Routledge handbook of ecological and environmental restoration

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
ECOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
RESTORATION

Ecological restoration is a rapidly evolving discipline that is engaged with developing both
methodologies and strategies for repairing damaged and polluted ecosystems and environments.
During the last decade the rapid pace of climate change coupled with continuing habitat
destruction and the spread of non-native species to new habitats has forced restoration ecologists to re-evaluate their goals and the methods they use. This comprehensive handbook brings
together an internationally respected group of established and rising experts in the field.
The book begins with a description of current practices and the state of knowledge in
particular areas of restoration, and then identifies new directions that will help the field achieve
increasing levels of future success. Part I provides basic background about ecological and environmental restoration. Part II systematically reviews restoration in key ecosystem types located
throughout the world. In Part III, management and policy issues are examined in detail, offering the first comprehensive treatment of policy relevance in the field, while Part IV looks to
the future. Ultimately, good ecological restoration depends upon a combination of good
science, policy, planning and outreach – all issues that are addressed in this unrivalled volume.
Stuart K. Allison is the Watson Bartlett Professor of Biology and Conservation, and Director
of the Green Oaks Field Study Center at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, USA. He is the
author of Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change (Routledge, 2012).
Stephen D. Murphy is Professor and Director of the School of Environment, Resources and
Sustainability at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. He is the editor-in-chief of
Restoration Ecology.

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www.allitebooks.com

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
ECOLOGICAL AND
ENVIRONMENTAL
RESTORATION

Edited by
Stuart K. Allison and Stephen D. Murphy

www.allitebooks.com


First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Stuart K. Allison and Stephen D. Murphy, selection and editorial material;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Allison, Stuart K., editor. | Murphy, Stephen D., editor.
Title: Routledge handbook of ecological and environmental restoration /
edited by Stuart K. Allison and Stephen D. Murphy.
Other titles: Handbook of ecological and environmental restoration
Description: London ; New York : Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016047488| ISBN 978-1-138-92212-9 (hbk) |
ISBN 978-1-315-68597-7 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Restoration ecology.
Classification: LCC QH541.15.R45 R68 2017 | DDC 333.73/153—dc23
LC record available at />ISBN: 978-1-138-92212-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-68597-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by FiSH Books Ltd, Enfield

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CONTENTS

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1

ix
xv

Introduction: what next for restoration ecology?
Stephen D. Murphy and Stuart K. Allison

1

PART I

The basis for ecological restoration in the twenty-first century

5

2

Considering the future: anticipating the need for ecological restoration
Young D. Choi

7

3

The principles of restoration ecology at population scales
Stephen D. Murphy, Michael J. McTavish and Heather A. Cray

16

4

Landscape-scale restoration ecology
Michael P. Perring

33

5

Understanding social processes in planning ecological restorations
Stephen R. Edwards, Brock Blevins, Darwin Horning and Andrew Spaeth

49

6

The role of history in restoration ecology
Eric S. Higgs and Stephen T. Jackson

66

7

Social engagement in ecological restoration
Susan Baker

76

v


Contents
PART II

Restoring key ecosystems
8

9

91

Restoration and ecosystem management in the boreal forest: from
ecological principles to tactical solutions
Timo Kuuluvainen

93

Restoration of temperate broadleaf forests
John A. Stanturf

113

10 Temperate grasslands
Karel Prach, Péter Török and Jonathan D. Bakker

126

11 Restoration of temperate savannas and woodlands
Brice B. Hanberry, John M. Kabrick, Peter W. Dunwiddie, Tibor Hartel,
Theresa B. Jain and Benjamin O. Knapp

142

12 Restoring desert ecosystems
Scott R. Abella

158

13 Ecological restoration in Mediterranean-type shrublands and woodlands
Ladislav Mucina, Marcela A. Bustamante-Sánchez, Beatriz Duguy Pedra,
Patricia Holmes, Todd Keeler-Wolf, Juan J. Armesto, Mark Dobrowolski,
Mirijam Gaertner, Cecilia Smith-Ramírez and Alberto Vilagrosa

