International agreements combined with the recent Chilean Forestry Policy (2015–2035) represent a challenge and an opportunity for forest landscape restoration in Chile. Nevertheless, restoring over 500,000 ha using mainly native species seems like a daunting task by 2035. Here, we discuss the three major bottlenecks that currently constrain the restoration efforts of forest ecosystems in Chile. First, Chile urgently needs a national strategic plan for forest landscape restoration, which should take into account mid‐ and long‐term goals. There is also a need to prioritize resource allocation for efficient use, promoting the creation of economic subsidies for restoration that consider different types of forest ecosystems. Second, there is a great need for better nursery protocols in plant production as well as to strengthen educational programs for professional and technical training, given the lack of high‐quality personnel in Chilean nurseries. This would help increase the currently limited national plant supply, improving quality and increasing the diversity of native species suitable for forest restoration. Lastly, taking advantage of novel eco‐technological tools and promoting innovative plantation design would help to overcome the usually deficient results in the establishment phase, leading to higher survival rates and promoting better performance of native species. Beyond current experiments that are relatively efficient on a small spatial scale, the practice of forest restoration needs to become massive and successful at a landscape scale. More and better applied research is crucial for improving the impact of forest landscape restoration, so that Chile can achieve its forest restoration challenge in the next decade.

The structural complexity of the understory layer of forests or shrub layer vegetation in open shrublands affects many ecosystem functions and services provided by these ecosystems. We investigated how the basal area of the overstory layer, annual and seasonal precipitation, annual mean temperature, as well as light availability affect the structural complexity of the understory layer along a gradient from closed forests to open shrubland with only scattered trees. Using terrestrial laser scanning data and the understory complexity index (UCI), we measured the structural complexity of sites across a wide range of precipitation and temperature, also covering a gradient in light availability and basal area. We found significant relationships between the UCI and tree basal area as well as canopy openness. Structural equation models (SEMs) confirmed significant direct effects of seasonal precipitation on the UCI without mediation through basal area or canopy openness. However, annual precipitation and temperature effects on the UCI are mediated through canopy openness and basal area, respectively. Understory complexity is, despite clear dependencies on the available light and overall stand density, significantly and directly driven by climatic parameters, particularly the amount of precipitation during the driest month.

Facing rapid loss of biodiversity as a consequence of climate change, Chile has formally pledged to restore 600,000 ha of native forest by 2035. This effort, however, has not considered the amount and quality of native plants required to meet this pledge. Thus, we examined data collected during the annual, government-conducted census of small- and medium-sized nurseries from central Chile, which account for 78% of the nation’s total plant production, to assess if current production is sufficient to meet Chile´s restoration needs. We coupled this with data collected during our series of ongoing research projects to determine if nurseries are currently meeting minimum seedling quality standards based on morpho-physiological attributes. Our four-year analysis (2016–2019) shows that the number of native seedlings has increased by only 4%, but because only 19% of nursery managers have training, just 29% of all seedlings meet quality criteria for restoration. Thus, under the current rate and quality of plant production, meeting restoration pledges desired by the year 2035 would not be achieved until 2181. This timeline can be accelerated through an urgent expansion of nursery space, implementation of a continuous program for technology and knowledge transference, and strong support through governmental policies.

When we apply silviculture in the context of forest restoration, we aim at increasing the biodiversity and structural complexity of degraded and fire-disturbed old-growth forests, secondary forests (degraded and with normal density) and exotic monocultures, in order to improve their ecological functionality and maximize the ecosystem services that they provide. This work aims at: a) providing a conceptual framework on the terminology related to forest restoration; b) highlighting the importance of silviculture as a tool for the restoration of forests; and c) recommending some basic questions that help professionals and technicians linked to forest restoration, to dimension the required efforts to apply restoration. Forest restoration in Chile should be based on a pragmatic and functional paradigm that includes a wide range of options or strategies dealing with transformed or degraded forest ecosystems, including ecological restoration, rehabilitation, reconstruction, replacement and conversion. Depending on the initial state in which the ecosystem is and the target state, some of these options will lead the ecosystem back to its historical state and others only will seek to restore some attributes. In this context, silviculture is the key to enrich the concepts of forest restoration, translating these into strategies, techniques and real practical solutions.