Tropical dry forests comprise the largest proportion of any tropical forest type, yet when compared to tropical rainforests, they have received relatively little attention from ecologists. This is particularly troublesome, because throughout the world tropical dry forests have declined significantly, resulting in tremendous losses of biodiversity. It is estimated that less than 2% of the original forest remains intact and less than 0.08% is in a protected state. Dry forest decline has resulted from a number of factors both directly and indirectly a result of human activity: deforestation and land-use change, alien plant invasion (particularly grasses), grazing by ungulates, increases in the frequency of anthropogenic fire, loss of pollinators and seed dispersers. In many cases, agents of dry forest decline are also barriers to restoration. To overcome these barriers, restoration ecologists are working throughout the tropics on both continents and islands to develop ecologically sustainable and economically feasible solutions. While there have been a number of successes in these efforts, there has been no synthesis of these findings. Since tropical dry forests vary greatly in structure, composition and function, it is important to determine if conservation and restoration approaches are generalizable across regions. Our primary objective in this ssession is to outline a generalized approach to conservation and restoration of tropical dry forests. We will develop linkages among studies that have identified restoration barriers and tested ecological theory to develop applied solutions. In particular, we will ask: How is restoration success defined in a system where “reference conditions” may not exist? How may restoration goals and approaches differ from islands to continents or across spatial scales from hectares to landscapes? What is the potential for sustainable restoration in a community type that is likely to be particularly affected by global climate change due to its sensitivity to changes in rainfall regimes and location on oceanic islands? This session will be the first of its kind to bring together researchers focused on conservation and restoration of tropical dry forest throughout North and South America and Caribbean and Pacific islands. By linking ecological theory with restoration experiments, this symposium will provide insights that extend to other community types that have experienced long-histories of anthropogenic change.