173

14 Alpine habitat conservation and restoration in tropical and sub-tropical
high mountains
Alton C. Byers

197

15 Restoration of rivers and streams
Benjamin Smith and Michael A. Chadwick

213

16 Lake restoration
Erik Jeppesen, Martin Søndergaard and Zhengwen Liu

226

17 Restoration of freshwater wetlands
Paul A. Keddy

243

18 Salt marshes

David M. Burdick and Susan C. Adamowicz

261

19 Oyster-generated marine habitats: their services, enhancement,
restoration, and monitoring
Loren D. Coen and Austin T. Humphries
vi

274


Contents

20 Ecological rehabilitation in mangrove systems: the evolution of the
practice and the need for strategic reform of policy and planning
Ben Brown

295

21 Tropical savanna restoration
Jillianne Segura, Sean M. Bellairs and Lindsey B. Hutley

312

22 Restoration of tropical and subtropical grasslands
Gerhard Ernst Overbeck and Sandra Cristina Müller

327

23 Tropical forest restoration
David Lamb

341

24 The restoration of coral reefs
Boze Hancock, Kemit-Amon Lewis and Eric Conklin

355

25 Ecological restoration in an urban context
Jessica Hardesty Norris, Keith Bowers and Stephen D. Murphy

371

PART III

Management and policy issues

385

26 International law and policy on restoration
An Cliquet

387

27 Governance and restoration
Stephanie Mansourian

401

28 Restoration, volunteers and the human community
Stephen Packard

414

29 Building social capacity for restoration success
Elizabeth Covelli Metcalf, Alexander L. Metcalf and Jakki J. Mohr

426

30 Ecological restoration: a growing part of the green economy
Keith Bowers and Jessica Hardesty Norris

440

31 Restoration and market-based instruments
Alex Baumber

454

32 Profit motivations and ecological restoration: opportunities in bioenergy
and conservation biomass
Carol L. Williams
vii

468


Contents

PART IV

Ecological restoration for the future

483

33 Ecological restoration and environmental change
Stuart K. Allison

485

34 Invasive species and ecological restoration
Joan C. Dudney, Lauren M. Hallett, Erica N. Spotswood and Katharine Suding

496

35 Restoration and resilience
Elizabeth Trevenen, Rachel Standish, Charles Price and Richard Hobbs

509

36 Ecological restoration and ecosystem services
Robin L. Chazdon and José M. Rey Benayas

522

37 The economics of restoration and the restoration of economics
James Blignaut

537

38 Better together: the importance of collaboration between researchers
and practitioners
Robert Cabin

551

39 Fewer than 140 characters: restorationists’ use of social media
Liam Heneghan and Oisín Heneghan

565

Index

582

viii


CONTRIBUTORS

Scott R. Abella, Assistant Professor, School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas,
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Susan C. Adamowicz, Land Management Research and Demonstration Biologist, United
States Fish and Wildlife Service, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Wells, Maine, USA.
Stuart K. Allison, Professor, Department of Biology, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois,
USA.
Juan J. Armesto, Professor, Department of Ecology, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile,
Santiago, Chile.
Susan Baker, Professor, Cardiff School of the Social Sciences and Sustainable Places Research

Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Jonathan D. Bakker, Associate Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences,
College of the Environment, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Alex Baumber, Scholarly Teaching Fellow, Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, University
of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Sean M. Bellairs, Senior Lecturer, Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods,
Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
Brock Blevins, GIS Analyst, NASA Applied Remote Sensing Training Program (ARSET),
Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), University of Maryland, Baltimore County,
Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
James Blignaut, Professor, Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South
Africa.

ix


Contributors

Keith Bowers, Landscape Architect, Restoration Ecologist, President and Founder,
Biohabitats, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Ben Brown, Founder, Blue Forests, PhD Candidate, Research Institute for the Environment
and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
David M. Burdick, Associate Research Professor, Department of Natural Resources and the
Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
Marcela A. Bustamante-Sánchez, Professor, Department of Forestry Science, University of
Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
Alton C. Byers, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research
(INSTAAR), University of Colorado, Boulder, USA.
Robert Cabin, Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Studies, Brevard College,
Brevard, North Carolina, USA.

