In tropical biodiverse landscapes, forest loss, fragmentation, and degradation are major drivers of biodiversity loss. Forest landscape restoration interventions, a popular strategy to address these issues, most often focus on tree planting and overlook other tree-rich systems such as home gardens (HG). This recent study in western Rwanda’s Afromontane rainforest landscape by Sun et al. (2026) aims to assess these two land use types and their respective roles in supporting landscape connectivity and biodiversity.

Rwanda, like many biodiversity-rich tropical countries, is facing land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change, all of which are exacerbated by anthropogenic disturbances and further driven by historical aspects which have placed enormous strain on the country’s landscapes and natural resources…