Exploring the potential of food forestry to assist in ecological restoration in North America and beyond

Food forests—edible, perennial, polyculture systems—are of increasing interest in North America and the United Kingdom, as reflected in projects ranging from urban food initiatives to integrated conservation and restoration planning. To examine emerging food forestry (FF) against the backdrop of ecological restoration (ER), we conducted semi-structured interviews with eight experts each from the fields of FF and ER in conjunction with observations of food forests in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Using content analysis, our study builds a FF model that encompasses the underlying goals of emerging FF—forest function; diversity of yields; education and culture sharing; healthy habitats for people and other species; and sustainability. We argue that FF has potential as an urban restoration tool in terms of enhancing the multifunctionality of heterogeneous landscapes undergoing significant changes. This will require meaningful consideration of ethical issues (e.g. commodification of nature), landscape contexts, ecological integrity, integration of historical knowledge, and resilience for interdependent, dynamic social and ecological systems. Moreover, systematic, long-term monitoring of different types of food forests will be crucial in order to mindfully apply FF in ER. This research provides one of the first in-depth analyses of how emerging FF might contribute to restoration in the time of the Anthropocene, especially outside traditional tropic regions where most FF has been practiced.