Ecological Restoration

8.
ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION:
INTRODUCTION:
The Society for Ecological Restoration defines ecological
restoration as an intentional activity that initiates or accelerates
the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity
and sustainability.
The practice of ecological restoration includes wide scope of
projects including: erosion control, reforestation, removal of
non-native species and weeds, revegetation of disturbed areas,
daylighting streams, reintroduction of native species, as well as
habitat and range improvement for targeted species. The term
ecological restoration refers to the practice of the discipline of
restoration ecology.
Ecological restoration aims to recreate, initiate, or accelerate the

recovery of an ecosystem that has been disturbed. Disturbances
are environmental changes that alter ecosystem structure and
function. Common disturbances include logging, damming
rivers, intense grazing, hurricanes, floods, and fires.
Restoration activities may be designed to replicate a pre-
disturbance ecosystem or to create a new ecosystem where it had
not previously occurred. Restoration ecology is the scientific
study of repairing disturbed ecosystems through human
intervention.
History:
Restoration ecology emerged as a separate field in ecology in
the late twentieth century. The term was coined by John
Aber and William Jordan.
The idea of restoring the land dates back centuries, but modern
restoration ecology and its practice began in the early 1900s
when people such as renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold
began promoting the movement. It has since grown to include a
wide variety of ecological restoration activities that range from
large-scale projects to small-scale projects (e.g., tree planting).
It is a defining characteristic of ecological restoration that many

projects are locally initiated and implemented by community
volunteers. Because restoration projects generally involve
complex collaborations and negotiations among a diverse group
of interested parties, social science is an integral part of
restoration at all scales.
The latter-half of the 20th century saw the growth of ecological

restoration beyond Wisconsin borders. The 285-hectare Green
Oaks Biological Field Station at Knox College began in 1955
under the guidance of zoologist Paul Shepard.
Ecological research on restoration has largely focused on
community ecology and ecosystem ecology, with particular
attention to plants. However, animal reintroduction, a common
element of conservation biology, is also essentially restoration.
Gaining momentum in the latter half of the twentieth century,
restoration ecology is now established as a science and studied
in many research institutions. International societies and
journals, such as the Society for Ecological Restoration and its
journals Ecological Restoration and Restoration Ecology, are
dedicated to furthering knowledge of restoration science and
practice.
Starting in the 1990s, the number of books and journal articles
on ecological restoration has risen exponentially. Australia has
also been the site of historically significant ecological
restoration projects.
In 1935 Ambrose Crawford commenced restoring a degraded

four acres patch of the Big Scrub at Lumley Park reserve,
Alstonville, in northern New South Wales. Clearing of weeds
and planting of suitable indigenous flora species were his main
restoration techniques.
The restored rainforest reserve still exists today and is home to
threatened plant and animal species. In 1936 Morris and his
restoration colleagues initiated the Broken Hill regeneration area
project, which involved the natural regeneration of indigenous
flora on a severely degraded site of hundreds of hectares in arid
western New South Wales.
Goals:
Restoration projects differ in their objectives and their methods
of achieving those goals. Many restoration projects aim to
establish ecosystems composed of a native species; other
projects attempt to restore, improve, or create particular
ecosystem functions, such as pollination or erosion control.
Some examples of different kinds of restoration include the
following:
 Revegetation- the establishment of vegetation on sites
where it has been previously lost, often with erosion control
as the primary goal. For example, vegetated buffers are
strips of vegetation that protect water quality in riparian
ecosystems from urban or agricultural runoff.
 Habitat enhancement- the process of increasing the
suitability of a site as habitat for some desired species.
 Remediation: improving an existing ecosystem or creating
a new one with the aim of replacing another that has
deteriorated or been destroyed.
 Mitigation: legally mandated remediation for loss of
protected species or ecosystems.
At a given restoration site, it may be possible to establish a
number of different communities. When choosing a target state
for a restoration project however, restorationists generally select
only one (or a small range) of possible community types. Often
some sort of natural pre-disturbance condition, or reference
state, is selected, along with its presumed properties. This is
often represented by a nearby undisturbed reference site. Even
with good working knowledge of an historical ecosystem’s
species composition and functions, practitioners must still
decide how far in the past is defined as natural.
For some ecosystems the reference state may be before any
human disturbance, but more commonly the reference state is
before agricultural or industrial intensification. However,
sometimes an historical target may no longer be appropriate
under current or projected climatic or biotic conditions.
For example, future climates may not support certain species,

