Deforestation and destruction of grasslands and wetlands have taken a toll on biodiversity. We are beginning to see the value in ecological restoration: reversing these trends and making safe habitats for other species of animals.

Some people have long questioned the wisdom of putting the well-being of endangered species above human needs. Actually, restoration can serve both interests.

Natural ecosystems suffer three degrees of harm.

• Damage results from such activities as building a single structure, selective logging, establishment of non-native species, or poaching.
• Degradation results when damage starts to disrupt the ecosystem’s structure and function and cause loss of biodiversity. Causes include monoculture farming, excessive grazing, overfishing, overhunting, or persistent invasions of non-native species.
• Destruction results from such practices as land clearing, urbanization, mining, or coastal erosion that removes all the animals and vegetation growing there.

Ecological restoration, or ecosystem restoration, aims to restore a damaged, degraded, or destroyed ecosystem to its historic functioning. It does so by creating conditions in which plants, animals, and microbes can carry out the work of ecosystem recovery.

That is, people can carry out restoration projects that remove invasive species, plant trees,  restore wetlands or grasslands, reintroduce various animal populations, restore natural river flow, etc. The various life forms actually perform the work of recovery. How long it takes depends on the kind of damage, degradation, or destruction the land suffered. If, for example, it lost 500-year-old trees, it will take 500 years for new plantings to replace them.

Rewilding

American environmentalist Dave Foreman coined the term “rewilding” in the 1990s. Environmentalists have not yet come to agreement on exactly what it means, but at first, it focused on “three Cs”: core protected areas with limited human activity, carnivores, and connections between protected habitats.

Lots of people applaud reintroduction of herbivores such as bison or beavers. The thought of reintroducing top-level carnivores such as lynx and wolves stirs up controversy. For one thing, wolves do not know that they are supposed to prey on wild animals but not the cattle on nearby ranches. And some people romanticize deer and beavers and become squeamish at the thought of anything killing them.

But healthy biodiversity demands the entire range of the food chain. Herbivores eat a variety of plants. It’s not good for the land if they become too numerous and overgraze. So healthy biodiversity must include predators to keep their numbers in balance.

Predators leave carcasses behind and eventually die. Therefore, the land must also have decomposers—large scavengers but also insects, worms, bacteria, fungi, and other species that consume whatever dies and return it to soil.

Many animals naturally operate in large ranges. No one nature preserve is large enough for some species. Therefore, ecological restoration requires connections between them to allow this natural movement.

Restoration of natural disturbances

Finally, natural disturbances such as floods and fires actually contribute to the resiliency of natural ecosystems. Over the last century or so, conservationists have worked to limit their occurrence. We have only recently recognized our mistakes.

Restoration of ecosystems, then, requires creating conditions where natural processes can happen on their own and nature can take care of itself.

The concept of rewilding stirs up controversy simply because too many people fail to understand the necessity of predators and “natural disasters” for this restoration to be complete. Lightning sometimes sparks fires. Naturally flowing rivers sometimes flood.

And, of course, we want natural fires and floods to take place in “nature,” but not where we live. And we want predators to leave our farm animals and pets alone. Since we share this planet with so many other species, each with their own requirements and interests, no one always gets their own way in everything. Humanity has long had to adapt itself to lions, bears, floods, and wildfires.

And lately, at least, our technology has made natural disturbances and their consequences much more serious. It has also caused unnatural fires and floods.

Creating or enhancing carbon sinks

Ecological restoration, ecosystem restoration, habitat restoration, rewilding, or whatever anyone wants to call it has the additional effect of capturing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it. Restoring grasslands might even do it more effectively than restoring forests, although both are important.

Brazilian scientists estimate that restoring 15% of degraded ecosystems could sequester 30% of all the greenhouse gases emitted since the Industrial Revolution began. And it’s possible to predict which areas will provide the greatest benefit from ecosystem restoration.

In fact, homeowners who take steps to improve the biodiversity in their own lawns make their own contributions to ecological restoration.

