Data from: bringing the forest back: restoration priorities in Colombia

<p><strong>Aim:</strong> Colombia has committed to ambitious forest restoration targets which include a one million ha Bonn Challenge commitment and 6.47 - 8.31 million ha <a>(</a>rehabilitation and restoration, respectively) under the National Restoration Plan. Determining where and how to implement programs to achieve these targets remains a significant challenge.</p> <p><strong>Location:</strong> Colombia</p> <p><strong>Methods:</strong> We adopt a multi-objective optimisation framework for restoration planning and apply it to Colombia. We explore cost-effective solutions that leverage the potential for assisted natural regeneration benefits while accounting for opportunity and establishment costs of restoration and maximising biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation benefits. We explore four politically relevant restoration areal targets (one, six, 6.47 and 8.31 million ha) and identify minimum cost, and suites of maximum benefit and cost-effective solutions.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> We identify solutions that simultaneously perform well across biodiversity and carbon objectives, despite trade-offs between these objectives. We find that cost-effective solutions can achieve on average 91.1%, 90.8%, 90.5%, and 90.1% of maximum carbon benefit and 100% of the maximum biodiversity benefit while significantly reducing costs. On average, the maximum benefit solutions reduce the cost by 16.9%, 30.2%, 31.1%, and 34.4% when considering the one, six, 6.47 and 8.31 million ha restoration targets respectively.</p> <p><strong>Main conclusions:</strong> Colombia has committed to bold restoration and conservation targets, such as those under the new 2030 Convention on Biological Diversity Global Biodiversity Framework. Strategic forest restoration planning will play an important role in achieving Colombia's climate mitigation goals. We provide quantitative evidence to inform planning for environmentally and economically sensible restoration policy and practice in the country. Our framework and results can help guide Colombia towards meeting its ambitious forest restoration targets cost-effectively.</p>