Resource Database

Exploiting the Attributes of Regional Ecosystems for Landscape Design: The Role of Ecological Restoration in Ecological Engineering

The principles of ecological restoration, which examine regional native ecology to guide landscape design, need not be limited to reparation or restoration projects, but may equally apply to parks, parking lots, detention ponds, green roofs, and roadsides, just as they do to re- establishing a prairie or wetland. We propose that environmental designers, whether landscape architects, civil engineers or restoration practitioners, investigate and exploit the ecological attributes of their native landscapes to provide smarter tools for solving design problems. This will improve ecological value of the project and reduce any collateral ecological damage caused by poor plant selection.

An Introductory Guide to Valuing Ecosystem Services

This Introductory Guide looks at how the framework for the valuation of the natural environment could be improved by offering a comprehensive and systematic means to ensuring that ecosystems and the services they provide are taken into account in policy appraisal. It builds on traditional valuation approaches by explicitly considering the environment as a whole – bringing together land, water, air, soil and biodiversity – and recognising that their linkages provide a wide variety of services and benefits that are not specific to any one part. The approach stresses that changing any one part of our environment can have consequences, both positive and negative, and often unintended for the ecosystem as a whole.

Best Practice Guidelines for the Re-Introduction of Great Apes

Specifically designed for rehabilitators and specialists in re-introduction, these guidelines start from the fundamental assumption that re-introductions should not endanger wild populations of great apes or the ecosystems they inhabit. Equally important is the health and welfare of the individual great apes being re-introduced, as well as the caretaker staff and the residents of the surrounding areas. The re-introduction guidelines also require that the factors which first threatened great apes in the proposed site of release have been addressed and resolved.

Mangrove Rehabilitation Guidebook

In the spring of 2005, the Global Nature Fund (GNF), in close collaboration with its Living Lakes partner organisations in Sri Lanka, started a project with the aim of offering new life perspectives to the affected people in the South-Western Sri Lanka. With the help of donors from Germany and a grant from the Swiss company „Sika“, the first small restoration activities were started. In December 2005, GNF and its partners won a grant from the European Commission in order to implement a prestigious project in Sri Lanka. A central activity of the three-year project is the protection and rehabilitation of threatened mangrove forests in the Bolgoda, Maduganga and Madampeganga wetland regions.

Reef Restoration Concepts and Guidelines

These guidelines contain simple advice on coral reef restoration for coastal managers, decision makers, technical advisers and others who may be involved in community-based reef restoration efforts. Those attempting reef restoration need to be aware that there is still much uncertainty in the science underpinning restoration, not least due to the great complexity of reef ecosystems. Much scientific research is currently underway around the world to address these gaps in our knowledge and improve our understanding of what reef restoration interventions can and cannot achieve. Despite these uncertainties there are many useful lessons which can be learned from previous work both in terms of what works and what doesn’t work. The following guidelines seek to summarise these lessons in a succinct form for practitioners so that they may have a clearer idea of what can and cannot be achieved by reef restoration and can set goals and expectations accordingly.

Saltmarsh Management Manual

The Saltmarsh Management Manual describes what it is that needs to be managed and aims to help develop an understanding of how to evaluate the need for management intervention and the form that intervention might take. The Manual includes details of a number of techniques that can be applied for maintaining, restoring, enhancing or creating saltmarsh. The focus of the Manual is on managing existing saltmarsh environments. Although creation is not strictly related to the management of ‘existing’ saltmarsh, it is also considered because it represents an important option for the future management of the coast/estuaries and a lot of information pertinent to the creation of a new habitat can apply to the restoration or enhancement of an existing resource that is declining.

Using Organic Wastes and Composts to Remediate and Restore Land: Best Practice Manual

Wetland Restoration Guide

This document provides guidelines for practitioners for restoring wetlands in the Bay of Plenty. The guide provides a detailed step-by-step process for restoration, providing resources for practitioners. The guide argues that the key to a successful restoration project is careful and thorough planning, and commitment to continued care, providing resources to do so.

Wetlands, Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Tourism Development

Coasts, lakes, rivers, mangroves and other wetland areas are an important resource for tourism. Tourists enjoy swimming and diving, watching birds and other wildlife or just enjoying the scenery. Less is known about the extent to which tourism in these wetlands contributes to poverty reduction in developing countries. The relationship between tourism and wetlands is however complex and sometimes adversarial. Tourism can impact wetlands in a number of ways such as by causing habitat loss, pollution, noise or over-consumption of water. But with proper planning tourism can also be an innovative mechanism for funding nature conservation and development of local livelihoods.

Bat habitat and forest restoration treatments

In this working paper, we look at research and studies that provide some recommendations about ways to maintain bat habitat while restoring forest tree health and vitality.

Case study of a community stewardship success: The White Mountain Stewardship Contract

Stewardship contracting is a recent innovation in federal land management designed to address land stewardship needs through collaboration with local communities. The White Mountain Stewardship Contract (WMSC), which is focused on restoring ponderosa pine forests in Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests (ASNF) in east-central Arizona, is the nation’s largest stewardship contract to date, and the first to commit to the maximum duration of ten years. After two-and-a-half years of implementation, the WMSC is credited with helping to restore forest health, protect vulnerable communities, and revitalize local wood products businesses, and has received strong support from a broad spectrum of local stakeholders.

