Restoration of Mediterranean woodlands - Restoration Ecology - page 199

Table 14.1 Framework for the restoration of Mediterranean ecosystems. Drivers for restoration are identified, as
well as actions that can be undertaken to attenuate them, and available techniques to implement these actions.
Each driver must be offset to ensure successful restoration.

Driver Action Technique

Persistent stress (disturbances, Release stress Limited access to people, herbivores, etc.

unwanted species) Fire prevention, windbreaks

Species control (fire, herbicides, clearing)

Low propagule availability Artificial introduction Seeding, planting

Promote dispersion Bird-mediated restoration, frugivory-

mediated restoration (artificial perches,
catches, habitat amelioration)

Adverse environmental Reduce soil losses Emergency seeding, mulching, sediment traps

conditions Ameliorate soil properties Amendments, nutrient immobilization,

mulching, drainage, soil preparation

Improve microclimate Shelters, mulching, microsite selection

2 Improving the resistance, and especially the resili-
ence, of ecosystems with respect to human- and non-
human disturbances: to ensure sustainability of the
restored lands we aim to promote plant, animal and
microbial communities resilient to current and
future disturbance regimes.
3 Increasing mature woody formations, both forests
and shrublands, depending on the environmental
conditions of the site, in order to improve ecosys-
tem and landscape quality and to increase carbon
storage under scenarios of global warming and CO 2
build-up.
4 Promoting biodiversity and fostering the re-
introduction of key species that have disappeared
because of past land uses.

exclusion may be sufficient to ensure satisfactory
post-fire regeneration (Ne'eman 1997). In some cases,
rodent control may also be required to reduce seed
predation and promote establishment of new plant-
ings. However, in most cases, simple grazing exclu-
sion or even tighter control of grazing will evidently
not be sufficient to achieve restoration of ecosystems
in mature stages of development. In such situations,
active restoration will be required, with relatively
large inputs and typically a number of synergistic tech-
niques - both biotic and abiotic - being applied con-
currently. We will deal with these issues below.

14.3.3 First-aid restoration

In some cases, a quick restoration action is urgently
needed before the degradation process reaches or
exceeds a certain threshold beyond which restoration
becomes almost non-viable or prohibitively expensive.
This may be the case in some sensitive systems
after wildfire, where fire eliminates most vegetation,
leaving an unprotected soil (Robichaud et al. 2000).
In conditions of steep slopes, erodible soils and poor
regeneration capacity retained in the vegetation,
post-fire rainfall can generate acute erosion processes
(De Luís et al. 2001). In eastern Spain, for example,
many plant communities dominated by obligate

14.3.2 Passive restoration

Relatively inexpensive, passive restoration techniques
are preferable where ecosystem structural/functional
damage is relatively limited and resilience is high. This
is the case in some overgrazed ecosystems, where the
exclusion, or severe restriction of livestock grazing for
some years is sometimes sufficient to promote self-
recovery (e.g. Floret et al. 1981, Wesstrom & Steen
1993). This may also apply to some post-fire con-
ditions, where innate resilience combined with grazing