Michael A. Chadwick, Lecturer, Department of Geography, King’s College London, London,
UK.
Robin L. Chazdon, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University
of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA.
Young D. Choi, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University Northwest,
Hammond, Indiana, USA.
An Cliquet, Associate Professor, Department of European, Public and International Law,
Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Loren D. Coen, Research Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Harbor Branch
Oceanographic Institute, Florida Atlantic University, Fort Pierce, Florida, USA.
Eric Conklin, Director of Marine Science, The Nature Conservancy, Honolulu, Hawaii,
USA.
Heather A. Cray, Graduate Student, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
Mark Dobrowolski, Principal Rehabilitation Officer, Iluka Resources Ltd, Perth, Western
Australia, Australia and Adjunct Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, The University of
Western Australia, Perth, Australia.
Joan Dudney, Graduate Student, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and
Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
Beatriz Duguy Pedra, Professor, Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and
Environmental Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
x


Contributors

Peter W. Dunwiddie, Affiliate Professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences,
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Stephen R. Edwards, Advisor to the Chair, Resilience and Social Learning, IUCN
Commission on Ecosystem Management, Baker City, Oregon, USA.

Mirijam Gaertner, Research Coordinator, Center for Invasion Biology, Department of
Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Lauren M. Hallett, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary
Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Brice B. Hanberry, Research Ecologist, Grassland, Shrubland, and Deserts, Rocky Mountain
Research Station, Rapid City, South Dakota, USA.
Boze Hancock, Senior Scientist-Marine Habitat Restoration, The Nature Conservancy, c/o
University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography, 215 South Ferry Road,
Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA.
Tibor Hartel, Associate Professor, Environmental Science Department, Sapientia Hungarian
University of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Liam Heneghan, Chair and Professor of Environmental Science and Studies, Institute for
Nature and Culture, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Oisín Heneghan, Research Assistant, Department of Environmental Science and Studies,
DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Eric S. Higgs, Professor, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada.
Richard Hobbs, Professor, IAS Distinguished Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, The
University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
Patricia Holmes, Ecologist, Environmental Management Department, City of Cape Town,
Cape Town, South Africa.
Darwin Horning, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Planning, University of
Northern British Columbia, Canada.
Austin T. Humphries, Assistant Professor, Department of Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary
Sciences, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, USA.
Lindsey B. Hutley, Professor of Environmental Science, Research Institute for the Environment
and Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
Stephen T. Jackson, Director, Department of the Interior Southwest Climate Science Center,
U.S. Geological Survey, Tucson, Arizona, USA.
xi

Contributors

Theresa B. Jain, Research Forester, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Center,
Moscow, Idaho, USA.
Erik Jeppesen, Professor, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Silkeborg, Denmark.
John M. Kabrick, Research Forester, US Forest Service, Northern Research Station,
University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Paul A. Keddy, Independent Scholar, Lanark County, Ontario, Canada.
Todd Keeler-Wolf, Senior Vegetation Ecologist, California Natural Diversity Database,
California Department of Fish and Game, Sacramento, California, USA.
Benjamin O. Knapp, Assistant Professor, Department of Forestry, University of Missouri,
Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Timo Kuuluvainen, Principal Investigator, Department of Forest Sciences, University of
Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
David Lamb, Honorary Professor, School of Agriculture and Food Science, Center for Mined
Land Rehabilitation, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Kemit-Amon Lewis, Coral Conservation Manager, The Nature Conservancy, US Virgin
Islands, USA.
Zhengwen Liu, Professor, Nanjing Institute for Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy
of Sciences, Nanjing, China.
Stephanie Mansourian, Environmental Consultant, Mansourian.org, Gingins, Switzerland.
Michael J. McTavish, Graduate Student, School of Environment, Resources and
Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
Alexander L. Metcalf, Research Assistant Professor, College of Forestry and Conservation,
University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.
Elizabeth Covelli Metcalf, Assistant Professor, Department of Society and Conservation,
University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.
Jakki J. Mohr, Regents Professor of Marketing and Gallagher Distinguished Faculty Fellow,