Government owns about 30% of the land in the lower 48 states. That leaves about 70% in private hands. That 70% includes farms, ranches, and working forests. These lands, in turn, provide much of the nation’s open space and wildlife habitats.

Only fools suppose that agriculture and forestry can’t coexist with natural resource conservation, endangered species protection, biodiversity, and other environmental imperatives. That’s not to say that all of our agricultural and forestry practices are sustainable. Much needs to change.

But conservation on private lands has played a crucial role in enhancing biodiversity. For example, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has removed the sage grouse from the list of species that need protection under the Endangered Species Act. Targeted voluntary conservation work by private landholders made it possible. And as a result, hundreds of other species have also benefitted.

Learning to do conservation and ecological restoration better than we have in the past

As with everything else, habitat restoration can be done well or badly. And fuzzy thinking too easily results in bad outcomes. For example, the word habitat can have more than one meaning. Biodiversity can also be a remarkably vague concept.

In restoring a grassland, for example, one grassland isn’t interchangeable with another. What species are most likely to thrive in a particular project? Does restoration mean providing more of what it already has? Or would something else be more suitable for species it’s designed to help?

For any ecosystem restoration project, ecological constraints determine what’s possible. Financial constraints determine what’s feasible. Social constraints determine whether a project will be acceptable.

Rewilding by reintroducing large predators, for example, will have a negative impact on surrounding farms and ranches. How can the project achieve its goals and still allow these businesses to operate successfully?

More to the point, most national parks—in the US and worldwide—have been established in part by forcing anyone living on the land to leave. Most often, it has meant outsiders disrupting or destroying the culture of indigenous people.

As a result, displaced people have been known to return to their homeland as poachers or otherwise actively sabotage administration of the park. Successful ecological restoration requires seeking cooperation with all the local stakeholders, which requires compromise all around.

Examples of ecological restoration projects

 

On the American prairie

Dozens of bison have recently been released in the Wolakota Buffalo Range, operated by the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. By the end of November 2021, the bison herd in the 28,000-acre preserve is expected to comprise 900 animals. After the birth of calves in the spring, the population should reach a thousand. The preserve can support about 1,500 of the animals.

The World Wildlife Federation, in partnership with various tribes, hopes to establish at least five herds of bison with at least 1,000 animals each. This project not only enhances biodiversity but also brings cultural renewal to the local Native American societies.

It never ceases to amaze me how some environmentalists can applaud reintroduction of bison and still insist that eating meat is an ecological menace. Modern industrial farming has indeed caused numerous environmental problems, including methane from farting cattle. Regenerative agriculture, if practiced on a large enough scale, can reverse them.

In British meadows and woodlands

Despite thousands of years of farming in the British Isles, fragments of ancient forests and grasslands remain. The Abernethy National Nature Reserve in Scotland includes one of the largest of these. The RSPB Scotland (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) and others have spent decades working to restore and expand it. The project has a 200-year plan to encourage natural processes to flourish.

Part of the process is to allow ancient trees to seed and spread, expanding the forest’s range within the preserve.

The groups working on Abernethy shy away from the concept of rewilding. At present, anyway, they have no plans to introduce large predators to keep herbivores in check. In their absence, the reserve allows hunters to cull the deer and sell the venison. The practice provides jobs for the hunters and income for the project.

Hunters, by the way, were some of the earliest advocates for conservation of natural landscapes in the American environmental movement. Let’s not vilify hunting when it contributes to a properly functioning ecosystem.

Sources:

Dozens of bison released on tribal land in South Dakota / Mary Jo DiLonardo, Treehugger. October 28, 2021
Habitat restoration benefits both wildlife and working lands / Jason Weller, US Department of Agriculture blog. February 21, 2017
Habitat Restoration—Do We Know What We’re Doing? / James R. Miller and Richard J. Hobbs, Restoration Ecology. September 2007
Rewilding: Can it save our wildlife and temper climate change? / Jocelyn Timperley, BBC Science Focus. January 8, 2021
What is ecological restoration? / Society for Ecological Restoration.