Samenvatting

Many of the world’s forest have been destroyed and degraded, and the Atlantic Rainforest inBrazil is no exception, having its forest cover reduced to 8% of its original size by agriculturalexpansion and natural resource exploitation. Efforts to mitigate deforestation involve reforestation of abandoned or degraded land and are a practical approach to climate change mitigation, restoration of forest services and storing carbon. However, little research has been done on the success of these restoration efforts, and no standards exist that can define restoration success. By the performance of forest surveys, this study gives an overview of success of a restoration effort done by Reserve Ecológica de Guapiaçu (REGUA) in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. Indicators of success were based on diversity, vegetation structure and ecological processes for an afforested area planted by REGUA since 2004. The results of this research show positive indicators for biodiversity and vegetationstructure. With these indicators, this study shows that the plantation method used by REGUA wassuccessful.