We would like to thank the authors for putting together the papers that make up this special issue. We also wish to acknowledge support from the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative (ELTI: https://environment.yale.edu/elti/) of Yale University that hosting and the University of Peradeniya and Peradeniya Botanical Gardens for facilitating the conference that
stimulated the idea of publishing the presentations. ELTI is a capacity building organization devoted to training environmental professionals from tropical forest countries around forest restoration. The program is supported by a generous gift from the Arcadia Fund.