article · Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
The argan forest ecosystem in Morocco faces significant decline, marked by rising tree mortality and poor natural regeneration. This deterioration stems from interacting pressures including climate change, prolonged drought, overgrazing, unsustainable harvesting, soil degradation, and governance issues. An evaluation across ecological, technical, and institutional dimensions shows that traditional and modern interventions offer varying degrees of success and scalability. Field-based techniques, specifically silvicultural management and soil-water conservation, currently deliver the most dependable outcomes for ecosystem regeneration. In contrast, biotechnological methods such as propagating elite genotypes show promise but remain constrained in practice. Overall, a persistent gap separates experimental techniques from large-scale implementation. Effective ecosystem recovery requires coordinating ecological dynamics, technological viability, and coherent governance rather than relying on isolated technical fixes.
The argan ecosystem provides vital ecological, cultural, and socio-economic support in arid mountainous regions. Understanding the operational limits of restoration tools helps practitioners, local communities, and policymakers move away from fragmented interventions. By identifying which field practices deliver proven results, stakeholders can better direct resources to combat desertification, protect biodiversity, and maintain vital rural livelihoods under increasing climate stress.
The findings primarily inform environmental managers, forestry agencies, and conservation project planners. While field-level silvicultural and soil-water management techniques are applied and tested, biotechnological solutions for elite genotype propagation remain early-stage and constrained in practice. Commercialisation or scaling of these biotechnological tools depends on bridging the translation gap to real-world deployment, alongside establishing coherent governance frameworks for large-scale forest management.
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The Arganeraie ecosystem ( Argania spinosa L. Skeels), a key ecological, cultural, and socio-economic pillar of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas Mountains and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is facing severe decline characterized by rising mortality and the failure of natural regeneration. This degradation results from the combined effects of climate change, prolonged drought, soil degradation, overgrazing, unsustainable harvesting, and governance challenges. In this context, this review develops a structured analytical framework to assess argan forest degradation aspects and restoration strategies across ecological, technical, and institutional dimensions. It systematically organizes degradation drivers into interacting categories and critically evaluates both traditional and modern interventions in terms of effectiveness, scalability, and ecological trade-offs. Field-based practices, including silvicultural management and soil-water interventions, currently provide the most reliable outcomes for regeneration, while biotechnological approaches offer significant potential for the multiplication of elite genotypes but remain limited. By comparing intervention pathways across performance, feasibility, and long-term sustainability, the review highlights a persistent translational gap between experimental innovation and large-scale implementation. It demonstrates that successful restoration depends on the alignment of ecological processes, technological feasibility, and governance coherence, rather than isolated technical solutions, and provides a basis for more integrated and adaptive restoration strategies under increasing environmental constraints.
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DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2026.1873318
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