Editorial

4 November 2024

Environmental degradation and deforestation are major crises driving the loss of global forest cover throughout the twentieth century. Global population growth, urbanisation, high frequencies of natural disasters and unprecedented climatic anomalies underly these forces. The impacts are evident in the loss of forest cover, decrease in biodiversity, destructive flooding, loss of soil resources, frequent social conflicts and food insecurity, especially in the Global South.

In the last half of the 20th century, global treaties, conventions, protocols and charters have focused on how to recover lost landscapes. Sustainability as a developmental philosophy focusses on biocentrism in the design, planning and management of social, economic and cultural resources. This underpinned the United Nations General Assembly declaration of 2021–2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the goal being to scale up massive restoration of degraded landscapes.

'Regenerative landscape' is a term that recently emerged in the holistic management of ecosystems, hinged on the idea that ecological restoration should go beyond sustainability to embrace the regeneration of a resilient landscape for a particular context.

Regenerative landscape is deeply rooted in the principles of sustainability, socio-ecological resilience, equity and justice, and local livelihood promotion. The perspective of socio-ecological wellbeing accommodates inclusive landscape design and planning, promotes gender sensitivity and acknowledges indigenous people’s rights.

The principle of a circular bio-economy is important in regenerative landscape projects in terms of viable community livelihoods using sustainable local business models. These principles are explored in the diverse projects and studies in this edition of the Journal.