Trees, carbon, and the psychology of landscapes
Authors: Lindsey Gillson, M. Timm Hoffman, Peter A. Gell, Anneli Ekblom, William J. Bond
Journal: Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2023)

Afforestation has emerged as a major tool in climate mitigation, but plantations of non-native species can negatively affect biodiversity and ecosystem services.Planting indigenous trees in areas that were formerly forested requires an understanding of landscape history over centennial–millennial timescales derived from palaeoecology.Ancient open and mosaic ecosystems are particularly threatened by the global drive for tree planting, which is based on an assumption of degradation.Assumptions that open or mosaic landscapes are remnants of degraded forests is a type of attribution error that can be corrected through an understanding of landscape history.Cultural landscape mosaics can also have benefits in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services when compared with closed-canopy forests.We propose that testing a null hypothesis regarding former forest cover will assist in correct landscape attribution, guiding reforestation and restoration that reflects landscape history and local context. Mitigating climate change while safeguarding biodiversity and livelihoods is a major challenge. However, rampant afforestation threatens biodiversity and livelihoods, with questionable benefits to carbon storage. The narrative of landscape degradation is often applied without considering the history of the landscape. While some landscapes are undoubtedly deforested, others existed in open or mosaic states before human intervention, or have been deliberately maintained as such. In psychology, a 'fundamental attribution error' is made when characteristics are attributed without consideration of context or circumstances. We apply this concept to landscapes, and then propose a process that avoids attribution errors by testing a null hypothesis regarding past forest extent, using palaeoecology and other long-term data, alongside ecological and stakeholder knowledge. Mitigating climate change while safeguarding biodiversity and livelihoods is a major challenge. However, rampant afforestation threatens biodiversity and livelihoods, with questionable benefits to carbon storage. The narrative of landscape degradation is often applied without considering the history of the landscape. While some landscapes are undoubtedly deforested, others existed in open or mosaic states before human intervention, or have been deliberately maintained as such. In psychology, a 'fundamental attribution error' is made when characteristics are attributed without consideration of context or circumstances. We apply this concept to landscapes, and then propose a process that avoids attribution errors by testing a null hypothesis regarding past forest extent, using palaeoecology and other long-term data, alongside ecological and stakeholder knowledge. The urgent need to mitigate climate change has driven tree planting as a means of carbon capture via initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge (https://www.bonnchallenge.org/). However, non-native tree plantations have been extensively criticised due to the impact on soil, water, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services (e.g., [1.Bond W.J. et al.The trouble with trees: afforestation plans for Africa.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2019; 34: 963-965Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (167) Google Scholar,2.Vetter S. With power comes responsibility – a rangelands perspective on forest landscape restoration.Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 2020; 4: 225Crossref Scopus (18) Google Scholar]). The problem is particularly acute in ancient open ecosystems (e.g., grassland and ericaceous heathlands) and mosaic ecosystems, which are frequently wrongly assumed to be the degraded remnants of previously forested landscapes. The importance of such landscapes as carbon sinks has also been underestimated due to the tendency to calculate carbon stocks based on above-ground biomass, whereas most carbon is stored in soils [3.Veldman J.W. et al.Comment on 'The global tree restoration potential'.Science. 