and trends of restoration activities across Latin America. We conclude that, despite growing awareness and recognition that integrated approaches are needed to revert complex and interconnected socio-economic and environmental issues like land degrada-tion, the socio-economic dimension remains underexposed in the majority of restoration projects, whereas monitoring is still regarded as an extra cost instead of a necessary investment.