Rocketing restoration: enabling the upscaling of ecological restoration in the Anthropocene

Abstract

In the 25 years during which the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) has overseen the publication of Restoration Ecology, the field has witnessed conceptual and practical advances. These have become necessary due to the scale of environmental change wrought by the increasing global human population, and associated demands for food, fiber, energy, and water. As we look to the future, and attempt to fulfill global restoration commitments and meet sustainable development goals, there is a need to reverse land degradation and biodiversity loss through upscaling ecological restoration. Here, we argue that this upscaling requires an expanded vision for restoration that explicitly accounts for people and nature. This expansion can assess success in a future-focused way and as improvements relative to a degraded socio-ecological system. We suggest that upscaling requires addressing governance, legal and ethical challenges, investing in technological and educational capacity building, bolstering the practical science necessary for restoration, encouraging adoptable packages to ensure livelihoods of local stakeholders, and promoting investment opportunities for local actors and industry. Providing SER embraces this socio-ecological vision, it is ideally placed to aid the achievement of goals and remain globally relevant. SER needs to harness and coordinate three sources of potential energy (global political commitments, the green economy, and local community engagement) to rocket restoration into the Anthropocene. With principles that can embrace flexibility and context-dependency in minimum restoration standards, SER has the potential to guide socio-ecological restoration and help realize the ultimate goal of a sustainable Earth.

Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge: how a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

“…Stepping back involves consideration all types of biomes and habitats. Stepping up requires improved scientific study of ecological restoration on a landscape scale (Perring et al ). Key areas for research include assessment of which restoration actions best deliver bundles of ecosystem services without compromising the biophysical relationships that regulate these services.…”

“…Future research should focus on the relative ability (and availability, see Table Practice Needs column) of native versus non‐native as well as invasive plant species (whether native or not) to reinstate complex webs of interactions. There is a need for larger scale integrative restoration research (Perring et al , ) to address these key issues at the nexus between biodiversity and climate change.…”

“…Systematic and integrated assessment of the collective benefits of FLR in terms of biodiversity, livelihood, and climate mitigation outcomes (Chazdon & Laestadius ; Mansourian ) will provide a better basis from which to adaptively manage action on the ground. Holistically assessing performance outcomes is an area that therefore urgently needs concerted attention and investment of resources (Suding ; Perring et al , ; Chazdon et al ). Only once we have enough data on this topic can we adaptively adjust our actions and start effectively prioritizing where and which processes and actions are most important (Suding ; Perring et al ) for different desired biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and service scenarios.…”

Do or do not. There is no try in restoration ecology

“…The purpose of restoration ecology has also changed from mostly ethical motivations to necessity, and it will continue to change to embrace shifting and diverse human and ecosystem needs (Paschke et al ). Restoration ecology is also rapidly evolving in scope or “upscaling” to match the scale of changes that natural systems continue to experience ( Perring et al ). The background rate of change of all ecosystems globally demands big‐picture, evidence‐based thinking and a focus on reframing and shaping the momentum of the predominantly human‐driven Anthropocene epoch toward relatively more desirable outcomes that balance generic functions with human well‐being (Dalby ; Bennett et al ; Cooke et al ).…”

A checklist for choosing between R packages in ecology and evolution

“…| 1099 LORTIE ET aL. 2015; Perring, Erickson, & Brancalion, 2018) and in how we do science with the open science movement growing (Nosek et al, 2015;Tennant et al, 2016), increasing availability of data (Hampton et al, 2013), and increasing accountability of science to society (Sequeira, Bouchet, Yates, Mengersen, & Caley, 2018;Sutherland, Fleishman, Mascia, Pretty, & Rudd, 2011). Necessity is the mother of invention, and we not only have the imperative but also many of the tools we now need to do better science.…”