2019; 366eaay7976Crossref PubMed Scopus (156) Google Scholar]. Principles and guidelines have emerged to guide ecological restoration [4.Di Sacco A. et al.Ten golden rules for reforestation to optimize carbon sequestration, biodiversity recovery and livelihood benefits.Glob. Chang. Biol. 2021; 27: 1328-1348Crossref PubMed Scopus (291) Google Scholar, 5.Brancalion P.H.S. Chazdon R.L. Beyond hectares: four principles to guide reforestation in the context of tropical forest and landscape restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2017; 25: 491-496Crossref Scopus (102) Google Scholar, 6.FAO, I., CEM, and SER, Principles for ecosystem restoration to guide the United Nations Decade 2021–2030. FAO, Published online 2021. https://www.fao.org/3/cb6591en/cb6591en.pdf.Google Scholar, 7.Gann G.D. et al.International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2019; 27: S1-S46Crossref Scopus (820) Google Scholar], including restrictions on the use of non-native trees and the need for proper consideration of landscape history, democratic principles, equity, and livelihoods [6.FAO, I., CEM, and SER, Principles for ecosystem restoration to guide the United Nations Decade 2021–2030. FAO, Published online 2021. https://www.fao.org/3/cb6591en/cb6591en.pdf.Google Scholar, 7.Gann G.D. et al.International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2019; 27: S1-S46Crossref Scopus (820) Google Scholar, 8.Fischer J. et al.Making the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration a social-ecological endeavour.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2020; 36: 20-28Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (187) Google Scholar, 9.Edrisi S.A. Abhilash P. Need of transdisciplinary research for accelerating land restoration during UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2021; 29e13531Crossref PubMed Scopus (30) Google Scholar, 10.Robinson J.M. et al.Traditional ecological knowledge in restoration ecology: a call to listen deeply, to engage with, and respect indigenous voices.Restor. Ecol. 2021; 29e13381Crossref PubMed Scopus (35) Google Scholar]. The 'International Principles and Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration' require actions 'informed by native reference ecosystems, while considering environmental change' [7.Gann G.D. et al.International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2019; 27: S1-S46Crossref Scopus (820) Google Scholar]. However, what needs to be explored further and defined methodologically is how to properly delineate the extent and composition of areas that were formerly forested on the one hand and, on the other hand, how to appropriately value the biodiversity and cultural benefits of open and mosaic ecosystems [3.Veldman J.W. et al.Comment on 'The global tree restoration potential'.Science. 2019; 366eaay7976Crossref PubMed Scopus (156) Google Scholar,11.Veldman J.W. Clarifying the confusion: old-growth savannahs and tropical ecosystem degradation.Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 2016; 37120150306Crossref PubMed Scopus (78) Google Scholar, 12.Veldman J.W. et al.Toward an old-growth concept for grasslands, savannas, and woodlands.Front. Ecol. Environ. 2015; 13: 154-162Crossref Scopus (355) Google Scholar, 13.Bond W. Zaloumis N.P. The deforestation story: testing for anthropogenic origins of Africa's flammable grassy biomes.Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B. 2016; 37120150170Crossref Scopus (43) Google Scholar, 14.Zaloumis N.P. Bond W.J. Grassland restoration after afforestation: no direction home?.Austral Ecol. 2011; 36: 357-366Crossref Scopus (75) Google Scholar]. While satellite imagery is commonly used to track rates of deforestation over time [15.Hoang N.T. Kanemoto K. Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests.Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2021; 5: 845-853Crossref PubMed Scopus (144) Google Scholar], these data do not extend back far enough to define vegetation composition prior to intensive human impact. Deforested areas are commonly defined as those that contained forests 50 years ago, but which do not carry forests today [16.Bredemeier M. Dohrenbusch A. Afforestation and reforestation.Biodivers. Struct. Funct. 