Ecological restoration efforts are likely to be more successful when project components are informed by relevant stakeholders. However, key stakeholders are often not included in restoration design and deployment. This is largely driven by a lack of practitioner knowledge of and experience with stakeholder relations. However, inclusion of stakeholders across the entire restoration process can be accomplished by practitioners with no formal social science training. Here, we describe several easy (and usually inexpensive) ways to formally cultivate relationships among restoration practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders to improve restoration outcomes. These include: how to identify and work with stakeholders; how to recognize the unique needs and contributions of stakeholder groups, and how to provide information back to stakeholders through outreach. Although how this practice occurs is dependent on restoration context, integrating these approaches more regularly into ecological restoration projects will likely result in more successful, relevant, and community‐supported management outcomes.
There is a growing need to engage youth in ecological restoration in order to address rising environmental issues. Youth involvement in restoration ecology, and more specifically, participation and assistance with field‐based work is beneficial for all involved parties and should, therefore, be more widespread. Here, we describe different opportunities and approaches to engaging youth in restoration including programs and activities in classrooms, citizen science, formal internship programs, and opportunities through social media. We also discuss potential challenges associated with youth engagement in restoration and offer solutions. Youth engagement is critical for the development and continuance of the field of ecological restoration, and strategies to integrate young people into restoration projects should become more common in the field.
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