Relationship of Restoration to Related Fields
Effective ecological restoration is one of a number of strategie initiatives that are urgently needed to counter and, if possible, reverse the accelerating deterioration of the biosphere and its wealth of natural resources on which all people, and all lif
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Relationship of Restoration to Related Fields
Effective ecological restoration is one of a number of strategic initiatives that are urgently needed to counter and, if possible, reverse the accelerating deterioration of the biosphere and its wealth of natural resources on which all people, and all life on the planet, depend. There are many forms of actions—and associated professions—that have, at times, been conflated with ecological restoration. Insofar as they address environmental and ecological concerns, many of them are indeed related to restoration, but there is also a blurring and fuzziness at times. Cleaning up an oil spill, in and of itself, is not restoration; it is the elimination of toxic pollution. Planting turf grasses on a retired mine site or closed landfill may provide an attractive lawn or meadow, but it is not restoration. Proposed efforts to slow anthropogenic global warming through geoengineering of the atmosphere and oceans are also not ecological restoration but rather high-risk gambles we can all do without. Policy makers, administrators, and others who need to know what each environmental discipline can offer are frequently misinformed about core concepts and the key words employed related to ecological restoration. Some of the confusion begins with the diversity of interests that restorationists themselves bring to our young and volatile discipline. Restoration is used so loosely by some authors and in some arenas that its meaning can be lost or misconstrued. Our goal is to raise ecological restoration from its current status as a buzzword so that it can achieve its full potential as a prominent element in national and international politics and policy. We begin this chapter by exploring the differences between ecological restoration and restoration ecology. Next, we consider the relationships between ecological restoration and ecosystem management, rehabilitation, reclamation, revegeta-
A.F. Clewell and J. Aronson, Ecological Restoration: Principles, Values, and Structure of an Emerging Profession, The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration, DOI 10.5822/978-1-59726-323-8_10, © 2013 Andre F. Clewell and James Aronson
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ecological restoration: principles, values, and structure of an emerging profession
tion, and remediation. Spreading our survey further, we consider compensatory mitigation, ecosystem fabrication and creation, landscape architecture and design, and ecological engineering. Some authors consider all of these disciplines and activities, including ecological restoration, as aspects or components of ecological engineering. Others, including ourselves, consider them as complementary and sometimes partially overlapping. We argue that we need to draw clear boundaries between disciplines in order to facilitate effective communication and collaboration as part of a concerted effort to resolve the truly daunting environmental problems that face us. This is especially important when we deal with people, agencies, and companies with little or no background in science
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