School of Business Administration, Department of Management and Marketing, University of
Montana, Missoula, Montana, USA.
Ladislav Mucina, Professor Iluka Chair in Vegetation Science and Biogeography, School of
Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Department of
Geography and Environmental Sciences, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa.

xii


Contributors

Sandra Cristina Müller, Adjunct Professor, Department of Ecology, Universidade Federal do
Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Stephen D. Murphy, Professor and Director of the School of Environment, Resources and
Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada.
Jessica Hardesty Norris, Technical Writer, Biohabitats Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Gerhard Ernst Overbeck, Professor, Department of Botany, Universidade Federal do Rio
Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
Stephen Packard, Ecological Restoration Pioneer and Visionary, Northbrook, Illinois, USA.
Michael P. Perring, Postdoctoral Researcher, Forest & Nature Lab, Department of Forest and
Water Management, Ghent University, Belgium and Adjunct Postdoctoral Research Associate,
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Australia.
Karel Prach, Professor, Department of Botany, Faculty of Science USB, České Budějovice, and
Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Science, Trebon, Czech Republic.
Charles Price, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western
Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
José M. Rey Benayas, Professor, Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida, Universidad de Alcalá,
Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
Jilliane Segura, Graduate Student, Research Institute for the Environment and Livelihoods,
Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.

Benjamin Smith, Graduate Student, Earth and Environmental Dynamics Research Group,
Department of Geography, King’s College London, London, UK.
Cecilia Smith-Ramírez, Professor, Institute of Conservation, Biodiversity and Territory,
University of Austral Chile, Valdivia, Chile and Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, Santiago,
Chile.
Martin Søndergaard, Senior Researcher, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University,
Silkeborg, Denmark.
Andrew Spaeth, Forest Program Director, Sustainable Northwest, Portland, Oregon, USA.
Erica N. Spotswood, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Department of Environmental Science,
Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
Rachel Standish, Senior Lecturer in Ecology, School of Veterinary and Life Sciences,
Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.

xiii


Contributors

John A. Stanturf, Senior Scientist, Center for Forest Disturbance Science, US Forest Service
Southern Research Station, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Katharine Suding, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University
of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Péter Török, Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, University of Debrecen, Debrecen,
Hungary.
Elizabeth Trevenen, Graduate Student, School of Biological Sciences, The University of
Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia.
Alberto Vilagrosa, Fundación CEAM, Department of Ecology, University of Alicante,
Alicante, Spain.
Carol L. Williams, Research Scientist, Center for Agroforestry, University of Missouri,
Columbia, Missouri, USA.

xiv


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An edited volume like this one is very much a group effort. We are tempted to say a team
effort, but the word team implies a group that is close-knit and has worked together for a long
time towards a common goal. While the authors of the many chapters in this book share the
common goal of understanding and advancing the practice of ecological and environmental
restoration, we are certainly not a close-knit group. Many of the authors are frequent colleagues
and friends of the editors, and via this handbook we have gotten to know many others who
previously we knew only through publications and reputation.
First and foremost we must thank all of the authors of the chapters in this volume for their
willingness to contribute a chapter despite no promise of any reward beyond the satisfaction of
producing a good piece of work. We especially appreciate the kindness of strangers who
worked with us despite not knowing us well or in person. All of the authors have been
extremely patient throughout the process of putting the book together and have quickly
answered the many queries we had for them as we reviewed chapters and put everything
together.
We extend a huge thank you to our editors at Routledge – Tim Hardwick and Ashley
Wright. They have been encouraging, supportive, and have provided many excellent suggestions that helped improve the book. They have also been patient as we worked to get
everything ready for publication. This book would never have been completed without their
comfort and confidence in our ability to succeed with the project. We also thank Hamish
Ironside for copy-editing the entire book. Special thanks to Karl Harrington and everyone at
Fish Books, who did the typesetting of the handbook.
Finally, many, many thanks to our colleagues and families who have supported and encouraged us at every step of the way. We put this book together in the hope that it will inspire a
new generation of restorationists so that our children and students will live in a world of beautiful, functional landscapes and ecosystems that benefit the entire planet, we humans and all of
our fellow beings on this wonderful Spaceship Earth.

