Among the many challenges land managers face in implementing restoration projects, one of the greatest is the difficulty of integrating restoration with other management imperatives. One of the most significant of those is the need to manage natural areas for the conservation of native animal and plant species. Some species are popular for hunting and wildlife watching; many serve vital ecological roles; many are rare and under special legal protection. It is not always clear if their habitat needs are compatible with restoring ecological integrity across the landscape. Yet there is evidence that ecological restoration can overlap to a large degree with the priorities of conservation biology. In 2004 the Ecological Restoration Institute sponsored two workshops aimed at exploring this issue.
When it comes to implementing successful ecological restoration projects, the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions are often as important as-and sometimes more important than-technical or biophysical knowledge. Human Dimensions of Ecological Restoration takes an interdisciplinary look at the myriad human aspects of ecological restoration. In twenty-six chapters written by experts from around the world, it provides practical and theoretical information, analysis, models, and guidelines for optimizing human involvement in restoration projects. Six categories of social activities are examined: collaboration between land manager and stakeholders ecological economics volunteerism and community-based restoration environmental education ecocultural and artistic practices policy and politics For each category, the book offers an introductory theoretical chapter followed by multiple case studies, each of which focuses on a particular aspect of the category and provides a perspective from within a unique social/political/cultural setting. Human Dimensions of Ecological Restoration delves into the often-neglected aspects of ecological restoration that ultimately make the difference between projects that are successfully executed and maintained with the support of informed, engaged citizens, and those that are unable to advance past the conceptual stage due to misunderstandings or apathy. The lessons contained will be valuable to restoration veterans and greenhorns alike, scholars and students in a range of fields, and individuals who care about restoring their local lands and waters.
Restoration plans must take into account the needs of current or desired wildlife species in project areas. Restoring Wildlife gives ecologists, restorationists, administrators, and other professionals involved with restoration projects the tools they need to understand essential ecological concepts, helping them to design restoration projects that can improve conditions for native species of wildlife. It also offers specific guidance and examples on how various projects have been designed and implemented. The book interweaves theoretical and practical aspects of wildlife biology that are directly applicable to the restoration and conservation of animals. It provides an understanding of the fundamentals of wildlife populations and wildlife-habitat relationships as it explores the concept of habitat, its historic development, components, spatialtemporal relationships, and role in land management. It applies these concepts in developing practical tools for professionals. Restoring Wildlife builds on the foundation of material presented in Wildlife Restoration, published by Island Press in 2002, offering the basic information from that book along with much updated material in a reorganized and expanded format. Restoring Wildlife is the only single source that deals with wildlife and restoration, and is an important resource for practicing restorationists and biologists as well as undergraduate and graduate students in wildlife management, ecological restoration, environmental science, and related fields.
The pace, intensity, and scale at which humans have altered our planet in recent decades is unprecedented. We have dramatically transformed landscapes and waterways through agriculture, logging, mining, and fire suppression, with drastic impacts on public health and human well-being. What can we do to counteract and even reverse the worst of these effects? Restore damaged ecosystems. The Primer of Ecological Restoration is a succinct introduction to the theory and practice of ecological restoration as a strategy to conserve biodiversity and ecosystems. In twelve brief chapters, the book introduces readers to the basics of restoration project planning, monitoring, and adaptive management. It explains abiotic factors such as landforms, soil, and hydrology that are the building blocks to successfully recovering microorganism, plant, and animal communities. Additional chapters cover topics such as invasive species and legal and financial considerations. Each chapter concludes with recommended reading and reference lists, and the book can be paired with online resources for teaching. Perfect for introductory classes in ecological restoration or for practitioners seeking constructive guidance for real-world projects, Primer of Ecological Restoration offers accessible, practical information on recent trends in the field.
Invasive species have a critical and growing effect upon natural areas. They can modify, degrade, or destroy wildland ecosystem structure and function, and reduce native biodiversity. Landscape-level solutions are needed to address these problems. Conservation biologists seek to limit such damage and restore ecosystems using a variety of approaches. One such approach is biological control: the deliberate importation and establishment of specialized natural enemies, which can address invasive species problems and which should be considered as a possible component of restoration. Biological control can be an effective tool against many invasive insects and plants but it has rarely been successfully employed against other groups. Safety is of paramount concern and requires that the natural enemies used be specialized and that targeted pests be drivers of ecological degradation. While modern approaches allow species to be selected with a high level of security, some risks do remain. However, as in all species introductions, these should be viewed in the context of the risk of failing to reduce the impact of the invasive species. This unique book identifies the balance among these factors to show how biological control can be integrated into ecosystem restoration as practiced by conservation biologists. Jointly developed by conservation biologists and biological control scientists, it contains chapters on matching tools to management goals; tools in action; measuring and evaluating ecological outcomes of biological control introductions; managing conflict over biological control; and includes case studies as well as an ethical framework for integrating biological control and conservation practice. Integrating Biological Control into Conservation Practice is suitable for graduate courses in invasive species management and biological control, as well as for research scientists in government and non-profit conservation organizations.
