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Combatting the global threats to climate and biodiversity require further efforts in conserving earth's key ecosystems such as tropical forests. Today, worldwide conservation strategies have largely focused on protecting old-growth forests. Yet logged forests are more widespread than old-growth forests and harbour huge amounts of biodiversity and carbon stores, providing many ecosystem services and functions. In Borneo, logged forests support the livelihood of half a million indigenous people. Empowering these communities to manage logged forests can result in ecological, social and economic benefits. This study took place in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and focused on logged forests. We investigated how community members value ecosystem services (ES) in terms of importance for their lives, and explored factors influencing their valuation. We combined a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a statistical analysis of respondents' preferences for ES. We present three key findings: 1. Clean water, clean air, regulation of temperature, flood and erosion are the ES ranked as the most important by all community members regardless of their spatial and socio-demographic backgrounds, 2. Prioritization for other ES varied according to members' age, gender, ethnicity, dependence on forest resources and distance to forest, 3. Community members' priorities for ES align with the ecological literature that these services are retained by logged forest. Our results emphasize the need to promote people-centred approaches to design sustainable conservation policies of logged forests in Sabah. • Community members' valuation of ecosystem services were investigated through interviews and ranking exercises in Borneo • Clean water, clean air, regulation of temperature, erosion and floods are the ecosystem services considered essential • Community members' spatial and socio-demographic background influence divergences in prioritizing other ecosystem services • Communities' priorities align with ecological literature highlighting that logged forests can support local communities' needs [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Forest restoration aims to reverse damage, but evaluation of its success is scarce. • We assessed the influence of restoration on forest diversity and structure. • Active restoration enhanced adult tree diversity compared to natural regeneration. • The occurrence of rare adult tree species was promoted. • Restoration interventions are reflected in the forest structure decades after. Forest restoration figures prominently on climate action plans, both in the public and private sector. Restoration has the potential to enhance forest recovery and carbon storage, yet could cause unanticipated alterations of forest biodiversity and functioning. In particular little is known about the long-lasting effects of active forest restoration. We therefore evaluated the effects of such management on adult trees and seedlings of actively restored forest to comparable areas where forest regenerated naturally. We investigated a forest site in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo that is recovering from selective logging between 1981 and 1991. Some of the area has been left to naturally regenerate, and some areas have been actively restored for production purposes between 1994 and 2004 through climber cutting and enrichment-planting of exclusively indigenous tree species. We hypothesized that active forest restoration affects forest diversity and composition negatively (i.e., reduction in diversity and presence of pioneer species), and that the silvicultural interventions had long-lasting effects (i.e., higher density of species that were planted, fewer climbers). Surprisingly, our findings suggest that active forest restoration promoted the recovery of adult tree species diversity, expressed as Shannon Diversity Index, and in particular promoted rare species. In actively restored plots, the number of adult individuals of tree species that were planted was enhanced, and the density of liana seedlings was reduced, demonstrating that these silvicultural interventions were effective and had long-lasting effects on the forest structure. Nevertheless, we could not detect differences in the number of seedlings of species that were planted nor in the density of adult lianas between actively restored and naturally regenerating forest sites. We also did not find differences in the species diversity of seedlings, but we observed a compositional shift in the species community for seedlings that were younger than one year. Furthermore, we did not detect a difference between actively restored and naturally regenerating forest plots in the abundance of the present tree guilds (i.e., pioneer or late-succession species) for neither adult trees nor seedlings, as all of our forest plots were dominated by late-succession species. Our results show that active forest restoration can promote species diversity and highlight that active forest restoration focusing on biomass production does not need to adversely affect biodiversity. This work emphasizes the potential of active forest restoration on biodiversity and potentially other key ecosystem functions which are needed to be restored in order to mitigate climate change and the current ecological crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We censused unlogged, naturally regenerating and actively restored forest in Borneo. • Structure (stems >2 cm DBH) of logged and unlogged forest differed after 23–35 years. • Species richness & diversity were largely unaffected by logging or active restoration. • Tree community composition of logged forest remained distinct from unlogged forest. • Results indicate we should design and monitor restoration for community co-benefits. Selective logging has affected large areas of tropical forests and there is increasing interest in how to manage selectively logged forests to enhance recovery. However, the impacts of logging and active restoration, by liberation cutting and enrichment planting, on tree community composition are poorly understood compared to trajectories of biomass recovery. Here, we assess the long-term impacts of selective logging and active restoration for biomass recovery on tree species diversity, community composition, and forest structure. We censused all stems ≥2 cm diameter at breast height (DBH) on 46 permanent plots in unlogged, primary forest in the Danum Valley Conservation Area (DVCA; 12 plots, totalling 0.6 ha) and in sites logged 23–35 years prior to the census in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve adjacent to DVCA (34 plots, totalling 1.7 ha) in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Active restoration treatments, including enrichment planting and climber cutting, were implemented on 17 of the logged forest plots 12–24 years prior to the census. Total plot-level basal area and pole (5–10 cm DBH) stem density were lower in logged than unlogged forests, however no difference was found in stem density amongst saplings (2–5 cm DBH) or established trees (≥10 cm DBH). Neither basal area, nor plot-level stem density varied with time since logging at any size class, although sapling and pole stem densities were lower in actively restored than naturally regenerating logged forest. Sapling species diversity was lower in logged than unlogged forest, however there were no other significant effects of logging on tree species richness or diversity indices. Tree species composition, however, differed between logged and unlogged forests across all stem size classes (PERMANOVA), reflected by 23 significant indicator species that were only present in unlogged forest. PERMANOVA tests revealed no evidence that overall species composition changed with time since logging or with active restoration treatments at any size class. However, when naturally regenerating and actively restored communities were compared, two indicator species were identified in naturally regenerating forest and three in actively restored forests. Together our results suggest that selective logging has a lasting effect on tree community composition regardless of active restoration treatments and, even when species richness and diversity are stable, species composition remains distinct from unlogged forest for more than two decades post-harvest. Active restoration efforts should be targeted, monitored, and refined to try to ensure positive outcomes for multiple metrics of forest recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]