Forest restoration is rather a recent fact in the Massif Central as at the end of the 19th century, most of the lands were devoted to agricultural activities. With the specialization and intensification of agriculture, an important part of the agricultural lands was abandoned. They have been either artificially planted, mainly with coniferous species (e.g. Picea abies, Pseudotsuga douglasii), or have been naturally colonized by woody pioneer species like scots pine or birch (Pinus sylvestris, Betula pendula). At present timber production is no longer the only function attributed to the forest, but forest management has to cover other public demands (recreation, biodiversity restoration and protection_) that require sound and sustainable management practices. According to these new objectives, three main new ways to restore the forests in the french Massif Central are experimented : how managing the ground vegetation in forest plantation or regeneration in a sound way, how transforming fallow lands into more sustainable forest stands and how driving monospecific coniferous stands to plurispecific mixed coniferous-broadleaved ones ?