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This Week In The News

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) recently endorsed the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) International’s Position Statement on Climate Change at their joint conference held in San Jose, CA from August 6-10, 2007.

APRIL 9, 2008

Wisconsin: Plant Community Ecology Internship – Summer 2008
Necedah National Wildlife Refuge has two large scale restoration projects that require interns. The first is savanna restoration that was initiated in 1960 and involves approximately 4,000 acres in various stages of restoration. Interns will participate in all phases of the restoration program but highlights include: vegetation monitoring before and after restoration, invasive plant mapping, public education, on and off-site rare plant seed collection, and plant propagation. The second large scale restoration project involves sedge meadows. These restorations are made possible by plugging drainage ditches, which restores meadow hydrology. These ditches were constructed more than 100 years ago during an era called the “Drainage Dream” by Aldo Leopold. This project also involves vegetation monitoring before and after restoration but also includes hydrologic monitoring.

Landscape Architect Seeks to Preserve Streambeds, Woodlands
As a Towson elementary school student, Keith Bowers took a field trip to Columbia during the 1960s to watch the town being built and to walk on one of the trails that wind beneath an overpass. Decades later, the 48-year-old landscape architect, founder and president of Biohabitats Inc., is looking at ways to protect, conserve and restore Columbia’s land, streambeds and woodlands as downtown becomes more populated.

New Value for Old Forests
Newly sensitised to the dangers of climate change, researchers around the world are making progress in helping to protect old growth forests that are threatened by fires, urban development and logging. This week the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO) published a scientific summary of the ‘Old Forests, New Management’ international conference, held February, in Hobart, Tasmania, that is expected to influence current thought and policy worldwide.

Indigenous People Key to Coping with Climate Change
Indigenous people may hold the key to coping with climate change, a United Nations University (UNU) conference in Darwin has heard. Ah Zakri, director of the UNU’s Japan-based Institute of Advanced Studies, today said indigenous people left the smallest ecological footprints on earth. “Most indigenous peoples practise sustainable carbon neutral lives or even carbon negative life ways which has sustained them over thousands of years,” he said. “There are at least 370 million indigenous people throughout the world living relatively neutral or even carbon negative lifestyles.

Tropical Reforestation Aided by Bats
This novel method for tropical restoration is presented in a new study published online in the science journal Conservation Biology this week. Detlev Kelm from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (IZW) and Kerstin Wiesner and Otto von Helversen from the University of Erlangen –Nuremberg report that the deployment of artificial bat roosts significantly increases seed dispersal of a wide range of tropical forest plants into their surroundings, providing a simple and cheap method to speed up natural forest regeneration.

Florida: Massive Reservoir Size of Manhattan Intended to Help Everglades
South Florida water managers are building what will be the largest above-ground reservoir in the world as part of overall Everglades restoration. The site just south of Lake Okeechobee will be 25 square miles. That’s larger than Manhattan. It will eventually hold 62 billion gallons of water and is a key component to restoring the once famed River of Grass.

Chesapeake Bay Suffering, Restoration Efforts Treading Water
The health of the Chesapeake Bay is dismal and more than three decades of restoration efforts have done little to improve the condition of the nation’s largest estuary, according to two independent assessments released Thursday. The reports add to a litany of evidence that the water quality throughout the bay and its tributaries is severely degraded and echo lingering concern that the plan for cleaning up the ecosystem is not working.

UK: Huge Project to Create New Wildlife Habitat in Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire
A groundbreaking partnership that covers an area of 73km2 which includes the river catchment for the whole of the River Ray, as well as BBOWT and RSPB reserves that fall into the area. The project help shape the future of wildlife and landscape conservation has being launched by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) and the RSPB. The ‘Ray Valley Restoration Project’ will create new wetland wildlife habitats, improve river water quality and increase community involvement in conservation across the River Ray landscape.

UK: Nature Reserves Plan to Protect against Development
Councillors look set to designate three wildlife spots in East Durham as local nature reserves. Easington District Council’s executive will be recommended on Tuesday to make the designation for the council-owned sites at Gore Burn at Wheatley Hill, Crimdon Dene, and Rockhouse Dene at Seaham. The move will give the sites protection against development and will lead to the production of conservation plans.