2009; 2: 219Google Scholar]. This 1970s baseline postdates an accelerated increase in human impact, fossil fuel emissions, and land conversions (the 'great acceleration' from the 1950s onwards), and represents a period of time when landscapes had already been dramatically transformed over centuries – and sometimes millennia – of human occupation and management [17.Steffen W. et al.The trajectory of the Anthropocene: the great acceleration.Anthropol. Rev. 2015; 2: 81-98Crossref Scopus (1918) Google Scholar]. Comparing the past few decades in the context of longer-term change based on palaeoecological, historical, and archaeological data provides the basis for more holistic carbon mitigation and restoration interventions that consider the climatic, ecological, and social history of landscapes [18.Williams A.N. et al.Exploring the relationship between Aboriginal population indices and fire in Australia over the last 20 000 years.Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 2015; 432: 49-57Crossref Scopus (39) Google Scholar,19.Vera F. Grazing Ecology and Forest History. CAB International, 2000Crossref Google Scholar], including ancient open and mosaic landscapes, some of which may have been culturally derived. The appropriate timescale and interpretation of landscape history will depend on local context and the biocultural significance of current and past land cover. A consideration of shifts in vegetation structure and composition spanning the past 500 years would provide evidence of how vegetation was impacted by the disruption of traditional management practices through European colonisation and/or the onset of industrialisation, urbanisation, and intensive agriculture and forestry, for example. Longer time periods (1000–10 000 years) will be required to explore the effects of long-term management of ecosystems, for example, through the management of wood pastures, the manipulation of fire, the introduction of pastoralism, and other social‐ecological processes that influence tree cover [18.Williams A.N. et al.Exploring the relationship between Aboriginal population indices and fire in Australia over the last 20 000 years.Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 2015; 432: 49-57Crossref Scopus (39) Google Scholar,19.Vera F. Grazing Ecology and Forest History. CAB International, 2000Crossref Google Scholar]. This information could potentially be embedded in principles and guidelines for restoration and tree planting that considers both ecological and cultural history [20.Gillson L. et al.Using long-term data to inform a decision pathway for restoration of ecosystem resilience.Anthropocene. 2021; 36100315Crossref Scopus (14) Google Scholar]. Palaeoecology is the study of past environmental change through the analysis of various 'proxies', including fossil pollen, charcoal, spores, isotopes, and DNA. These data can be used to reconstruct changes in vegetation, fire, herbivory, and climate over time. A multiproxy approach can elucidate how vegetation has responded to multiple interacting drivers, including climate and disturbance (see Figure S1 in the supplemental information online for examples of palaeoecological data showing changes in tree abundance over time). Although there are examples of how data on long-term changes can be applied in managing and restoring terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems (e.g., see [21.Davidson N. Understanding change in the ecological character of internationally important wetlands.Mar. Freshw. Res. 2016; 67: 685-686Crossref Scopus (13) Google Scholar, 22.Newall P.R. et al.Implications of environmental trajectories for limits of acceptable change: a case study of the Riverland Ramsar site, South Australia.Mar. Freshw. Res. 2015; 67: 738-747Crossref Scopus (11) Google Scholar, 23.Finlayson C.M. et al.Role of palaeoecology in describing the ecological character of wetlands.Mar. Freshw. Res. 2017; 67: 687-694Crossref Scopus (36) Google Scholar]), palaeoecological data are still not routinely incorporated into restoration ecology. The palaeoecological record has proved valuable in providing reference conditions that reflect ecological dynamics during environmental change [20.Gillson L. et al.Using long-term data to inform a decision pathway for restoration of ecosystem resilience.Anthropocene. 