The beautiful mountainous Doi Mae Salong region in Thailand is blessed with an abundant nature and fantastic scenery. It is not surprising to see that the region is very popular amongst ecotourists. However, over the last decades the pristine nature has changed, and not in a very positive way. In the 70’s and 80’s commercial logging cleared large patches of forests, which had disastrous effects on the functioning of local ecosystems. This resulted in floods and landslides in 1988, destroying 40.000 homes. Measures were taken and commercial logging was banned. However, after this event agricultural extension and rotational farming still continued degradation of the forest and forest landscape. Fortunately, recently initiatives have started to restore the landscape. The IUCN Livelihoods and Landscapes programme, primarily aiming at alleviating poverty through forest restoration, is cooperating with local inhabitants to develop solutions. Adaptive management, sustainable management for the harnessing of ecosystem services and redesigning forests for an increased resilience and optimal human utilisation, action-reflection processes and a bottom-up approach are some of the key aspects of the programme. So far, a multi-stakeholder working group for joint decision making has been established to form the basis for further participative management efforts.