Keywords

conservation, native species, ecosystems, restoration goals, human site damage, anthropogenic damage, degradation, reconstruct, rehabilitate, brownfields, strip mining, levied estuaries, invasives, stream restoration, conservation ranching, fire regime, soil restoration, watershed management, toxics, conservation, ecosystem restoration, environmental restoration, ecological restoration

Definition

Restoration ecology is perhaps the largest task of sustainability. It is the study and practice of how to repair human damage to ecological systems. Three levels include "reconstruction" of destroyed landscapes (e.g. brownfields, strip mines, levied estuaries, cemented rivers); "rehabilitation" of modified landscapes (e.g. grazed rangelands, damaged streams, widespread invasives); and the fine-tuning of "restoration" (e.g. remove invasives, restore natives, stop leakage of soil and nutrients, restore natural fire regimes, etc.).