Developing strategies to address land degradation in impoverished rural environments is a global priority. Restoration ecology provides a promising new approach, but its application is limited by a poor understanding of the social factors that influence restoration success in a rural development setting. I explore the following questions in this dissertation: What are the key community development factors that facilitate or constrain local investments in land restoration? What is the role of off-farm economic opportunities that may distract from local investments in land restoration? What is the role of indigenous knowledge and attitudes in mediating decisions about local investments in land restoration? These questions are addressed at a watershed rehabilitation and wet meadow (bofedal) restoration program in the Bolivian Andes, where over 30,000 erosion control structures have been built since 1992. I developed a research framework to explore the quantitative links between social variables and biophysical indicators of restoration success, using two sets of analysis: 1) selected social factors are used as inputs to predict restoration management intensity, and 2) restoration management intensity is then used as the input to predict biophysical indicators of restoration success that may result from restoration management intensity. Household surveys and scenarios are used to measure the social factors, and remote sensing and ground-truthing are used to measure biophysical indicators of restoration success. The results have potential implications for land restoration in community development settings.