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” (SER 2004). 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".

In the view of biologist E. O. Wilson, "Here is the means to end the great extinction spasm. The next century will, I believe, be the era of restoration in ecology.".

Rationale for restoration

There is consensus in the scientific community that the current environmental degradation and destruction of many of the Earth's biota is considerable, and is taking place on a “catastrophically short timescale” (Novacek & Cleland 2001). In fact, estimates of the current extinction rate are 1000 to 10,000 times the normal rate (Wilson 1988). For many people biological diversity (biodiversity) has an intrinsic value; humans have a responsibility toward other living things, and obligations to future generations.

On a more anthropocentric level, natural ecosystems provide human society with food, fuel and timber. More fundamentally, ecosystem services involve the purification of air and water, detoxification and decomposition of wastes, regulation of climate, regeneration of soil fertility, and pollination of crops. Such processes have been estimated to be worth trillions of dollars annually (Daily et al. 1997).

Habitat loss is the leading cause of both species extinctions (Wilson 1988) and ecosystem service decline (Daily et al. 1997). There are two ways to reverse this trend of habitat loss: conservation of currently viable habitat and restoration of degraded habitats.

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Pollination by a bumblebee, a type of ecosystem service

Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as ecosystem services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of wastes. While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services for decades, these services were popularized and their definitions formalized by the United Nations 2004 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year study involving more than 1,300 scientists worldwide.^[1] This grouped ecosystem services into four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits.

As human populations grow, so do the resource demands imposed on ecosystems and the impacts of our global footprint. Natural resources are not invulnerable and infinitely available. The environmental impacts of anthropogenic actions, which are processes or materials derived from human activities, are becoming more apparent – air and water quality are increasingly compromised, oceans are being overfished, pests and diseases are extending beyond their historical boundaries, and deforestation is exacerbating flooding downstream. It has been reported that approximately 40-50% of Earth’s ice-free land surface has been heavily transformed or degraded by anthropogenic activities, 66% of marine fisheries are either overexploited or at their limit, atmospheric CO₂ has increased more than 30% since the advent of industrialization, and nearly 25% of Earth’s bird species have gone extinct in the last two thousand years ^[2]. Society is increasingly becoming aware that ecosystem services are not only limited, but also that they are threatened by human activities. The need to better consider long-term ecosystem health and its role in enabling human habitation and economic activity is urgent. To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being assigned economic values, often based on the cost of replacement with anthropogenic alternatives. The ongoing challenge of prescribing economic value to nature, for example through biodiversity banking, is prompting transdisciplinary shifts in how we recognize and manage the environment, social responsibility, business opportunities, and our future as a species.

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