Science Of Ecological Restoration Research Articles

Scientific expertise and volunteer power in the Cook County forest preserves

Through a historical case study, this paper explores the political potential of volunteerism in urban natural resources management. As governments continue to rely on unpaid labor to perform essential services, volunteerism has proliferated in urban protected lands during the neoliberal era. It is therefore worthwhile to study the power that volunteers may wield at their service sites, alongside the scholarly attention already paid to the inefficacy and the inadequacy of volunteer labor. By drawing on science and technology studies literature, especially concerning the role of citizen science in activist movements, this article analyzes how volunteer stewards influenced natural resources policy in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County. A local agency, the district is responsible for nearly 70,000 acres in the county that encompasses Chicago, IL. For most of the twentieth century, forestation constituted the district's official land management policy, as leaders sought to match its ecologically diverse holdings to the agency's name. In the late 1970s, volunteers won permission from the district to begin restoring prairies in the forest preserves. Working autonomously, volunteer stewards cultivated expert credibility in the science of ecological restoration. Over several decades, they drew on their scientific authority to convince forest preserve leaders to adopt ecological restoration as the district's primary land management policy, a process culminating in the early twenty-first century. The paper also explores the fragility of volunteer authority rooted in scientific expertise, by tracking how an anti-restoration movement and, later, forest preserve staff members successfully undercut volunteer expertise in ecological restoration.

Evidence‐based evaluation of the cumulative effects of ecosystem restoration

AbstractThis study adapts and applies the evidence‐based approach for causal inference, a medical standard, to the restoration and sustainable management of large‐scale aquatic ecosystems. Despite long‐term investments in restoring aquatic ecosystems, it has proven difficult to adequately synthesize and evaluate program outcomes, and no standard method has been adopted. Complex linkages between restorative actions and ecosystem responses at a landscape scale make evaluations problematic and most programs focus on monitoring and analysis. Herein, we demonstrate a new transdisciplinary approach integrating techniques from evidence‐based medicine, critical thinking, and cumulative effects assessment. Tiered hypotheses about the effects of landscape‐scale restorative actions are identified using an ecosystem conceptual model. The systematic literature review, a health sciences standard since the 1960s, becomes just one of seven lines of evidence assessed collectively, using critical thinking strategies, causal criteria, and cumulative effects categories. As a demonstration, we analyzed data from 166 locations on the Columbia River and estuary representing 12 indicators of habitat and fish response to floodplain restoration actions intended to benefit culturally and economically important, threatened and endangered salmon. Synthesis of the lines of evidence demonstrated that hydrologic reconnection promoted macrodetritis export, prey availability, and juvenile fish access and feeding. Upon evaluation, the evidence was sufficient to infer cross‐boundary, indirect, compounding, and delayed cumulative effects, and suggestive of nonlinear, landscape‐scale, and spatial density effects. Therefore, on the basis of causal inferences regarding food‐web functions, we concluded that the restoration program is having a cumulative beneficial effect on juvenile salmon. The lines of evidence developed are transferable to other ecosystems: modeling of cumulative net ecosystem improvement, physical modeling of ecosystem controlling factors, meta‐analysis of restoration action effectiveness, analysis of data on target species, research on critical ecological uncertainties, evidence‐based review of the literature, and change analysis on the landscape setting. As with medicine, the science of ecological restoration needs scientific approaches to management decisions, particularly because the consequences affect species extinctions and the availability of ecosystem services. This evidence‐based approach will enable restoration in complex coastal, riverine, and tidal‐fluvial ecosystems like the lower Columbia River to be evaluated when data have accumulated without sufficient synthesis.

Review: Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The Art and Science of Ecological Restoration in Cascadia, by Dean Apostol and Marcia Sinclair (eds.)

Review: Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The Art and Science of Ecological Restoration in Cascadia By Dean Apostol and Marcia Sinclair (Eds.) Reviewed by Elery Hamilton-Smith Charles Sturt University, Australia Apostol, Dean and Marcia Sinclair (Eds). Restoring the Pacific Northwest: The Art and Science of Ecological Restoration in Cascadia. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006. 475pp. ISBN 1- 55963-078-7 pbk. US $49.95. This is a book in which the reader should not simply pass over the Foreword. Eric Higgs provides a profoundly poetic vision yet very practical opening discussion that sets the scene for all that follows. The many authors demonstrate a wisdom and competence that do justice to Higgs’ vision. In short, it is a remarkable and very valuable book. The opening chapters provide a concise and incisive account of the region and of the authors’ perspective on ecological restoration. Next, part two has a series of nine chapters, each dealing with one of the major ecosystems of the region and providing detailed case studies of restoration projects within each. In part three, six chapters each deal with special environmental issues that are shared across ecosystem boundaries, including urbanization, waterways, large- scale landscapes and watersheds, wildlife, invasive vegetation and the traditional knowledge of indigenous people. The result is one of the most practical texts of which I am aware. It deals in depth with restoration in a diversity of temperate climate ecosystems. The simple fact that the whole book is based upon a single relatively large geographical region means that the chapters are related to each other to an extent which rarely occurs in a volume of papers written by various authors. They bring to life the interaction of any one system with others and the integrative character of the over-arching special issues. The presentation of the book itself makes it extremely easy to comprehend and use. The chapters are structured in a comparable way so that it is easy to turn from one ecosystem to another. There are some very valuable diagrams of ecosystem structure and of processes in restoration. The latter each convey, very effectively, concepts that would take considerable text to explain in the traditional way. It is also illustrated throughout with relevant and helpful photographs. There is a considerable diversity of intellectual input that is not only reflected in the quality of the text but also made evident by the lists of multiple authors for each chapter. I can only commend it very strongly for both teaching and for use by land managers as practice guidelines. Elery Hamilton-Smith , Professor, Environmental Studies, Charles Sturt University, N.S.W. Chair, IUCN / WCPA Task Force on Caves and Karst, Albury, New South Wales, Australia. Electronic Green Journal , Issue 26, Spring 2008 ISSN: 1076-7975