Resource Database

National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program: IERQC Webinar

Topic:  National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program
Presenter:  Bill Route, National Park Service

A toolkit to support conservation by indigenous peoples and local communities: Building capacity and sharing knowledge for Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs)

The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre has a toolkit to support conservation by indigenous peoples and local communities.

Relevance for the Short Term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration:
This toolkit is focused on building capacity and sharing knowledge for Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCAs), in line with activity C1.

Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (PACTO) Monitoring Protocol

The Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (PACTO), a joint effort by Brazilian public and private institutions, governments, companies, the scientific community, and landowners to generate results in restoration and conservation of biodiversity of the Atlantic Forest biome, has developed a monitoring protocol for tropical forest restoration. It includes ecological, socioecological and management principles and criteria. A review of this protocol has also been published, suggesting that this protocol may also be useful in other regions of the world.

Relevance for the Short Term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration:
The monitoring protocol developed for the Atlantic Forest biome is an excellent example of work conducted in line with activity D1, whereby monitoring plans are developed and implemented through close collaboration with multiple stakeholders. This protocol also uses pre-existing restoration efforts in the Atlantic Forest biome to share lessons learned with all stakeholders, relevant to activity D3.

A handbook for prioritizing wetland and stream restoration and protection using landscape analysis

Provides states, tribes, and local governments with information about the range of tools used by wetland programs across the country to prioritize wetlands and streams for restoration and protection. The handbook is intended to help guide the development, establishment, and refinement of approaches for identifying restoration and protection priorities.

Manual of River Restoration Techniques

This manual is presented in 11 separate parts, each part encompassing a significant activity, or objective, that may typically be included in a restoration project brief with examples of techniques that may be useful in achieving the specific objectives.

Climate, Community & Biodiversity Project Design Standards

The CCB Standards have become the most widely used and respected international standard for the multiple-benefits of land-based carbon projects. As of November 2008, six projects had completed the validation process and ten projects were in the public comment phase. These 16 CCB projects aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 4.4 million tons of CO2e per year and cover 1,385,190 ha.

Cost-benefit analysis of mangrove restoration in Thi Nai Lagoon, Quy Nhon City, Vietnam

This report includes the results of a cost-benefit analysis of mangrove restoration versus other land use options.

Primed for change: Developing ecological restoration for the 21st century

This paper offers comments and suggestions on options for updating the Society for Ecological Restoration’s Primer on Ecological Restoration given the shifting concepts methods, goals and thinking of the field in the decade since the Primer was released.

Priority setting for scaling-up tropical forest restoration projects: Early lessons from the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact

Ongoing conversion of tropical forests makes it urgent to invest in ecological restoration on
grand scales in order to promote biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. The
4-year old Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP) aims to restore 15,000,000 ha of tropical
forest in 40 years. The approaches and lessons learned appear transferable, and could help
achieve the global restoration targets. Fundamental prerequisites for success include:
effective technology undergoing continuous improvement, ongoing teaching, outreach
and capacity-building efforts, presence of local intelligentsia, maintaining a clear and
transparent legal environment, and presence of effective economic instruments and incentives
for landowners.

Preliminary Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Great Western Development Strategy: Safeguarding Ecological Security for a New Western China

The Great Western Development Strategy (GWDS) is a long term national campaign aimed at boosting development of the western area of China and narrowing the economic gap between the western and the eastern parts of China. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure was employed to assess the environmental challenges brought about by the western development plans. These plans include five key developmental domains (KDDs): water resource exploitation and use, land utilization, energy generation, tourism development, and ecological restoration and conservation.

Rainfall-Tuned Management Facilitates Dry Forest Recovery

Regeneration of original dry forests and shrublands in degraded arid and semiarid ecosystems can be a slow and difficult process. It has been hypothesized that restoration efforts during periods of increased water availability may potentially trigger shifts back to a high vegetation cover depending on several environmental factors that govern the response of vegetation to rainfall. Tuning restoration efforts to climate variability will likely become increasingly important under climate change conditions. The experiences evaluated here are a pioneering effort to reforest arid South American forests. Our study shows that management tuned to forecasted rainfall events is able to trigger a long-lasting shift toward higher vegetation cover. We provide a better insight in how environmental factors shape vegetation response to increased rainfall and discuss the implications for ecosystem resilience and restoration.

Realising Multiple Ecosystem Services based on the Response of Three Beneficial Insect Groups to Floral Traits and Trait Diversity

Beneficial insects in agro-ecosystems provide humans with many invaluable ecosystem services including crop pollination and pest control. The creation of wildflower strips has emerged as a key tool to conserve beneficial insect groups in these systems. Yet, the efficacy of these schemes in delivering multiple ecosystem services is usually limited by our poor understanding of how plant species composition, functional traits and trait diversity affect insect visitation and resource use. Here we investigate the effects of plant floral traits and trait diversity on flower visitation by three functionally distinct beneficial insect groups, which provide crop pollination and pest control services: bumblebees, hoverflies and parasitoid wasps.