Ecological Restoration of Wetlands in Europe

Five case-studies of wetland restoration projects that tackle different pressures are further elaborated. These large-scale projects included comprehensive approaches with different inter- related actions to improve the ecological status. Learning points from each case-study are highlighted.

Forest Rehabilitation in Indonesia: Where to after Three Decades?

Rehabilitation activities in Indonesia have a long-history of more than three decades, implemented in more than 400 locations. Successful projects are characterised by the active involvement of local people, and the technical intervention used tailored to address the specific ecological causes of degradation that concern local people. However, sustaining the positive impacts beyond the project time is still the biggest challenge. Rehabilitation efforts have been lagging behind the increasing rates of deforestation and land degradation. This has been largely due to the complexities of the driving factors causing the degradation, which neither projects nor have other government programmes been able to simultaneously address.

A Mesic Forest Restoration Guide for Hawaii

With interest in the field of ecological restoration growing in Hawaii, this book is an effort to satisfy the growing need for information on the basic principles, methods, and techniques of managing mesic forests in particular and terrestrial native Hawaiian ecosystems in general. Many of the technical recommendations in this manual stem from five years of mesic forest restoration work at The Nature Conservancy’s Honouliuli Preserve on Oahu. Most of the resource management recommendations are gleaned from the published works and personal communications of those who have worked for over twenty years in the field of conservation biology. While specifically geared toward resource managers, field biologists, and private landowners, this book is intended to be used by all those who care for our forests for the benefit of our island communities.

A Practitioner’s Guide to the Design & Monitoring of Shellfish Restoration Projects

This guide was written to help restoration practitioners design and monitor shellfish restoration projects that restore not only the populations of target shellfish species – primarily clams, oysters, scallops – but also the ‘ecosystem services’ associated with healthy populations of these organisms.

Australian Alps Rehabilitation Manual

This Manual has been produced by the Australian Alps Liaison Committee (AALC) to assist managers with the difficult task of protecting and repairing the Alps environment. The Manual provides principles, procedures and best-practice guidelines for rehabilitation projects. The aim is to ensure that rehabilitation is based on the best science and technology, and that an ecological approach to rehabilitation is applied consistently across the Australian Alps.

Conceptual Model for Assessing Restoration of Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystems

The Puget Sound Nearshore Ecosystem Restoration Project (PSNERP) Nearshore Science Team (NST) has developed a Conceptual Model framework to aid in assessing restoration and preservation measures for nearshore ecosystems in Puget Sound, Washington. This framework was designed primarily as a synthesis tool to better understand nearshore ecosystem processes and the response of nearshore ecosystems to different stressors or, alternatively, restoration actions. It may also serve as a tool to plan and guide the scientific elements of the restoration project. The overall goal of the NST for this Conceptual Model is to build a synthetic, ecosystem-process-based understanding about how Puget Sound’s nearshore ecosystems “work.” This approach is based on the underlying assumption that alterations of natural hydrologic, geomorphologic, and ecological processes impair important nearshore ecosystem structures, which are in turn responsible for ecosystems goods, services, and functions that have societal value. We define ecosystem processes as any interactions among physiochemical and biological elements of an ecosystem that involve changes in character or “state” over time. Because ecosystems are continuously being shaped and reshaped by a variety of physical, geochemical, and biotic processes, they are characterized by changes in state over multiple space and time scales, such as change in chemical composition (e.g., nutrient transformations), biomass (e.g., production and consumption), and movement of material (e.g., sediment transport). The composition, shape, and other characteristics of nearshore ecosystems, such as beach slope and sediment composition, that we may observe at any point in time are the net effect of the interactions of these processes.

Five Steps to the Successful Ecological Restoration of Mangroves

Restoration and rehabilitation of existing or former mangrove forest areas is extremely important today. In fact, given the importance of mangrove forest ecosystems, and the current threat to these coastal forests, this is an imperative. But actual planting of mangroves is rarely needed as mangroves annually produce hundreds or thousands of seeds or seedlings per tree, which under the proper hydrologic conditions can recolonize former mangrove areas (returned to normal hydrology) very rapidly. There are many different techniques and methods utilized in restoring mangroves. Because some of these have resulted in identifiable successes or failures, we wish to present herein a summary description of several preferred methods for planning and implementing mangrove rehabilitation.

Good Practice Guidance for Mining and Biodiversity

Despite the significant potential for negative impacts on biodiversity from mining operations, there is a great deal that companies can do to minimize or prevent such impacts in areas identified as being appropriate for mining. There are also many opportunities for companies to enhance biodiversity conservation within their areas of operations. Being proactive in the assessment and management of biodiversity is important not only for new operations but also for those that have been operating for many years, usually under regulatory requirements that were less focused on the protection and enhancement of biodiversity.

