THE RESTORATION DIAGNOSTIC

The Restoration Diagnostic is a three-step guide developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) to increase the success rate of forest landscape restoration (FLR). By analyzing 16 historical case studies and peer-reviewed literature, WRI identified a suite of 'key success factors' categorized into three themes: motivation, enabling conditions, and implementation capacity. The diagnostic allows users to define a geographic scope, assess the status of these factors (in place, partly in place, or missing), and develop targeted strategies to close identified gaps. The tool is designed for mid-level managers in government, NGOs, and the private sector and serves as a component of the broader Restoration Opportunities Assessment Methodology (ROAM).

• Forest landscape restoration is defined as the process of regaining ecological functionality and enhancing human well-being across deforested or degraded forest landscapes, which can result in various land uses from dense natural forests to agroforestry systems.
• The Restoration Diagnostic consists of a three-step process: selecting the geographic scope (candidate landscape), assessing the status of key success factors, and identifying strategies to address missing factors.
• Certain key success factors are more critical depending on the restoration method; passive restoration requires suitable physical conditions and declining competing land demands, while active restoration requires secure land tenure, local benefits, leadership, and technical know-how.
• A global analysis identified over two billion hectares of cleared or degraded forest landscapes with restoration opportunities, categorized into wide-scale restoration (0.5 billion hectares), mosaic restoration (1.5 billion hectares), and remote restoration.
• The document identifies 'leakage'—where restoration in one area triggers forest clearing in another—as a critical factor to manage to ensure a net global increase in forest area, although it was not present in the historical case examples analyzed.
• Pilot applications of the diagnostic in Rwanda, Brazil's Atlantic forest, and Ecuador demonstrated its utility in identifying specific gaps, such as seed availability and institutional coordination, and prioritizing strategies based on urgency and ease of implementation.

APA

HANSON, C., BUCKINGHAM, K., DEWITT, S., & LAESTADIUS, L. (n.d.). THE RESTORATION DIAGNOSTIC. World Resources Institute. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/WRI_Restoration_Diagnostic_0.pdf

Chicago

HANSON, CRAIG, KATHLEEN BUCKINGHAM, SEAN DEWITT, and LARS LAESTADIUS. THE RESTORATION DIAGNOSTIC. World Resources Institute, n.d. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/WRI_Restoration_Diagnostic_0.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=HANSON |first1=CRAIG |last2=BUCKINGHAM |first2=KATHLEEN |last3=DEWITT |first3=SEAN |last4=LAESTADIUS |first4=LARS |title=THE RESTORATION DIAGNOSTIC |publisher=World Resources Institute |url=https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/WRI_Restoration_Diagnostic_0.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hansonndrestoration, author = {HANSON, CRAIG and BUCKINGHAM, KATHLEEN and DEWITT, SEAN and LAESTADIUS, LARS}, title = {{THE RESTORATION DIAGNOSTIC}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/WRI_Restoration_Diagnostic_0.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }