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Restoration and rehabilitation start with stopping the damage

Restoration and rehabilitation start with stopping the damage In the past, the term ‘restoration’ has been powerfully evocative, inspiring not only a promise of repairing past environmental damage but also a promise of reconciliation with nature; a potential to find or renegotiate ‘our place’ within nature. Although the restoration movement has come a long way in a short time, it is clear that our level of activity is not yet high enough to inspire society to meet the conservation and restoration challenges ahead. The potential of the movement is probably higher than we suspect – and needs to be if it is to succeed. This issue’s editorial by John Kanowski, for example, reviews the lessons from rainforest restoration science and practice over the last two decades and makes the important point that even the substantial work done to date will not have a sustained result without higher levels of commitment to ongoing site maintenance from landholders. This issue’s two features (Jonson and Coyne) and its research reports (Mackey et al. , Michael et al. and Pedler) along with many of its short notes and summaries, also show that improved planning and management both on‐reserve and off reserve are essential to conserve important biodiversity assets in the broader landscape. The comment piece by David Lindenmayer and others expressing concerns about the future of Travelling Stock Reserves in NSW shows that technical management alone is insufficient and needs to be accompanied by appropriate government policy that reduces damage rather than continues or increases it. That the message of restoration and rehabilitation is not yet winning over mainstream communities and governments may be partly explained by likelihood that some of the ways we characterize our own discipline is limiting its uptake. I elaborated on one of these last issue, which is the potential for confusion between the strict definition of ecological restoration (which we need in order to ensure professional standards) and the looser concepts of ‘highest practicable extent restoration’ or ‘ecological rehabilitation’ which can facilitate the expansion of our restorative work into irreversibly modified landscapes. This is linked to (and is partly a solution for) what I see as the second limitation; that some of us perceive the term ‘restoration’ as implying that the solutions have existed in some time in the past, whereas the solutions that we need in the future are yet to be invented given that we cannot reverse all anthropogenic modification and do not wish to. Much has been written on this theme, but less attention has been given to what I see as a third possible limiting characterization; our tendency to emphasize that part of the restoration cycle that is ‘constructive’ (i.e. weeding rebuilding soils, propagating, seeding and planting) arguably giving less attention to the all‐important task of addressing the causes of the damage, except at limited scales. The importance of stopping the damage cannot be overestimated in restoration and is actually well accepted at smaller scales. At the scale of the restoration site and catchment, for example, we have no problem accepting the wisdom of mitigating or stopping the damage as a first step in the restoration project. At larger scales, however, we are not so good at it. Now that critical habitat loss and climate impacts arising from unsustainable levels of economic development are being felt at regional, continental and global scales – we feel we can do very little. We seem to expect it to be someone‐else’s job. But that is part of the problem: everyone is expecting it to be someone‐else’s job. Our sense of helplessness in the face of global warming is understandable. We can only do so much as individuals in our own lives and neighbourhoods to reduce carbon emissions; there are not yet any clear and simple solutions at larger scales and third world development is proceeding apace. But have we really tackled the question of what we can do to promote global solutions as individual restorationists or as a discipline? Can we expand our characterization of ecological restoration and rehabilitation so that it grasps its own ‘first rule’ with both hands and more consciously embraces commitment to slowly but surely preventing and halting damage at a global level? I propose that we all become more active, as individuals and professionals in whatever ways we can. The common cause of creating a future where humans can live within nature’s capacity for recovery needs to be promoted until appropriate landscape management and restoration becomes mainstream. We cannot say this is not the business of restoration because without it restoration will become mere nostalgia. Embracing the commitment, however, links us strongly into a range of disciplines with potential synergies (such as the sustainable agriculture and Restoring Natural Capital areas) from which further innovation can flow. As professionals and citizens we can engage in more cultural and educational activities, advocacy and public debate – drawing on the Policy and Position Statements of Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) (at http://www.ser.org/ ) and those of the Ecological Society of Australia (at http://www.ecolsoc.org.au/ ). SER’s foundation documents, particularly the SER Primer , spell out what it means to restore ecosystems and how intimately involved the process of restoration is with human culture. Research that leads to technical, social and cultural innovations– as well as research into the root causes of over consumption of ecosystems – can be more deliberately fostered. Such efforts may, in turn, foster further innovation to help slow and stop the damage. The reward for this effort would be the same as the reward we expected of restoration previously defined. That is, it can lead to a more profound embedding of our communities within the world..within more secure ecosystems. In this (restoration) science fiction world, much of these ecosystems will have been conserved and protected, with other elements restored and rehabilitated as we renegotiate lifestyles that offer prosperity to humans while continuing to reduce our impacts upon our collective habitat and the habitats of our fellow beings. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Ecological Management & Restoration Wiley

Restoration and rehabilitation start with stopping the damage

McDonald, Tein
Ecological Management & Restoration , Volume 11 (1) – Apr 1, 2010
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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2010 Ecological Society of Australia
ISSN
1442-7001
eISSN
1442-8903
DOI
10.1111/j.1442-8903.2010.00505.x
Publisher site
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Abstract

In the past, the term ‘restoration’ has been powerfully evocative, inspiring not only a promise of repairing past environmental damage but also a promise of reconciliation with nature; a potential to find or renegotiate ‘our place’ within nature. Although the restoration movement has come a long way in a short time, it is clear that our level of activity is not yet high enough to inspire society to meet the conservation and restoration challenges ahead. The potential of the movement is probably higher than we suspect – and needs to be if it is to succeed. This issue’s editorial by John Kanowski, for example, reviews the lessons from rainforest restoration science and practice over the last two decades and makes the important point that even the substantial work done to date will not have a sustained result without higher levels of commitment to ongoing site maintenance from landholders. This issue’s two features (Jonson and Coyne) and its research reports (Mackey et al. , Michael et al. and Pedler) along with many of its short notes and summaries, also show that improved planning and management both on‐reserve and off reserve are essential to conserve important biodiversity assets in the broader landscape. The comment piece by David Lindenmayer and others expressing concerns about the future of Travelling Stock Reserves in NSW shows that technical management alone is insufficient and needs to be accompanied by appropriate government policy that reduces damage rather than continues or increases it. That the message of restoration and rehabilitation is not yet winning over mainstream communities and governments may be partly explained by likelihood that some of the ways we characterize our own discipline is limiting its uptake. I elaborated on one of these last issue, which is the potential for confusion between the strict definition of ecological restoration (which we need in order to ensure professional standards) and the looser concepts of ‘highest practicable extent restoration’ or ‘ecological rehabilitation’ which can facilitate the expansion of our restorative work into irreversibly modified landscapes. This is linked to (and is partly a solution for) what I see as the second limitation; that some of us perceive the term ‘restoration’ as implying that the solutions have existed in some time in the past, whereas the solutions that we need in the future are yet to be invented given that we cannot reverse all anthropogenic modification and do not wish to. Much has been written on this theme, but less attention has been given to what I see as a third possible limiting characterization; our tendency to emphasize that part of the restoration cycle that is ‘constructive’ (i.e. weeding rebuilding soils, propagating, seeding and planting) arguably giving less attention to the all‐important task of addressing the causes of the damage, except at limited scales. The importance of stopping the damage cannot be overestimated in restoration and is actually well accepted at smaller scales. At the scale of the restoration site and catchment, for example, we have no problem accepting the wisdom of mitigating or stopping the damage as a first step in the restoration project. At larger scales, however, we are not so good at it. Now that critical habitat loss and climate impacts arising from unsustainable levels of economic development are being felt at regional, continental and global scales – we feel we can do very little. We seem to expect it to be someone‐else’s job. But that is part of the problem: everyone is expecting it to be someone‐else’s job. Our sense of helplessness in the face of global warming is understandable. We can only do so much as individuals in our own lives and neighbourhoods to reduce carbon emissions; there are not yet any clear and simple solutions at larger scales and third world development is proceeding apace. But have we really tackled the question of what we can do to promote global solutions as individual restorationists or as a discipline? Can we expand our characterization of ecological restoration and rehabilitation so that it grasps its own ‘first rule’ with both hands and more consciously embraces commitment to slowly but surely preventing and halting damage at a global level? I propose that we all become more active, as individuals and professionals in whatever ways we can. The common cause of creating a future where humans can live within nature’s capacity for recovery needs to be promoted until appropriate landscape management and restoration becomes mainstream. We cannot say this is not the business of restoration because without it restoration will become mere nostalgia. Embracing the commitment, however, links us strongly into a range of disciplines with potential synergies (such as the sustainable agriculture and Restoring Natural Capital areas) from which further innovation can flow. As professionals and citizens we can engage in more cultural and educational activities, advocacy and public debate – drawing on the Policy and Position Statements of Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) (at http://www.ser.org/ ) and those of the Ecological Society of Australia (at http://www.ecolsoc.org.au/ ). SER’s foundation documents, particularly the SER Primer , spell out what it means to restore ecosystems and how intimately involved the process of restoration is with human culture. Research that leads to technical, social and cultural innovations– as well as research into the root causes of over consumption of ecosystems – can be more deliberately fostered. Such efforts may, in turn, foster further innovation to help slow and stop the damage. The reward for this effort would be the same as the reward we expected of restoration previously defined. That is, it can lead to a more profound embedding of our communities within the world..within more secure ecosystems. In this (restoration) science fiction world, much of these ecosystems will have been conserved and protected, with other elements restored and rehabilitated as we renegotiate lifestyles that offer prosperity to humans while continuing to reduce our impacts upon our collective habitat and the habitats of our fellow beings.

Journal

Ecological Management & Restoration – Wiley

Published: Apr 1, 2010

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