This book aims to further advance the field of reintroduction biology beyond the considerable progress made since the formation of the IUCN/SSC Re-introduction Specialist Group. Using an issue-based framework that purposely avoids a structure based on case studies the book's central theme is advocating a strategic approach to reintroduction where all actions are guided by explicit theoretical frameworks based on clearly defined objectives. Issues covered include husbandry and intensive management, monitoring, and genetic and health management. Although taxonomically neutral there is a recognised dominance of bird and mammal studies that reflects the published research in this field. The structure and content are designed for use by people wanting to bridge the research-management gap, such as conservation managers wanting to expand their thinking about reintroduction-related decisions, or researchers who seek to make useful applied contributions to reintroduction.
Policy makers and resource managers must make decisions that affect the resilience and sustainability of natural resources, including biodiversity and ecosystem services. However, these decisions are often based on evidence or theory derived from highly altered systems and over short time periods of low-magnitude environmental and climatic change. Because natural systems change and evolve across multiple timescales from instantaneous to millennial, long-term understanding of how past life has responded to perturbations can inform resource managers. By using these natural laboratories of the past, conservation paleobiology and paleoecology provide the framework necessary to anticipate and plan for future changes. The goal of this Research Topic is to heighten awareness among conservation and restoration practitioners to the value and applications of long-term perspectives provided by conservation paleobiology and paleoecology. Most conservation studies focus on systems already impacted by anthropogenic change; these studies would benefit from paleontological data through expanded temporal scales, identification of baselines, and an understanding of how organisms have responded to past changes. However, resource management decisions rarely include input from paleontologists, and paleoecological research is rarely incorporated into conservation decision-making. We seek to bridge this research-implementation gap by highlighting the application of paleoecological data to issues such as biodiversity dynamics, extinction risks, and resilience to perturbations, among other topics. We hope to foster new cross-disciplinary synergies by encouraging conservation scientists and managers to collaborate with paleontologists to improve conservation decision-making and by increasing awareness among paleontologists to the needs of the resource management community. This Research Topic will provide a forum for both the paleontological and resource management communities to exchange ideas that will enhance restoration and conservation decision-making. We invite papers on conceptual advances, reviews of specific topics to guide efforts in research or practice, case studies of successful applications, articles describing datasets with applied value, and perspective papers summarizing a body of paleontological research with relevance to the resource management community. Topics can include but are not limited to: • Responses of species, communities, and ecosystems to perturbations • Strategies to achieve the direct integration of paleobiology and paleoecology into on-ground resource management • Identifying baselines and reference conditions • Increasing the robustness of forecasting models through the incorporation of paleontological data • Identifying key species, interactions, and other phenomena as indicators of impending change • New methodologies, analytical tools, and/or proxies in the application of paleontological data to conservation and restoration practice Lynn Wingard, Damien Fordham, and Greg Dietl have no conflicts of interest. Chris Schneider has a potential conflict of interest where manuscripts pertain to stakeholders in the petroleum industry, as she is an independent contractor in the Alberta Oil Sands mining area.
This innovative book integrates practical information from restoration projects around the world with the latest developments in successional theory. It recognizes the critical roles of disturbance ecology, landscape ecology, ecological assembly, invasion biology, ecosystem health, and historical ecology in habitat restoration. It argues that restoration within a successional context will best utilize the lessons from each of these disciplines.
As anthropogenic environmental changes spread and intensify across the planet, conservation biologists have to analyze dynamics at large spatial and temporal scales. Ecological and evolutionary processes are then closely intertwined. In particular, evolutionary responses to anthropogenic environmental change can be so fast and pronounced that conservation biology can no longer afford to ignore them. To tackle this challenge, areas of conservation biology that are disparate ought to be integrated into a unified framework. Bringing together conservation genetics, demography, and ecology, this book introduces evolutionary conservation biology as an integrative approach to managing species in conjunction with ecological interactions and evolutionary processes. Which characteristics of species and which features of environmental change foster or hinder evolutionary responses in ecological systems? How do such responses affect population viability, community dynamics, and ecosystem functioning? Under which conditions will evolutionary responses ameliorate, rather than worsen, the impact of environmental change?