2021; 36100315Crossref Scopus (14) Google Scholar,24.Wingard G.L. et al.The role of paleoecology in restoration and resource management – the past as a guide to future decision-making: review and example from the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, USA.Front. Ecol. Evol. 2017; 5: 11Crossref Scopus (39) Google Scholar,25.Barak R.S. et al.Taking the long view: integrating recorded, archeological, paleoecological, and evolutionary data into ecological restoration.Int. J. Plant Sci. 2016; 177: 90-102Crossref Scopus (35) Google Scholar]. For example, palaeoecological data have shown the ecological effects of megafaunal extinction with subsequent impacts on vegetation structure, biomass accumulation, and fire regimes [26.Johnson C.N. Ecological consequences of Late Quaternary extinctions of megafauna.Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 2009; 276: 2509-2519Crossref PubMed Scopus (222) Google Scholar, 27.Ripple W.J. Van Valkenburgh B. Linking top-down forces to the Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions.BioScience. 2010; 60: 516-526Crossref Scopus (84) Google Scholar, 28.Rule S. et al.The aftermath of megafaunal extinction: ecosystem transformation in Pleistocene Australia.Science. 2012; 335: 1483-1486Crossref PubMed Scopus (243) Google Scholar, 29.Brault M.-O. et al.Assessing the impact of late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions on global vegetation and climate.Clim. Past. 2013; 9: 1761-1771Crossref Scopus (12) Google Scholar, 30.Mariani M. et al.Disruption of cultural burning promotes shrub encroachment and unprecedented wildfires.Front. Ecol. Environ. 2022; 20: 292-300Crossref Scopus (48) Google Scholar, 31.Humphrey G.J. et al.How changing fire management policies affect fire seasonality and livelihoods.Ambio. 2020; 50: 475-491Crossref PubMed Scopus (18) Google Scholar]. This information is useful when considering reintroduction of herbivores and other rewilding initiatives [32.Wood J.R. Wilmshurst J.M. Changes in New Zealand forest plant communities following the prehistoric extinction of avian megaherbivores.J. Veg. Sci. 2017; 28: 160-171Crossref Scopus (10) Google Scholar, 33.Wood J.R. Wilmshurst J.M. Comparing the effects of asynchronous herbivores on New Zealand montane vegetation communities.Plos One. 2019; 14e0214959Crossref Scopus (6) Google Scholar, 34.Goodenough A.E. Webb J.C. Learning from the past: opportunities for advancing ecological research and practice using palaeoecological data.Oecologia. 2022; 199: 275-287Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar]. In Australia, Africa, and North America, charcoal records and burn scars have illustrated the effects of European policies of fire suppression and disruption of traditional fire management [35.Moura L.C. et al.The legacy of colonial fire management policies on traditional livelihoods and ecological sustainability in savannas: impacts, consequences, new directions.J. Environ. Manag. 2019; 232: 600-606Crossref PubMed Scopus (70) Google Scholar, 36.Laris P. Wardell D.A. Good, bad or 'necessary evil'? Reinterpreting the colonial burning experiments in the savanna landscapes of West Africa.Geogr. J. 2006; 172: 271-290Crossref Scopus (123) Google Scholar, 37.Mueller N.G. Indigenous people prevented climate-induced ecological change for millennia: evidence from the prairie peninsula and fire-loving forests of Eastern North America.in: Whitaker J.A. Armstrong C.A. Odonne G. Climatic and Ecological Change in the Americas. 2023: 74-86Crossref Scopus (1) Google Scholar, 38.Liebmann M.J. et al.Native American depopulation, reforestation, and fire regimes in the Southwest United States, 1492–1900 CE.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2016; 113: E696-E704Crossref PubMed Scopus (92) Google Scholar], data that can guide restoration of fire regimes towards their historical range of variability [39.North M.P. Keeton W.S. Emulating natural disturbance regimes: an emerging approach for sustainable forest management.in: Lafortezza R. Sanesi G. Chen J. Crow T.R. Patterns and Processes in Forest Landscapes. Springer, 2008: 341-372Crossref Google Scholar, 40.Edwards A. et al.Transforming fire management in northern Australia through successful implementation of savanna burning emissions reductions projects.J. Environ. Manag. 2021; 290112568Crossref PubMed Scopus (32) Google Scholar, 41.Conedera M. et al.Reconstructing past fire regimes: methods, applications, and relevance to fire management and conservation.Quat. Sci. Rev. 2009; 28: 555-576Crossref Scopus (384) Google Scholar, 42.Roos C.I. et al.Native American fire management at an ancient wildland–urban interface in the Southwest United States.