Resilience of lowland Atlantic forests in a highly fragmented landscape: Insights on the temporal scale of landscape restoration

•Tree species richness, composition and carbon stock recover during forest succession.•Endemic and threatened species richness show no relationship with forest age.•After 20 yr, secondary forests recovered on average 16–52% of old-growth forests values.•20-yr-old secondary forests are potentially sequestering 1.78 Mg C ha−1 yr−1.•Recovery time predictions are far beyond the targeted by national restoration efforts.