{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,11]],"date-time":"2026-03-11T08:15:18Z","timestamp":1773216918742,"version":"3.50.1"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"group-title":"SSRN","reference-count":0,"publisher":"Elsevier BV","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"abstract":"<jats:p>The European Nature Restoration Regulation stipulates the commitment of the European Union to restoration and regeneration of forests, but we still lack a clear understanding of what constitutes success in forest restoration. We made a holistic coupling of a literature search and a practitioner's survey across Europe, which revealed a literature-practitioners' trap related to the assessment of restoration success. A vast and distinct set of indicators is used in the scientific literature (n=129) and by forest practitioners' (n=66) to assess success, with a moderately low agreement between both groups even for the top ranked indicators (rank-biased overlap = 0.50). Survival rates, seedling growth and species composition were the only shared indicators in the top list of literature and practitioners'. Success assessment remains substantially linked to physical\/structural indicators and at a less extent to composition\/biodiversity. Socalled economic, social or environmental services indicators persists negligible. While the establishment of an EU environmental forest policy is still in progress, vast indicators sets and lack of consensus between science and practitioners' indicators downgrades European readiness to truly understand transformation through the restoration strategy. De-trapping forest restoration success assessment will require convergence among different actors and their place-based approaches on a harmonized top list of indicators and allocation of sufficient time in the assessments to truly comprehend success outcomes, namely those associated to socio-economics and biodiversity outcomes that goes much beyond the single planting at which forest restoration is very frequently allied. Integrated science-stakeholder on-the-ground initiatives can have a particular role on this front.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.6072068","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,10]],"date-time":"2026-03-10T10:32:59Z","timestamp":1773138779000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Concordance on Assessment Practices Challenges European Forest Restoration Understanding&lt;\/span&gt;&lt;\/p&gt;"],"prefix":"10.2139","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9462-5938","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Antonio","family":"T. 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