There is much political will to meet ambitious goals on forest restoration – just think of the commitment and cooperation achieved in initiating the Aichi Targets, Bonn Challenge and New York Declaration on Forests. …The numbers may be big, but their implications for the global potential for climate change mitigation are unclear. Above all, they depend on the way the multiplicity of restorative strategies are implemented, for which reason and for how long. Many restoration initiatives tend to be area- or project-focused, while a better approach would be to implement a more comprehensive approach to forest landscape restoration. …For climate change mitigation, forest landscape restoration is also just one among many possible management alternatives, but it is one that is thought to have large carbon sink potentials.