Community-led landscape regeneration: A review of and framework for engagement in restoration initiatives

With growing calls for people-centred and equitable approaches to regeneration and restoration, this review paper contributes to enhancing understanding of the role of communities in restoring landscapes across the world. Addressing the lack of clarity around tangible pathways for equitable and inclusive forms of landscape regeneration, we focus on exploring the practices and forms through which communities engage with landscape regeneration and restoration. We undertake a systematic review of an international selection of community-based landscape regeneration initiatives worldwide to better understand how communities engage with, manage and lead regeneration practices. We map landscape regeneration and restoration initiatives across international contexts based on four themes around community organisation, land ownership, engagement and land values. Borne out of this review, we propose an analytical framework for community-based landscape regeneration in order to support and mobilise more democratic and socially just approaches to ecological regeneration initiatives.