Managing tree cover to restore farm productivity and build landscape and livelihood resilience in West Africa

Land restoration and sustainable natural resource use are critical societal concerns that impact both the health of ecosystems and human well-being. There is increasing recognition of the importance of restoring degraded land and landscapes, culminating in the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). This special issue sheds light on how trees can help restore landscapes and is organized around 3 domains: ecological and genetic variation, restoration of species and lands, and species management in production systems. Successful tree cover interventions consider species, practices, and their management within the production systems to optimize impacts. A solid understanding of the variation in tree materials and their different functional traits can help restoration project planners and managers select the best interventions, such as direct seeding and Farmers' Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR). Simultaneously, the use of these approaches must be contextspecific and consider the severity of land degradation. The Land Degradation Surveillance Framework (LDSF), a tool that helps determine the severity of land degradation, can be used to help tailor interventions to the local extent of land degradation.