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Welcome to the GRN

The Global Restoration Network (GRN) offers the field of ecological restoration a new database and web-based portal to trustworthy and hard-to-find information on all aspects of restoration, from historic ecosystems and recent causes of degradation to in-depth case studies and proven restoration techniques. The overriding mission of the GRN is to link restoration projects, research, and practitioners in order to foster the creative exchange of experience, vision and expertise.

The GRN is fast becoming the central hub for ecological restoration - a vital resource for policymakers, professionals and community stakeholders alike: whether researching options for ecosystem restoration, writing a project proposal, or looking for educational programs and funding. Perhaps the most exciting feature of the GRN is the innovative Database where you can make a specific query and find restoration case studies and annotated links to a wide variety of relevant resources including experts, organizations and literature. Here is a sample of the links you will find in the GRN website and database.

CASE STUDIES

Alexander River Restoration Project, Israel
The Alexander River Restoration Project is Israel’s leading river restoration and was awarded the Thiess International Riverprize in 2003. Implemented by Israeli agencies, with cooperation and support from local Palestinian officials in an unprecedented show of solidarity, the project aims to restore a river severely degraded by untreated sewage and pollution from more than 70 sources–in both Palestinian and Israeli territory.
 
Restoration of the Mata Atlantica, Brazil
Instituto Terra is a non-profit organization founded in 1999 by Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado and the renowned photographer Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado. It is located at the Bulcão Farm in Aimorés, Minas Gerais, and it covers an area of 676 hectares. Since its inception, the institute has dedicated itself to the restoration of degraded stands of Atlantic Forest both on the farm and in the surrounding region.
 
Restoration of Dune Habitats, Denmark
Through a grant from the European Union’s LIFE program, this project sought to restore more than 8,000 hectares of dunes and dune heaths on the western coast of Denmark, fully 65% of the country’s dune area. Under pressure from several invasive species, principally Pinus mugo and Pinus contorta, the dunes were cleared using a variety of techniques and approaches. 
 
METSO Forest Conservation and Restoration, Finland
In October 2002, the Government of Finland approved the Forest Biodiversity Programme for Southern Finland (METSO). METSO was designed as a land management strategy that would bring important tracts of privately held forest into a national conservation framework. METSO centers around close cooperation with forest owners and allows programme managers to tailor a conservation strategy that suits the particular circumstances of a given owner, while simultaneously contributing to larger programme goals.
 
Potomac River Eelgrass Restoration, USA
As part of a larger effort to restore vital submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) habitat in Chesapeake Bay–primarily eelgrass (Zostera marina)–three sites in the Potomac River were chosen for replanting. After initial attempts to manually gather reproductive shoots from donor beds, project practitioners decided to employ a mechanical harvesting boat in order to improve efficiency and viable seed yields. 
 
Mangroves Restoration in Andhra Pradesh, India
This project was launched in Andhra Pradesh with the aim of inducing concerted action towards conservation and sustainable management of the mangrove wetlands on the east coast of India. The restoration employed canal techniques, instead of simple plantation of seedlings, and a fish bone pattern of canals was utilized. This fishbone design was shown to be a more efficient method of facilitating tidal flushing than the rectangular pattern used by the Forest Department.

ORGANIZATIONS

Earth Restoration Service takes a proactive approach to ecosystem restoration worldwide, forming partnerships with community groups, charities, NGOs, governments and businesses in support of a broad range of environmental restoration projects.

Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration is a network of governments, organizations, communities and individuals who recognize the importance of forest landscape restoration and want to be part of a coordinated global effort.

European Centre for River Restoration supports the development of river restoration as an integral part of sustainable water management throughout Europe ensuring that projects will be more cost effective, more likely to succeed, and will encompass multifunctional objectives.

LITERATURE

Restoring Natural Capital: Science, Business, and Practice, edited by Aronson, Milton, and Blignaut, considers the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socio-ecological systems.

Old Fields, edited by Cramer and Hobbs, brings together leading experts from around the world to synthesize past and current work on old fields, providing an up-to-date perspective on the ecological dynamics of abandoned land.

Ecological Restoration, by Clewell and Aronson, offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels.

A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration, by Bainbridge, outlines the processes and procedures needed to evaluate, plan, implement, and monitor desert restoration projects.