Reforestation Strategies Amid Social Instability: Lessons from Afghanistan

Reforestation practitioners could benefit from the human and material resources now present as part of the international war effort. Successes and failures encountered in Afghanistan should be considered in order to address similar problems in insecure regions elsewhere when reforestation may help reverse environmental degradation and contribute to broader social stabilization efforts.

Resolving the Conflict between Ecosystem Protection and Land Use in Protected Areas of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico

The objectives of this paper are: (a) to analyze the conflict between people’s livelihoods and ecosystem protection in the PAs of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas (SMC), paying special attention to the rates and causes of deforestation and (b) to review policy options to ensure forest and ecosystem conservation in these PAs, including the existing payments for environmental services system and improvements thereof as well as options for sustainable land management.

Restoration of ailing wetlands

The emerging field of restoration ecology is capitalizing on the natural restorative tendencies of ecological systems to build a science of repairing the harm inflicted by humans on natural environment. Evidence for this, for example, comes from a new meta-analysis of 124 studies that synthesizes recovery of impacted wetlands worldwide. While it may take up to two human generations to see full recovery, there is promise, given human will, to restore many damaged wetlands worldwide.

Restoring Ecosystems around the Mediterranean Basin: Beyond the Frontiers of Ecological Science

actions with lasting impacts on the ecosystems. Our discussion illustrates how current ecological problems have become extremely complex and how the success of restoration projects depends on effective social interactions.

River Restoration in Spain: Theoretical and Practical Approach in the Context of the European Water Framework Directive

River restoration is becoming a priority in many countries because of increasing the awareness of environmental degradation. In Europe, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) has significantly reinforced river restoration, encouraging the improvement of ecological status for water bodies. To fulfill the WFD requirements, the Spanish Ministry of the Environment developed in 2006 a National Strategy for River Restoration whose design and implementation are described in this paper. At the same time many restoration projects have been conducted, and sixty of them have been evaluated in terms of stated objectives and pressures and implemented restoration measures.

Seed Rain and Soil Seed Banks Limit Native Regeneration within Urban Forest Restoration Plantings in Hamilton City, New Zealand

Restoration of native forest vegetation in urban environments may be limited due to isolation from native seed sources and to the prevalence of exotic plant species. To investigate urban seed availability we recorded the composition of seed rain, soil seed banks and vegetation at native forest restoration plantings up to 36 years old in Hamilton City and compared these with naturally regenerating forest within the city and in a nearby rural native forest remnant.

Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure

The overarching goals of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security are to achieve food security for all and support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. While supporting efforts towards the eradication of hunger and poverty, the Guidelines are also intended to contribute to achieving sustainable livelihoods, social stability, housing security, rural development, environmental protection, and sustainable social and economic development.

Relevance for the Short Term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration:
Guidance on land tenure (B2) has been developed by the FAO, through its Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure. The Guidelines serve as a reference and set out principles and internationally accepted standards for practices for the responsible governance of land tenure. They provide a framework that countries can use when developing their own strategies, policies, legislation, programmes and activities.

Potential Natural Vegetation of Eastern Africa (VECEA)

The potential natural vegetation (PNV) map of eastern and southern Africa covers the countries Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia. The map is available in different formats and is accompanied by an extensive documentation of the floristic, physiognomic and other characteristics of the different vegetation types and useful woody species in the 8 countries. It is complemented by a species selection tool, which can be used to ‘find the right tree for the right place,’ an African Tree Finder app, and potential distribution maps of the useful woody species that occur in eastern Africa.

Relevance for the Short Term Action Plan for Ecosystem Restoration:
In combination, these tools can contribute to understanding baseline conditions, assessing opportunities for restoration, and selecting appropriate plant species for restoration projects, in line with activities C1, C2, and C3.

Cultural Survival, Tribal Sovereignty and River Restoration on the Central Northwest Coast, North America

The Elwha River system on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state (USA) is a storied land. For the Klallam (Coast Salish) people who claim it as their homeland, it is a place filled with narratives about culture, place, and the past. Even so, they have not been able to access many of their sacred sites for several generations because of the development of two hydroelectric dams on the Elwha River. In 1992 the U.S. Congress passed the Elwha River Ecosystem and Fisheries Restoration Act. This legislation brings together tribal, federal, and regional partners in an effort to restore the Elwha River through dam removal, which will allow the river’s salmon and steelhead populations to access pristine spawning ground in the upper reaches of the river, rehabilitate salmon habitat, and replenish beaches starved by the loss of the sediment now trapped behind the dams. For the last two decades, the Elwha Klallam and the U.S. National Park Service have been intergovernmental partners in the effort to implement this act.

