Tropical forests are threatened due to forest clearing and fragmentation which lead to a decrease in forest cover area and landscape connectivity, while also increasing edge effects. These impacts affect biodiversity and ecosystem service provision which are essential for humanity's well-being. Protected areas are created to minimize these effects on biodiversity, but many of them are threatened due to forest fragmentation in the surrounding areas. Thus, forest restoration is needed to ensure the suitability of protected areas in the landscape. However, restoration planning needs to adopt an ecological landscape approach to ensure the recovery of the biodiversity and the ecological processes. This study developed a forest sustainability index (FSI) which represents the forest patch potential in facilitating landscape restoration in a protected area and its surroundings. A land-use/land-cover map was used to calculate landscape metrics at two levels: landscape and patch. Landscape metrics were subsequently selected to create the index. The tested landscape presents a great number of fragments with most of them being small in size and having irregular shapes. The focus areas for forest restoration are located close to forest fragments with higher FSI values, as these can facilitate natural restoration and guarantee the maintenance of the ecosystem processes.

The study aimed at verifying the patterns of bird community related to different land-use/land-cover. The study area was a Conservation Unit and its buffer area. We used the fixed-point method, visiting 80 points in five times, through one year. The points were plotted in lands agriculture (AGR) and planted forest (FP) and, in areas covered by native forest (NF). The diversity index (H'), abundance (IPA), richness (X2) and categories of species-trophic were calculated, as well as the difference between H' and X2 according to land-use/land-cover was verified by an ANOVA. We also evaluated the taxonomic and functional similarity of the bird community, based in IPA and bird presence/absence. There were significant differences for both X2 and H', comparing NF and FP; NF and AGRP and; AGRP and FP. Concerning the trophic categories, the significant differences were between NF and AGRP and; FP and AGRP, because AGRP is a homogeneous environment with less diversity of resources. Conversely, NF and FP presented similarities as a consequence of the heterogeneity of its structures that subsidize greater avifauna stability than other land-use/land-cover. We conclude that the bird diversity and richness is related to the complexity of the landscape structure.