Restoration ecology: Repairing the Earth's ecosystems in the new millennium

The extent of human-induced change and damage to Earth's ecosystems renders ecosystem repair an essential part of our future survival strategy, and th is demands that restoration ecology provide effective conceptual and practi cal tools for this task. We argue that restoration ecology has to be an int egral component of land management in today's world, and to be broadly appl icable, has to have a clearly articulated conceptual basis. This needs to r ecognize that most ecosystems are dynamic and hence restoration goals canno t be based on static attributes. Setting clear and achievable goals is esse ntial, and these should focus on the desired characteristics for the system in the future, rather than in relation to what these were in the past. Goa l setting requires that there is a clear understanding of the restoration o ptions available (and the relative costs of different options). The concept of restoration thresholds suggests that options are determined by the curr ent state of the system in relation to biotic and abiotic thresholds. A fur ther important task is the development of effective and easily measured suc cess criteria. Many parameters could be considered for inclusion in restora tion success criteria, but these are often ambiguous or hard to measure. Su ccess criteria need to relate clearly back to specific restoration goals. I f restoration ecology is to be successfully practiced as part of humanity's response to continued ecosystem change and degradation, restoration ecolog ists need to rise to the challenges of meshing science, practice and policy . Restoration ecology is likely to be one of the most important fields of t he coming century.