Guidance on Understanding and Managing Soils for Habitat Restoration Projects

The key message in terms of managing soil for habitat restoration projects is to try and work with existing conditions before altering the site. This will minimise the initial and long-term costs involved. Such restoration, if it is to be successful, requires a full understanding of the physical and chemical properties of the soil, along with its plant, animal and microbial communities – collectively known as the soil ecosystem. There is a complex set of interrelationships between living and non-living components, driving the structure and function of soil ecosystems. The process of soil formation is never ending; there will always be a dynamic interaction between water, air, biology and minerals. Materials, whether solid or in solution, arriving from elsewhere, will continue to drive and shape the changing nature of the soil.

Guidebook for the Formulation of Afforestation and Reforestation Projects under the Clean Development Mechanism

The CDM project cycle is very demanding on project developers, involving project design and development, validation, registration, monitoring, verification and certification. This publication describes the conceptual and procedural details for formulating afforestation and reforestation projects under the CDM with an introduction to the Kyoto Protocol and the CDM.

Guidelines for the Rehabilitation of Degraded Oak Forests

These guidelines analytically describe the restoration and rehabilitation methods used in the coppice forests while emphasizing on the natural methods. Since not only scientists in Greece, but in the whole Mediterranean too deal with the issue of the inversion of the oak forests, the results of such experiments in Greece, Italy and Spain are presented.

Guidelines for Veld Restoration

RENU-KAROO is developing indigenous seed orchards and local skills to restore mining and grazing damage in arid Karoo rangeland. Mission: To make ecological restoration with locally indigenous plants a sought-after service in the Central Karoo, thereby sustaining ecological services and generating new livelihoods. Vision: To supply locally indigenous seeds and plants and to develop expertise in seed collection, horticulture, and veld restoration within the village of Prince Albert, and in the surrounding Karoo. We will establish demonstration trials and involve students in restoration research in order to develop our knowledge base. These notes give a brief introduction to common veld problems and their treatment.

Gully Restoration Guide: A Guide to Assist in the Ecological Restoration of Hamilton’s Gully System

The Gully Restoration Guide has been designed to help you begin your own gully restoration project. It gives information on the different stages that a restoration project will go through in an easy to follow, step by step layout. See the useful references available in the Appendices for more information to plan your project.

Living with Fire: Sustaining Ecosystems & Livelihoods through Integrated Fire Management

Fire management is the range of possible technical decisions and actions available to prevent, maintain, control or use fire in a given landscape. The primary premise of this paper is that more sophisticated fire management technologies are not likely to solve the problem of destructive wildfires, nor are they going to be effective in re-establishing ecologically appropriate fire regimes in places that need to burn. There is a need to integrate socio-cultural realities and ecological imperatives with technological approaches to managing fires. This paper sets forth a framework that we are calling Integrated Fire Management which leads to ecologically and socially appropriate approaches to managing fires and addressing fire-related threats on conservation lands.

Managing Grasslands, Shrublands, and Young Forest Habitats for Wildlife: A Guide for the Northeast

Written primarily by state and federal wildlife biologists and foresters, this guide will provide you with important information on how to maintain and restore these habitats on the lands you own or manage. Whether you are a novice or an experienced land manager, this guide will provide helpful information anyone can use to better manage early-successional habitats.

Mine Rehabilitation

This handbook outlines the principles and leading practices of mine rehabilitation, with emphasis on land form design and revegetation. It shows readers how to use current and emerging technologies and practices more efficiently. The principles described should apply to any land disturbed by mining. Following the operational sequence in mining operations such as consultation, planning, operations and completion, each chapter focuses on the processes and issues relevant to the site over its life span. Particular emphasis is given to the restoration of natural ecosystems, especially the re-establishment of native flora.

Prescribed Fire: Case Studies, Decision Aids, and Planning Guides

The use of fire by humans has a long and storied history, as has been chronicled globally by noted fire historian Stephen Pyne. However, the fact that fire is both a management tool and a process was generally unappreciated until about 30 years ago; and, to a certain extent, full recognition of this point is still lacking today.

Principles for Rainforest and Grassland Restoration in the Anamalai Hills

The region south of the Palghat gap (a 30 km-wide break in the mountain range), known as the southern Western Ghats, contains some of the highest peaks and vast stretches of climax evergreen forest types. It also contains much of the plant and animal diversity, particularly endemic species (species not found anywhere else in the world). The Anamalai hills region is particularly special as it contains the entire range of evergreen forest types and its representative species of plants and animals.

Rehabilitation of Terrestrial Ecosystems

This document is one in a series being issued by the EPA to assist proponents, consultants and the public generally to gain additional information about the EPA’s thinking in relation to aspects of the EIA process and effective environmental management. The Guidance Statements assist proponents to achieve environmentally acceptable proposals and management plans. Consistent with the notion of continuous environmental improvement and adaptive environmental management, the EPA expects proponents to take all reasonable and practicable measures to protect the environment and to view the requirements of this Guidance as representing the minimum standards necessary for rehabilitation of ecosystems. This document is also designed to assist proponents to meet requirements of environmental auditing of completion criteria for such projects.