xv



1
INTRODUCTION
What next for restoration ecology?
Stephen D. Murphy and Stuart K. Allison

There have been previous edited volumes which provided a broad overview of the field of
ecological restoration and which identified contemporary theory, practice and potential future
directions for the field (Perrow and Davy 2002; van Andel and Aronson 2006). But the practice of ecological restoration and the science of restoration ecology are both rapidly evolving
and much has changed in the past 10 to 15 years. In particular, we have become increasingly
aware of the quickening pace of environmental change, a pace that threatens to continue to
increase and which may indeed outpace our ability to restore some ecosystems. Thus this book
was put together with the aim of both surveying current practice and identifying future opportunities and problems that will arise in our rapidly changing world.
The many authors in this book represent the state of the art of ecological restoration and
the state of the science of restoration ecology. The most commonly used definition of ecological restoration comes from the Society for Ecological Restoration’s Primer on Ecological
Restoration:
Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has
been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.
(SER Science and Policy Working Group 2004)
This definition is further developed in the Primer by an accompanying statement that expands
on the goals of restoration:
Ecological restoration is an intentional activity that initiates or accelerates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability. Frequently,
the ecosystem that requires restoration has been degraded, damaged, transformed or
entirely destroyed as the direct or indirect result of human activities … Restoration
attempts to return an ecosystem to its historic trajectory.
(SER Science and Policy Working Group 2004)
The historical development of the practice of ecological restoration is difficult to trace (and

thus somewhat contested) but certainly the practice began hundreds of years before the definition and also long before the well-documented early prairie restorations initiated at the
1


Stephen D. Murphy and Stuart K. Allison

University of Wisconsin in the 1930s (Hall 2005; Allison 2012). Early restorations were carried
out for a variety of reasons including practical concerns such as ensuring a continued supply
of lumber and erosion control, aesthetic considerations such as the maintenance of a beautiful
landscape, the desire to preserve lost or declining habitat, the need for humans to reconnect
with nature, and a moral duty to repair what was damaged via human activity (Jordan 2003).
The notion of ‘reconnecting with nature’ may sound too idealistic – especially if one focuses
on the technical aspects of restoration ecology – but the reason why the field of restoration
ecology began was from a sense of ethics. Philosophers and pundits of science from Karl Popper
to Peter Medawar have consistently argued that a science (like restoration ecology) does not
emerge wholly formed and isolated from its social context. Most restoration ecologists likely
entered the profession because they wished to right wrongs. This may smack of noblesse oblige
and some may argue it is naïve, imperialistic, full of hubris, or fraught with a thousand other
sins. While as restoration ecologists we should heed the call to examine our own motives, we
should not lose sight that what drives us is a sense of ethics and empathy for the diversity of
organisms and ecosystem functions – perhaps ecosystems are valuable for their services but let
us not narrow or impoverish our world view to only such concerns. The opportunity to test
theories that surround restoration ecology has just begun as the discipline has matured from
‘stamp collecting’ to that of a predictive science.
In the following chapters, readers will find a rich picture of the technical aspects of restoration ecology commingled with a strong sense of ethical underpinnings. The traditional
case-based and scale-based approaches are still quite valid and also offer opportunities to test
theories of population, community, and landscape restoration – to name a few. But despite the
sometimes self-fulfilling term ‘restoration’ as a means of returning to the past, readers will find
much about the emergent approaches that push disciplinary boundaries. Work on restoration
ecology as a business or restoration ecology as an economic influence is something many have

