Agriculture is considered a major disturbance for ecological systems – the recovery of degraded or formally used agricultural land might take a long time. However, without any active restoration interventions, this recovery can take an exceedingly long time and is often incomplete, as shown by a team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv). Their study, which was published in Journal of Ecology, sheds light on the recovery process at different scales in former agricultural sites, pointing to specific restoration interventions that could help biodiversity to recovery.