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2021; 118e2018733118Crossref Scopus (61) Google Scholar, 43.Copes-Gerbitz K. et al.Situating indigenous knowledge for resilience in fire-dependent social-ecological systems.Ecol. Soc. 2021; 26: 25Crossref Scopus (16) Google Scholar]. In the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), Australia, changes in key ecological parameters extending beyond the arrival and settlement of Europeans are used in defining limits of acceptable change [22.Newall P.R. et al.Implications of environmental trajectories for limits of acceptable change: a case study of the Riverland Ramsar site, South Australia.Mar. Freshw. Res. 2015; 67: 738-747Crossref Scopus (11) Google Scholar]. These limits are based on timescales that encompass the variability engendered in slow processes that play out over timescales of centuries to millennia [23.Finlayson C.M. et al.Role of palaeoecology in describing the ecological character of wetlands.Mar. Freshw. Res. 2017; 67: 687-694Crossref Scopus (36) Google Scholar]. In Europe, loss of megafauna and the abandonment of traditional practices (including grazing and mowing) have been associated with loss of landscape heterogeneity and biodiversity (e.g., [44.Feurdean A.N. Forest conservation in a changing world: natural or cultural? Example from the Western Carpathians forests, Romania.Studia UBB, Geologia. 2010; 55: 45-48Crossref Google Scholar, 45.Dahlström A. et al.Managing biodiversity rich hay meadows in the EU: a comparison of Swedish and Romanian grasslands.Environ. Conserv. 2013; 40: 194-205Crossref Scopus (65) Google Scholar, 46.Agnoletti M. The degradation of traditional landscape in a mountain area of Tuscany during the 19th and 20th centuries: implications for biodiversity and sustainable management.For. Ecol. Manag. 2007; 249: 5-17Crossref Scopus (170) Google Scholar]). Land abandonment in the Mediterranean has caused landscape homogenization and a rise in the likelihood of wildfires [47.Ursino N. Romano N. Wild forest fire regime following land abandonment in the Mediterranean region.Geophys. Res. Lett. 2014; 41: 8359-8368Crossref Scopus (31) Google Scholar, 48.Salis M. et al.Spatial patterns and intensity of land abandonment drive wildfire hazard and likelihood in Mediterranean agropastoral areas.Land. 2022; 11: 1942Crossref Scopus (10) Google Scholar, 49.Shakesby R. Post-wildfire soil erosion in the Mediterranean: review and future research directions.Earth Sci. Rev. 2011; 105: 71-100Crossref Scopus (546) Google Scholar]. Such studies can guide restoration initiatives based on the reintroduction of grazing and controlled burning to reinstate heterogenous mosaic landscapes associated with higher biodiversity [49.Shakesby R. Post-wildfire soil erosion in the Mediterranean: review and future research directions.Earth Sci. Rev. 2011; 105: 71-100Crossref Scopus (546) Google Scholar, 50.Rouet-Leduc J. et al.Effects of large herbivores on fire regimes and wildfire mitigation.J. Appl. Ecol. 2021; 58: 2690-2702Crossref Scopus (37) Google Scholar, 51.García-Ruiz J.M. et al.Rewilding and restoring cultural landscapes in Mediterranean mountains: opportunities and challenges.Land Use Policy. 2020; 99104850Crossref Scopus (63) Google Scholar]. Despite growing interest in the relevance of long-term data in ecosystem management [20.Gillson L. et al.Using long-term data to inform a decision pathway for restoration of ecosystem resilience.Anthropocene. 2021; 36100315Crossref Scopus (14) Google Scholar,24.Wingard G.L. et al.The role of paleoecology in restoration and resource management – the past as a guide to future decision-making: review and example from the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, USA.Front. Ecol. Evol. 2017; 5: 11Crossref Scopus (39) Google Scholar,25.Barak R.S. et al.Taking the long view: integrating recorded, archeological, paleoecological, and evolutionary data into ecological restoration.Int. J. Plant Sci. 2016; 177: 90-102Crossref Scopus (35) Google Scholar], and recognition of the importance of using indigenous species in restoration [6.FAO, I., CEM, and SER, Principles for ecosystem restoration to guide the United Nations Decade 2021–2030. FAO, Published online 2021. https://www.fao.org/3/cb6591en/cb6591en.pdf.Google Scholar,7.Gann G.D. et al.International principles and standards for the practice of ecological restoration.Restor. Ecol. 2019; 27: S1-S46Crossref Scopus (820) Google Scholar], there is as yet no generalised process to incorporate palaeoecological data into restoration ecology, and palaeoecology is lacking from restoration guidelines and principles [20.Gillson L. et al.Using long-term data to inform a decision pathway for restoration of ecosystem resilience.Anthropocene. 