Transcript What do we mean when we talk about ecological restoration?

Ecological Restoration
Burning South Prairie at Green Oaks - 2013
Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and
Redgrave Hall
A (Very) Brief History
of Ecological Restoration
Aldo Leopold planting at the Shack - 1936
CCC crewman planting Curtis Prairie - 1936
CCC crew watering Curtis Prairie – late 1930’s
University of Wisconsin Arboretum
The Founders of Green Oaks – Henry Green, George Ward,
Alvah Green, and Paul Shepard - 1955
Green Oaks prior to prairie planting
Early prairie establishment at Green Oaks
Pete Schramm
burning the
prairie
Green Oaks from the Air
100 sites monitored for long-term
studies of restoration success
Plan for Green Network, Chicago Area
Conservation of Natural Areas
Conservation of natural areas and their associated
biological diversity depends on two fundamental
tools:
1. Keeping the natural areas that remain natural in the
future - this is achieved by some combination of
protection and management including purchase of
lands by conservation agencies and wise stewardship
of natural lands in both public and private ownership,
with all management focused on maintaining or
improving existing natural areas
Conservation of Natural Areas
2. Replacing at least some of the natural areas
which have been lost - replacing natural areas
means putting a prairie or forest or wetland
where it is presently nonexistent but where it
once existed - such replacement is often
termed reconstruction or restoration
Ecological Restoration
• Restoration - returns an area to its original
species composition and structure by an active
program of reintroduction, in particular
planting and seeding of the original species –
some people restrict restoration to discussing
sites where some remnant of original
community still exists
• Reconstruction - restoration where no remnant
of original community still exists
What are we trying to do in our
ecological restorations?
• “Ecological restoration is the process of
assisting the recovery of an ecosystem
that has been degraded, damaged, or
destroyed.” (Society for Ecological
Restoration Science and Policy Working
Group 2002)
Another definition
Ecological Restoration- the full or partial
replacement of biological populations
and/or their habitats that have been
extinguished or diminished.
Ideally the restoration will return normal
ecosystem function to an area and hopefully
the project will also have social or
economic value to humans
Restoration Ecology is the study of
restoration; ER is the process of restoration
Semi-natural habitat
• Semi-natural habitat has some human
influence in maintaining its current
structure and function, but still has all the
species which would be expected to occur
in the area in a natural state
Among the objectives of various
restoration projects are:
1. creating visually attractive vegetation
2. providing educational and possibly scientific
interest in the community
3. safeguarding rare species or scarce ecological
communities
4. constructing low maintenance landscapes
Big Scale Prairie Restoration
Progress at Midewin
Challenges at Midewin
Benefits of Restoration
• There are many benefits to habitat restoration including direct
economic benefits such as found for prairies, forests and
wetlands in their timber value, recreational value or value of
food harvested as fish or game
• Other values include - genetic value of species from millions
of years of natural selection
• The scientific benefit of study of these ecosystems,
• Wildlife habitat and food chain support,
• Erosion and sedimentation control,
• Carbon and nutrient retention,
• Maintenance of biological diversity for future generations
(heritage value)
Beach Bluff Restoration – Santa
Monica, California
Butterfly Valley – South Africa
Quarry Restoration – Perth, Australia
Native Vegetation Restoration - Brazil
Stream and Countryside Restoration Netherlands
Stream and Countryside Restoration Netherlands
Roadside restoration - Canada
Restoration of nuclear waste site –
Fernald, Ohio
Students planting at Fernald
Ocelot Restoration, Sonora, Mexico
Restoration of grazing lands and Konik
horses in Latvia
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Geoengineering: Our Last Hope, or a False Promise?
By CLIVE HAMILTON
Published: May 26, 2013 The New York Times
CANBERRA, Australia — ‘THE concentration of carbon
dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere recently surpassed 400 parts
per million for the first time in three million years. If you are
not frightened by this fact, then you are ignoring or denying
science.
• Relentlessly rising greenhouse-gas emissions, and the fear that
the earth might enter a climate emergency from which there
would be no return, have prompted many climate scientists to
conclude that we urgently need a Plan B: geoengineering.
• Geoengineering — the deliberate, large-scale intervention in
the climate system to counter global warming or offset some
of its effects — may enable humanity to mobilize its
technological power to seize control of the planet’s climate
system, and regulate it in perpetuity.’
Good Habitat Restoration
• Ground rules for habitat restoration and
reconstruction can only be established once the
objectives for each project are clearly stated
and the appropriate site and situation for the
project can be found - thus each restoration
project will have its own ground rules and its
own operating and management plan
Good Habitat Restoration
• Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of habitat
restoration is the challenge that it presents to
our understanding of ecology and botany
• Restoration projects are continually thwarted
by incomplete information ranging from the
environmental requirements of individual
species to the functioning of entire
communities and ecosystems
Good Habitat Restoration
• For good habitat design we need to know much more
about critical population sizes of the species
concerned; the dispersal ability of organisms; the role
of isolation and connectivity of ecosystems in
landscapes; the importance of fertility in determining
community diversity; and the relevance of gap size
and disturbance in maintaining species-rich
communities, to name only a few critical areas
• Habitat restoration provides us with the both the tools
and the laboratory to answer those questions
Why Field Botany?
"Within a few weeks now Draba, the smallest
flower that blows, will sprinkle every sandy
place with small blooms.
He who hopes for spring with upturned eye
never sees so small a thing as Draba. He who
despairs of spring with downcast eye steps on
it, unknowing. He who searches for spring
with his knees in the mud finds it, in
abundance….”
- Aldo Leopold
Draba reptans – Common Whitlow-grass
Draba reptans flower