considered but few have explored – our fellow contributors will change that and perhaps
change our ways of thinking. Trying to set goals and thinking about reasonable endpoints for
a restoration project is becoming increasingly challenging as we see predictions that local
climates will undergo significant changes in the next 50 to 100 years, while we know that some
ecosystems like forests may take hundreds of years to return to pre-disturbance conditions even
with the accelerated succession possible via restoration. How can we adjust our goals and maintain stakeholder interest in restoration and their confidence in our ability to restore ecosystems
given the rapidly changing conditions? Will we accept the idea of restoration as a process of
continual change? Thus it becomes even more important for scientists to learn to express themselves clearly in a manner that engages all stakeholders and is truly inclusive and respectful to
all (Olson 2009). Our contributors will encourage us to expand our audience and the repertoire of tools we use to reach out to others.
Tony Bradshaw – as one of the founders of the discipline of restoration ecology – said to
an audience of undergraduates in 1986, ‘Your generation can learn from mine, but you are the
future of this notion we call restoration or rehabilitation.’1 Some of those in attendance are now
leaders and a new generation beyond them is ascending – and some of those will be found in
these pages. Semper procedendum sine timore.

Note
1

Recorded by Stephen D. Murphy, who was among the audience.

2


Introduction

References
Allison, S. K. (2012) Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change: Renewing Damaged Ecosystems,
Routledge, Abingdon, UK.
Hall, M. (2005) Earth Repair: A Transatlantic History of Environmental Restoration, University of Virginia Press,
Charlottesville, VA.

Jordan, W. R. III (2003) The Sunflower Forest: Ecological Restoration and the New Communion with Nature,
University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Olson, R. (2009) Don’t Be Such A Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style, Island Press, Washington,
DC.
Perrow, M. R. and A. J. Davy (eds) (2002) Handbook of Ecological Restoration, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
SER Science and Policy Working Group (2004) The SER Primer on Ecological Restoration, Society for
Ecological Restoration, Washington, DC.
Van Andel, J. and J. Aronson (eds) (2006) Restoration Ecology, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.

3



PART I

The basis for ecological restoration
in the twenty-first century



2
CONSIDERING THE FUTURE
Anticipating the need for ecological restoration
Young D. Choi

Many of the Earth’s natural characters have been altered or lost due to human development
during the Anthropocene. To meet the demands of resource consumption for an everincreasing human population and welfare, more than 60 per cent of the Earth’s lands have
already been converted or modified for human use (Hurtt et al. 2006), oceans have been
subjected to exploitation of resources and pollution (Lotze et al. 2006), and the composition

of atmospheric gases has been altered greatly with no or very little sign for reversing these
changes. Human population growth, although slowing in recent decades, is still expected to
grow at least for most of this century. Our continued expansion of our ecological footprint
will only exacerbate the depletion of the Earth’s natural capital. Moreover, the alterations in
biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen and other elements have led to drastic changes in
the environment for air, land and water quality (MA 2005; Clewell and Aronson 2007; Finzi
et al. 2011). With these changes, it is not certain whether the Earth can keep evolving, stocking natural capital, and providing ecosystem services as it did before the appearance of
industrial age Homo sapiens.
The idea of ecological restoration has been conceived and pioneered by early scientists and
practitioners. For example, the reestablishment of tallgrass prairie by a group of Civilian
Conservation Corps workers under a vision from Aldo Leopold has been regarded as the firstever known attempt of ecological restoration in North America (Jordan et al. 1987a). Other
examples of ecological restoration across the world in the twentieth century may include but
are not limited to reclamation and revegetation of mined lands, afforestation and reforestation,
conversion of old fields to grasslands, and mitigation of lost or altered wetlands. With the
century-long (or much longer) tradition of ecological restoration (Palmer et al. 2006; Court
2012), ‘restoration ecology’ has emerged as a new discipline of applied ecology in the later part
of twentieth century (Jordan et al. 1987a), and its emergence has been welcomed as a new way
to meet numerous needs for ecological research and natural resource conservation (Bradshaw
1983; Jordan et al. 1987b; Dobson et al. 1997; Choi 2004; Choi et al. 2008). This chapter
addresses such needs in five areas: conservation of biodiversity and evolutionary heritage, recovery of natural capital, enhancement of ecosystem services, a laboratory for testing ecological
theories, and reconnection of human culture and nature.