Foundations of Restoration Ecology, edited by Falk, Palmer, and Zedler, advances the science behind the practice of restoring ecosystems while exploring ways in which restoration ecology can inform basic ecological questions.

VIDEO

Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed
The story of STRAW - Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed - demonstrates the multi-tiered benefits of community-based restoration. Not only is an endangered species given a new lease on life, but kids, teachers and farmers discover how working together to recover habitat knits a community while making learning fun.

Raccoon Island Restoration
Louisiana’s Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act is celebrating the progress of six coastal restoration projects, including the coastal restoration of Raccoon Island.

A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek
The inspiring rebirth of a biologically critical river in Arizona is recounted in A River Reborn: The Restoration of Fossil Creek. The one-hour documentary examines the ecological effects of a dam and hydroelectric facility on the waterway and chronicles the 15-year effort that led to decommissioning.

Reweaving Shiva’s Robes
Project Arunachala has been supported by RIC since the late 1980’s. The afforestation and environmental regeneration project was initiated in 1988 by Apeetha Arunagiri and the Annamalai Reforestation Society, established to regenerate the mountain to its former forested condition.

Mending Australia’s Ancient Forest
David Yetman gets a first hand look at this ambitious project called Gondwana Link. The evolutionary process moves quickly in this environment, and new hybrids and species are discovered almost every week. Here, ecological restoration works hand-in-hand with the cultural restoration of the original owners of the land.

Earth & Sky spoke with microbiologist Jim Harris, chair of the Science and Policy Working Group of SER. Harris pointed to recent efforts at Wicken Fen, a wetland nature reserve in the United Kingdom, where over 3,000 acres are being restored.

Download your Free Copy of the New SER Reader, which includes excerpts from many of the SER titles listed below.

Old Fields (2007), edited by Cramer and Hobbs, brings together leading experts from around the world to synthesize past and current work on old fields, providing an up-to-date perspective on the ecological dynamics of abandoned land.

Ecological Restoration (2007), by Clewell and Aronson, offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels.

Restoring Natural Capital: Science, Business, and Practice (2007), edited by Aronson, Milton, and Blignaut, considers the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socio-ecological systems.

A Guide for Desert and Dryland Restoration (2007), by Bainbridge, outlines the processes and procedures needed to evaluate, plan, implement, and monitor desert restoration projects.

Restoring the Pacific Northwest (2006), edited by Apostol and Sinclair, gathers and presents the best examples of state-of-the-art restoration techniques and projects - an invaluable reference for practitioners across North America and around the world.

Foundations of Restoration Ecology (2006), edited by Falk et al, looks at the levels of biological organization, critical concepts in ecological research, and restoration ecology research in context.

Assembly Rules and Restoration Ecology (2004), edited by Temperton et al, combines theoretical and practical aspects of restoration in a vital compendium of information and ideas.

Great Basin Riparian Ecosystems (2004), edited by Chambers and Miller, addresses restoration over a variety of scales and integrates work from multiple disciplines, including riparian ecology, paleoecology, geomorphology, and hydrology.

Ex Situ Plant Conservation (2004), edited by Guerrant et al, is the first book to address integrated plant conservation strategies and to examine the scientific, technical, and strategic bases of the ex situ approach.

The Ecological Restoration of Southwest Ponderosa Pine Forests (2003), edited by Friederici, brings together practitioners and thinkers from a variety of fields to synthesize what is known about ecological restoration in ponderosa pine forests.

Wildlife Restoration (2002), by Morrison, links restoration ecology and wildlife management in an accessible and comprehensive guide to restoring wildlife and the habitats upon which they depend.

The Historical Ecology Handbook (2001), edited by Egan and Howell, makes essential connections between past and future ecosystems, bringing together leading experts to offer a much-needed introduction to the field of historical ecology.

The Tallgrass Restoration Handbook for Prairies, Savannas, and Woodlands (1997), edited by Packard and Mutel, is a hands-on manual that provides a detailed account of what has been learned about the art and science of prairie restoration.

Restoring Diversity: Strategies for Reintroduction of Endangered Plants (1996) edited by Falk et al, is a pathbreaking work that not only unifies concepts in the field of restoration, but also fills significant technical and policy gaps.