Overcoming the mismatch between restoration planning and implementation: The critical role of smallholders in Chile

Global restoration targets often rely on restoration prioritization maps that highlight areas with high ecological potential, yet real-world implementation frequently diverges due to land tenure, governance, and local socio-economic conditions.
Following a large-scale forest fire in 2017 that burned over 500,000 hectares, Chile’s Ministry of Environment designated 270,677 hectares as priority zones for landscape restoration in the Maule Region of central Chile. Using this context as a case study, we show how smallholders play a decisive role in shaping where and how restoration actually occurs on-the-ground.
A comparison with official records and field data from 1,922 hectares of forest restoration implemented between 2017 and 2024 reveals a clear disconnect: only 12.7% of this restored area overlapped with the 270,677 hectares designated by the government as priority zones. Instead, 87% of the total restored area occurred on lands owned by private smallholders, even though they collect..., Data collected through document review and geospatial data processing using shapefiles.
, # Data from: Overcoming the mismatch between restoration planning and implementation: The critical role of smallholders in Chile

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.4j0zpc8s2](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4j0zpc8s2)

## Description of the data and file structure

The documents contain the general database of the study. 

1. **Priority_restoration_area_Maule_Chile_2017_19.zip**\
This shapefile corresponds to the official restoration priority areas for the Maule Region, Chile, defined by the Chilean Ministry of the Environment (MMA) following the 2016–2017 megafires. These data originate from the public project:\
*“Planificación ecológica de la infraestructura ecológica de la biodiversidad y sus servicios ecosistémicos y programa regional de prioridades de restauración ecológica en el contexto de los incendios de la temporada 2016–2017: aplicación en Región del Maule”* (Public tender ID: 608897-95-LP17).\
The dataset includes polygon geometries with attributes describing priority class...,