An author sent me this:

• Local residents, impacted by ecological restoration projects, should be compensated.
• Local residents impacted by ecological restoration projects should be compensated.

Would that be okay if I remove commas here? Thanks.

Actually, that would change the meaning. In its current form, the words "who are" are implied before "impacted."

Local residents, who are impacted by ecological restoration projects, should be compensated.

This means that 1. all local residents are impacted by ecological restoration projects and 2. they should be compensated. Here, "who are impacted by ecological restoration projects" is called a non-restrictive clause because it is only describing the residents.

Local residents who are impacted by ecological restoration projects should be compensated.

This means that 1. some local residents are affected by these projects and some are not. 2. only those who are affected should be compensated.

Here, "who are impacted by ecological restoration projects" is a restrictive clause, because it restricts the meaning of the sentence to only some local residents and not others.

So the question is this: Is the original writer telling us that all the local residents referred to in this paper are impacted by the projects and therefore due compensation or arguing that only some of them deserve (or need) compensation? It should be pretty clear from the rest of the paper.