and some species may have already gone extinct in an area.
Under these circumstances practitioners may decide to create an
ecosystem that did not exist historically at the project site, but
which corresponds to current or projected future conditions.
Sometimes, restoration efforts are designed to maintain a
desirable human-derived state, such as montane meadows or
Scottish moors.
RATIONALE/PRINCIPLES:
Technocratic Rationale:
Technocratic restoration is undertaken by government agencies
and other large institutions to recover the social values that were
once provided by ecosystems prior to suffering environmental
impacts. For the most part, the social values pertain to water
quantity and quality issues, associated erosion control, wildlife
habitat, and endangered species protection.
Much technocratic restoration is conducted on public lands,
either in-house by agency personnel or outsourced by design
firms, environmental engineering firms, small companies that
specialize in ecological restoration, or sometimes to universities
or NGOs. Technocratic restoration is essential for managing
large and complex endeavors, such as the Kissimmee river
restoration in Florida.
Biotic Rationale:
Ecological restoration is, or should be, scientifically informed by
ecological principles and knowledge. Organizing principles of
ecological science have contributed significantly to the biotic
rationale, particularly the concepts of biodiversity. The
predilection for conserving local biodiversity is a cherished
value, not only among biologists and environmentalists, but also
across much of the public sector in many cultures and countries.
Among the best-known examples of restoration dedicated to
fostering biodiversity are those intended to benefit rare and
endangered species. Other projects are designed to perpetuate
threatened biotic communities, such as those occurring in coral
reefs.
Heuristic Rationale:
The heuristic rationale of ecosystem restoration is to elucidate
ecological principles from ecosystems undergoing restoration
and to serve as a pedagogic aid in ecological science. Bradshaw
proposes that ecological restoration could serve as an acid test
for ecology, noting that restoration projects allow experimental
resolution of conflicting theories of ecosystem development.
Harper foresees that restoration experiments would give insights
into ecological processes.
Idealistic Rationale:
People are attached to wild areas in the same way farmers love
their land. An angler may become attached to a favorite lake, or
a small landholder may revere a patch of woods that provides
fuel wood for the hearth. Others in the local community may
share an attachment, and these wild places may become foci for
cultural activities.
The local community may fight to preserve and protect such
places from external threats and may provide management to
assure their integrity. Lacking this psychological attachment,
natural areas are taken for granted, and the benefits that may
accrue from them go unacknowledged. Little impetus exists to
protect and preserve such underappreciated lands.
Reentery into Nature:
A strong impetus exists among many people of urbanized and
highly technical cultures to seek respite in nature, whether in a
context of meditation, contemplation, or recreation. This
tendency was described by Eisenberg in terms of a universal
cultural polarity between the tower and the mountain.
Spiritual Renewal:
The act of restoring ecosystems is a kind of meditation or yoga
for some people, perhaps unintentionally so at first, during
which the practitioner suddenly realizes that he or she is an
active and vital participant in ecosystem processes. This
intuitive realization is an epiphany that effects or contributes to
spiritual renewal.

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8.

Ecological restoration aims to recreate, initiate, or accelerate the

It is a defining characteristic of ecological restoration that many

The latter-half of the 20th century saw the growth of ecological

In 1935 Ambrose Crawford commenced restoring a degraded

For example, future climates may not support certain species,

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