Ecological Restoration

Ecological Restoration provides a comprehensive overview of the strategies being used around the world to reverse human impacts to landscapes, ecosystems, and species. This book aims to improve the outcomes of restoration practice by strengthening the connections between ecological concepts and real-world decision-making: students explore each topic considering both research-based knowledge and lessons learned from nineteen actual restorations. Details of these ecological restorations, from underwater reefs to mines in hot deserts, are woven into each chapter, presented as case studies, and used in exercises.

Physical Ecosystem Engineers and the Functioning of Estuaries and Coasts

A great diversity of organisms modify the physical structure of estuarine and coastal environments. These physical ecosystem engineers – particularly, dune and marsh plants, mangroves, seagrasses, kelps, reef-forming corals and bivalves, burrowing crustaceans and infauna – often have substantive functional impacts over large areas and across distinct geographic regions. Here we use a general framework for physical ecosystem engineering to illustrate how these organisms can exert control on sedimentary processes, coastal protection and habitat availability to other organisms. We then discuss the management implications of coastal and estuarine engineering, ending with a brief prospectus on research and management challenges.

Plant Reintroduction in a Changing Climate: Promises and Perils

This volume presents a comprehensive review of reintroduction projects and practices, the circumstances of their successes or failures, lessons learned, and the potential role for reintroductions in preserving species threatened by climate change. Contributors examine current plant reintroduction practices, from selecting appropriate source material and recipient sites to assessing population demography. The findings culminate in a set of Best Reintroduction Practice Guidelines, included in an appendix. These guidelines cover stages from planning and implementation to long-term monitoring, and offer not only recommended actions but also checklists of questions to consider that are applicable to projects around the world.

Post-Fire Management and Restoration of Southern European Forests

The first publication to access in a comprehensive way the post-fire management in fire-prone European forest types. The main questions and recommended approaches can also be useful for other regions of the world with Mediterranean-type climates, such as parts of Australia, South Africa, North and South America. Designed to disseminate scientific knowledge on post- fire management and restoration of forests towards a target audience of professionals (forest managers, landscape planners, and forest agency staff), graduate students and researchers.

Practical Handbook for Seed Harvest and Ecological Restoration of Species-rich Grasslands

Extensively managed semi-natural grassland can be regarded as a seed source useful to establish new species rich areas. Indeed, they are normally rich in species of native provenance and for this reason they can be harvested to obtain propagation material with high ecological value. State of the art techniques to create forage meadows or to restore degraded areas using commercial seed mixtures are not comparable with the target of ecological restoration done with propagation material from semi-natural grassland. Therefore a large number of different harvesting methods and application techniques have been developed for exploitation and application of site-specific seed or plant material. This handbook gives mainly an overview on techniques for seed harvesting and techniques for the establishment of semi-natural grassland.

Tidal Marsh Restoration: A Synthesis of Science and Management

idal Marsh Restoration provides the scientific foundation and practical guidance necessary for coastal zone stewards to initiate salt marsh tidal restoration programs. The book compiles, synthesizes, and interprets the current state of knowledge on the science and practice of salt marsh restoration, bringing together leaders across a range of disciplines in the sciences (hydrology, soils, vegetation, zoology), engineering (hydraulics, modeling), and public policy, with coastal managers who offer an abundance of practical insight and guidance on the development of programs. Tidal Marsh Restoration is an essential work for managers, planners, regulators, environmental and engineering consultants, and others engaged in planning, designing, and implementing projects or programs aimed at restoring tidal flow to tide- restricted or diked salt marshes.

Marine electrolysis for building materials and environmental restoration

This book chapter discusses Biorock and its applications for coral reef restoration

Sharing lessons on mangrove restoration

Proceedings and a Call for Action from an MFF Regional Colloquium 30–31 August 2012, Mamallapuram, India

A Policy-Driven Large Scale Ecological Restoration: Quantifying Ecosystem Services Changes in the Loess Plateau of China

As one of the key tools for regulating human-ecosystem relations, environmental conservation policies can promote ecological rehabilitation across a variety of spatiotemporal scales. However, quantifying the ecological effects of such policies at the regional level is difficult. A case study was conducted at the regional level in the ecologically vulnerable region of the Loess Plateau, China, through the use of several methods including the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), hydrological modeling and multivariate analysis. An assessment of the changes over the period of 2000–2008 in four key ecosystem services was undertaken to determine the effects of the Chinese government’s ecological rehabilitation initiatives implemented in 1999.