Ecological restoration is increasingly studied and applied worldwide, yet there is little consensus on general guidelines, thresholds and applicability that could guide restoration practice. Two critical questions are: when and where restoration really is the best management option? Here I propose to address both questions in two different studies using global and regional analyses. The first is based on a meta-analysis using data on restoration success from 327 studies worldwide, together with forest maps for each one of the studies. This is the largest and most comprehensive database built to date to investigate: i) the effects of landscape and local scale on restoration success, ii) potential thresholds for restoration success, and iii) general knowledge on restoration success that could provide a synthesis and a general guidelines for restoration researches and practitioners. The analysis and written will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. David Lindenmayer, whose research fits well into CEED’s Environmental Policy & Management Evaluation, and Ecological Theory and Processes themes, because his groups specialises on habitat restoration and fragmentation. In the second study, I will downscale the analysis, applying knowledge acquired in the first study, together with systematic planning, to identify priority areas for restoration in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot. I also propose to consider the effectiveness of species conservation through habitat restoration explicitly considering spatial and temporal restoration dynamics. This study will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Hugh Possingham, with the contribution of Prof. David Lindenmayer. Both are involved in CEED’s Environmental Policy & Management Evaluation theme, that aims towards supporting decision-orientated science on-the-ground.