Ecological restoration as a project for global society - Restoration Ecology - page 4

are going to be major tools available to humankind
for mitigating, arresting and reversing the adverse
effects human activity has had on the Earth system,
particularly since the Industrial Revolution. The
challenges that we face include, among others (i) food,
water and energy security, (ii) loss of biodiversity,
(iii) global climate change and (iv) sea-level rise. The
first two are a result of direct human pressures, with
increasing population sizes demanding more resources;
the last two are a result of amplification of the pos-
itive loops of natural feedback mechanisms, with the
production of greenhouse gases from fossil stocks as
the forcing function (Lovelock 1991). More discussion
of this global picture will be found in the last part of
this volume.
So, what do we mean by terms such as ecological
restoration and restoration ecology? How are they
related? How do they fit into society?

1.2 Societal aspects of ecological
restoration

Robertson and Hull (2001) have argued that the
ultimate purpose of conservation science is to inform
and affect conservation policy, and therefore those
engaged in the production, review and application of
conservation science should gauge their success in terms
of their work's influence and impact on conservation
decision making. They name this philosophy 'public
ecology'. Whether you regard ecological restoration
as an extension of conservation or a complement
thereto, Robertson and Hull's appeal is equally applic-
able. We could also refer to the notion of human eco-
logy, or sustainability science (see also Chapter 16 in
this volume).
What is crucial, however, is that the arena in
which restoration ecology and ecological restoration
meet is societal. Societal involvement may imply volun-
teer work or a project carried out in a private back
garden, or a multinational effort to sequester carbon
by reforesting tropical rain forest, all beyond soci-
ety's expert circles. Higgs (1997) has argued, most
compellingly, that good restoration must encompass
technical, historical, political, social, cultural and
aesthetic components to offer any prospect of sus-
tainable success. The issue of sustainability is central
to restoration efforts. To simply execute a technical
programme involving earth moving, tree planting
and species re-introduction, to mention only a few,
will not succeed in the long term if not embedded in
a social context. It all demands inputs of time, effort
and resources. There are several examples of how local
communities may be involved, where non-expert
information is crucial to success (Geist & Galatowitsch
1999). Light and Higgs (1996) and Swart et al . (2001)
have illustrated that conflicts may arise when re-
storation programmes impact heavily on local popu-
lations. The level of community influence at each level
may be summarized as in Fig. 1.2. Here, as the scale
(maybe also the complexity) of a project increases, the
direct influence of the communities involved decreases
and the influence of scientific opinion increases. The
community of 'non-experts' is incapable of forming
accurate, or useful, judgements at such levels. This
approach is becoming increasingly hard to sustain,
as ultimately it is quite undemocratic, and is under

1.1.2 What is restoration ecology?

Many definitions exist of ecological restoration
(e.g. NRC 1992, Jackson et al . 1995, SWS 2000). All
incorporate the idea of reversing ecosystem develop-
ments that are considered negative through active
human intervention. In this volume we adopt the
definition presented by the Society for Ecological
Restoration International (SER International; SER
2002; www.ser.org), and adopted by the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which
is as follows:

Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the
recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded,
damaged or destroyed.

This definition is very broad but it shows clearly that
restoration is not something theoretical without any
practical obligations, but has to do with active engage-
ment and intervention in current social and environ-
mental affairs. In the present volume we will, like most
other authors, use the words ecological restoration for
the actual practice, and restoration ecology for the funda-
mental science upon which these actions should be based.
Ecological restoration differs from rehabilitation, eco-
logical reclamation, ecological engineering and land-
scaping in that all aspects of ecosystem structure and
function are considered and addressed (see section 1.3.1).