Challenges and Opportunities in Applying a Landscape Ecology Perspective in Ecological Restoration: a Powerful Approach to Shape Neolandscapes

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, ecological restoration has emerged as the central new promise for the reconciliation of societal wellbeing and biodiversity conservation in a human-dominated world (Dobson et al. 1997; Bullock et al. 2011). After an initial phase of scientific consolidation and experience accumulation in the practice of assisting the recovery of degraded, damaged or destroyed ecosystems (sensu SER 2004), ecological restoration is finally considered a global priority for moving towards sustainability (Aronson & Alexander 2013). In the last decade, many large-scale restoration programs have arisen across the world (see examples in McQueen et al. 2001; Doyle & Drew 2008; Arriagada et al. 2012; Melo et al. 2013a). Ideally, these pioneer initiatives will be just the first steps of a more ambitious movement towards the restoration of degraded ecosystems at global scales, as targeted by the Bonn Challenge and the Aichi target 15 of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (Menz et al. 2013). In this context, restoration ecologists and practitioners, as well as policy makers, will certainly have to be prepared to adopt new approaches for inducing, planning and implementing restoration programs. Central to this process, will be the fundamental movement from local to large-scale perspective in restoration (Melo et al. 2013b).