2021; 36100315Crossref Scopus (14) Google Scholar]. Frequently, understanding of vegetation history is embedded in narratives of degradation which assume a trajectory of environmental decline. According to this narrative, open and mosaic landscapes are degraded forests [52.Van Der Leeuw S. The role of narratives in human–environmental relations: an essay on elaborating win–win solutions to climate change and sustainability.Clim. Chang. 2020; 160: 509-519Crossref Scopus (30) Google Scholar,53.Davis D.K. Deserting arboreal (bio)politics.in: Soulard I. Manual for a Future Desert. Mousse Publishing, 2021: 41-54Google Scholar]. This narrative is underpinned by ecological assumptions that forests are the climax vegetation and that continuous canopy cover is the desired state [53.Davis D.K. Deserting arboreal (bio)politics.in: Soulard I. Manual for a Future Desert. Mousse Publishing, 2021: 41-54Google Scholar, 54.Davis D.K. Potential forests: degradation narratives, science, and environmental policy in protectorate Morocco, 1912–1956.Environ. Hist. 2005; 10: 211-238Crossref Scopus (37) Google Scholar, 55.Hajdu F. Fischer K. Problems, causes and solutions in the forest carbon discourse: a framework for analysing degradation narratives.Clim. Dev. 2017; 9: 537-547Crossref Scopus (11) Google Scholar, 56.Pollini J. Environmental degradation narratives in Madagascar: from colonial hegemonies to humanist revisionism.Geoforum. 2010; 41: 711-722Crossref Scopus (25) Google Scholar, 57.Davis D.K. The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge. MIT Press, 2016Crossref Google Scholar]. This perspective has been robustly challenged by many (e.g., [1.Bond W.J. et al.The trouble with trees: afforestation plans for Africa.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2019; 34: 963-965Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (167) Google Scholar,3.Veldman J.W. et al.Comment on 'The global tree restoration potential'.Science. 2019; 366eaay7976Crossref PubMed Scopus (156) Google Scholar,58.Bond W.J. Open Ecosystems: Ecology and Evolution Beyond the Forest Edge. Oxford University Press, 2019Crossref Google Scholar,59.Parr C.L. et al.Tropical grassy biomes: misunderstood, neglected, and under threat.Trends Ecol. Evol. 2014; 29: 205-213Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (392) Google Scholar]) who show that ancient open and mosaic landscapes – including grasslands, savanna, and heathlands – are widespread throughout the terrestrial biosphere, and pre-date human influence in many cases. Such landscapes are considered to be threatened by woody plant encroachment which reduces habitat availability for species adapted to open environments and reduces ecosystem services such as grazing and game-viewing potential [60.Eastment C. et al.The influence of contrasting fire management practice on bush encroachment: lessons from Bwabwata National Park, Namibia.J. Veg. Sci. 2022; 33e13123Crossref PubMed Scopus (6) Google Scholar, 61.O'Connor T.G. et al.Bush encroachment in southern Africa: changes and causes.Afr. J. Range Forage Sci. 2014; 31: 67-88Crossref Scopus (265) Google Scholar, 62.Carson J.F. et al.Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2014; 111: 10497-10502Crossref PubMed Scopus (83) Google Scholar, 63.Tabares X. et al.Vegetation state changes in the course of shrub encroachment in an African savanna since about 1850 CE and their potential drivers.Ecol. Evol. 2020; 10: 962-979Crossref PubMed Scopus (16) Google Scholar] (Figure S1). Nevertheless, as part of the degradation narrative and an arborcentric viewpoint, human mismanagement is implied as the cause of incomplete tree canopy cover [53.Davis D.K. Deserting arboreal (bio)politics.in: Soulard I. Manual for a Future Desert. Mousse Publishing, 2021: 41-54Google Scholar], an assumption that is reinforced by very real concerns about deforestation in some areas [15.Hoang N.T. Kanemoto K. Mapping the deforestation footprint of nations reveals growing threat to tropical forests.Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2021; 5: 845-853Crossref PubMed Scopus (144) Google Scholar,64.Vieilledent G. et al.Combining global tree cover loss data with historical national forest cover maps to look at six decades of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Madagascar.Biol. Conserv. 2018; 222: 189-197Crossref Scopus (251) Google Scholar]. In conservation psychology [65.Clayton S. Brook A. Can psychology help save the world? A model for conservation psychology.Anal. Soc. Issues Public Policy. 2005; 5: 87-102Crossref Scopus (106) Google Scholar], interpretations and assumptions about landscapes arise at least in part because of our own biases and past experience. The degradation narrative is deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of those who were raised on fortress conservation and variants of this model, which assumes that human influence is intrinsically bad [57.Davis D.K. The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge. MIT Press, 2016Crossref Google Scholar,66.Coetzee B.W. et al.Reimagining the wilderness ethic to include 'people and nature'.Biodivers. Conserv. 2022; 31: 2893-2898Crossref Scopus (2) Google Scholar,67.Montgomery R.A. et al.Positioning human heritage at the center of conservation practice.Conserv. Biol. 2020; 34: 1122-1130Crossref PubMed Scopus (22) Google Scholar]. The narrative persists despite research showing the long-term prevalence of ancient mosaic and open landscapes across almost 60% of the earth's land surface, maintained by climate, hydrology, herbivory, topography, and fire [13.Bond W. Zaloumis N.P. The deforestation story: testing for anthropogenic origins of Africa's flammable grassy biomes.Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B. 2016; 37120150170Crossref Scopus (43) Google Scholar,58.Bond W.J. Open Ecosystems: Ecology and Evolution Beyond the Forest Edge. Oxford University Press, 2019Crossref Google Scholar,68.Bond W.J. et al.The antiquity of Madagascar's grasslands and the rise of C4 biomes.J. Biogeogr. 2008; 35: 1743-1758Crossref Scopus (130) Google Scholar, 69.Archibald S. et al.Distribution and determinants of savannas.in: Scogings P.F. Sankaran M. Savanna Woody Plants and Large Herbivores. Wiley, 2019: 1-24Crossref Scopus (36) Google Scholar, 70.Buisson E. et al.Resilience and restoration of tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and grassy woodlands.Biol. Rev. 2019; 94: 590-609Crossref PubMed Scopus (191) Google Scholar, 71.Erdős L. et al.How climate, topography, soils, herbivores, and fire control forest–grassland coexistence in the Eurasian forest-steppe.Biol. Rev. 2022; 97: 2195-2208Crossref PubMed Scopus (19) Google Scholar]. The narrative also neglects the proven biodiversity and cultural value of many managed mosaic landscapes, some of which date back several thousand years [44.Feurdean A.N. Forest conservation in a changing world: natural or cultural? Example from the Western Carpathians forests, Romania.Studia UBB, Geologia. 2010; 55: 45-48Crossref Google Scholar,45.Dahlström A. et al.Managing biodiversity rich hay meadows in the EU: a comparison of Swedish and Romanian grasslands.Environ. Conserv. 2013; 40: 194-205Crossref Scopus (65) Google Scholar,51.García-Ruiz J.M. et al.Rewilding and restoring cultural landscapes in Mediterranean mountains: opportunities and challenges.Land Use Policy. 2020; 99104850Crossref Scopus (63) Google Scholar,72.Barthel S. et al.Bio-cultural refugia – safeguarding diversity of practices for food security and biodiversity.Glob. Environ. Chang. 2013; 23: 1142-1152Crossref Scopus (157) Google Scholar]. There are various origins for mosaic landscapes. A mosaic landscape may indeed be the result of partial clearance of a previously forested area. This may be a byproduct of over-harvesting of timber and other forest products (i.e., deforestation, Figure 1A ), or it may be a deliberate manipulation of forest canopy density in order to produce a wider range of habitats and ecosystem services, including open areas that are favoured for grazing (Figure 1B). However, a mosaic landscape could also be the result of interactions among topography, climate, vegetation, and fire (Figure 1C), or could b