7


Young D. Choi

Conserving biological diversity and evolutionary heritage
Conservation of biological diversity is among the top reasons for ecological restoration
(Bradshaw 1983; Jordan et al. 1987b; Dobson et al. 1997). The current rate of species extinction

is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the normal rate, and habitat loss appears
to be the leading cause of the extinctions in modern times. Conservation of biological diversity is essential not only to sustain the Earth’s evolutionary heritage but also to shape the
ecosystems of the future, because new biotas of the future emerge from the evolution of current
species. Therefore, restoration of lost habitats is more than a way of species conservation
(Wilson 1988).
Habitat restoration becomes more important for potential pole-ward migration of species
in the wake of global climate change. IPCC (2014) predicts that the mean global surface
temperature may increase 0.3–4.8°C by 2100. The pole-ward movements of species have
already been documented (La Sorte and Thompson 2007; Somero 2010), and these kinds of
movement would likely continue, particularly in the northern hemisphere. However, many of
the species are subjected to major impediments in their migration attempts. Migration rates of
certain species, especially sessile plants, are very slow. For example, Davis (1981) noted that
many tree species in eastern North America have moved less than 400 metres per year to the
north since the retreat of Wisconsinian glaciers. For example, balsam fir (Abies balsamea) and the
nearly extinct American chestnut (Castanea dentata) moved less than 200 metres a year. Such
slow-moving species would likely have no or very little chance to migrate north under the
rapidly rising surface temperature.
Moreover, the impediments against species migration are often aggravated by highly fragmented habitat patches due to agricultural and urbanized landscapes (Lindenmayer and Fischer
2013). Habitat restoration on north-south migration routes is now urgent to allow the Earth’s
biotas to respond to the global climate change. For these reasons, ecological restoration is not
just a way to conserve biological diversity, it is a proactive strategy to guard the processes of
natural evolution so they may continue to proceed in the future.

Restocking natural capital
Natural capital is Earth’s stock of natural resources that provide a wide array of goods (e.g.
energy, food, fibres, timber and water) to human societies and economies. Like financial capital, its interest may accumulate or drop as the amount of stock increases or decreases,
respectively (Costanza and Daly 1992), and thus the stocks of natural capital should be maintained at or above the level that does not deplete the resource (Clewell and Aronson 2007). The
stocks of natural capital have been reduced to meet the demand for resource consumption from
ever-increasing human population across the world. In many cases, depletion of natural
resources has reached the level below which the Earth can no longer replenish them via natural processes (MA 2005).

For instance, marine fishery stock has declined drastically during the past decades due to
overfishing and there is no or little sign of recovery (Branch et al. 2011). Global grain production has increased more than three times since 1960 (Nierenberg and Spoden 2012). However,
this increase was mainly driven by energy input from combustion of fossil fuels, crop cultivation with petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides at the expense of natural capital in grasslands,
forests, and wetlands (Tilman et al. 2002; Mulvaney et al. 2009). Tropical rainforests once
covered 14 per cent of the Earth’s land surface with more than 80 per cent of all living species
but their cover was reduced to 6 per cent along with a large loss of biological diversity. IUCN
8