Ecological restoration is practiced worldwide as a direct response to the degradation and destruction of ecosystems. In addition to its ecological impact it has enormous potential to improve ...population health, socioeconomic well‐being, and the integrity of diverse national and ethnic cultures. In recognition of the critical role of restoration in ecosystem health, the United Nations (UN) declared 2021–2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. We propose six practical strategies to strengthen the effectiveness and amplify the work of ecological restoration to meet the aspirations of the Decade: (1) incorporate holistic actions, including working at effective scale; (2) include traditional ecological knowledge (TEK); (3) collaborate with allied movements and organizations; (4) advance and apply soil microbiome science and technology; (5) provide training and capacity‐building opportunities for communities and practitioners; and (6) study and show the relationships between ecosystem health and human health. We offer these in the hope of identifying possible leverage points and pathways for collaborative action among interdisciplinary groups already committed to act and support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Collectively, these six strategies work synergistically to improve human health and also the health of the ecosystems on which we all depend, and can be the basis for a global restorative culture.
The conservation of skin, leather and related materials is an area that, until now, has had little representation by the written word in book form. Marion Kite and Roy Thomson, of the Leather ...Conservation Centre, have prepared a text which is both authoritative and comprehensive, including contributions from the leading specialists in their fields, such as Betty Haines, Mary Lou Florian, Ester Cameron and Jim Spriggs.The book covers all aspects of Skin and Leather preservation, from Cuir Bouillie to Bookbindings. There is significant discussion of the technical and chemical elements necessary in conservation, meaning that professional conservators will find the book a vital part of their collection. As part of the Butterworth-Heinemann Black series, the book carries the stamp of approval of the leading figures in the world of Conservation and Museology, and as such it is the only publication available on the topic carrying this immediate mark of authority.
For restoration to be an effective strategy to reverse large‐scale habitat loss and land degradation, funding programs need policies that promote selection of and commitment to projects that can ...reasonably be expected to succeed. Programmatic project selection practices have received minimal formal evaluation, despite their importance. In this study, we considered the extent to which a program needs to consider both ecological and organizational factors during project selection in order to minimize the incidence of project failure. Our assessment of a long‐term program that funds ecological restoration efforts across Minnesota (U.S.A.), based on project records, manager surveys, and field surveys, yielded several broadly relevant insights. First, factors well understood to confer ecological resilience (level of landscape alteration and starting condition) were clearly associated with restoration outcomes, regardless of time‐since‐initiation of restoration. Second, restoration of low‐resilience ecosystems is typically a labor‐ and skill‐intensive enterprise for organizations that undertake them. Our analysis revealed four organizational limitations, in addition to insufficient funds, that hindered capacity to keep projects on‐track: lack of planning and goal‐setting, inadequate staffing, leadership change, and incomplete records. Third, to reduce risk, programs do not necessarily need to avoid challenging projects, but do need to consider whether organizations proposing restorations have adequate internal capacity to competently plan and to sustain actions for a duration sufficient to restore ecological resilience. If a restoration is degraded enough to require human intervention to recover, the outcome of a project is as likely to reflect its organizational reality as much as its ecological circumstances.
The application of a functional trait‐based approach to ecological restoration is receiving growing attention worldwide, but lack of knowledge on functional traits and how they link to ecosystem ...services imposes a major barrier to operationalize such approach. Synthesizing the existing knowledge on functional trait‐based restoration is thus a timely and important challenge. We systematically reviewed the literature to assess how ecosystem services are associated to functional traits across organisms, ecosystem types, and continents. We also assessed the existing trait‐based frameworks to target ecosystem services in restoration ecology. Then, we discussed future perspectives for the field, especially the challenges of applying trait‐based frameworks in megadiverse tropical ecosystems, which have ambitious restoration commitments. Most papers focused on plants (72%), terrestrial habitats (69%), and non‐tropical ecosystems (68%) and monitored ecosystem services and functional traits after restoration started rather than using them as previous targets. Only 12% of the papers targeted the restoration of both services and traits a priori, and 3.8% presented a clear trait‐based framework to target ecosystem services in restoration. The possibility of selecting alternative subsets of complementary species in their provisioning of ecosystem services should make functional restoration more feasible than traditional approaches in species‐rich tropical ecosystems. With this review and our critical insights on the perspectives of applying functional trait‐based restoration widely, we hope to assist broad‐scale restoration programs to obtain higher levels of benefits for nature and human well‐being per unit of area undergoing restoration, going beyond the area‐based approach that has dominated restoration commitments.
Abstract Resin composites have become the first choice for direct posterior restorations and are increasingly popular among clinicians and patients. Meanwhile, a number of clinical reports in the ...literature have discussed the durability of these restorations over long periods. In this review, we have searched the dental literature looking for clinical trials investigating posterior composite restorations over periods of at least 5 years of follow-up published between 1996 and 2011. The search resulted in 34 selected studies. 90% of the clinical studies indicated that annual failure rates between 1% and 3% can be achieved with Class I and II posterior composite restorations depending on several factors such as tooth type and location, operator, and socioeconomic, demographic, and behavioral elements. The material properties showed a minor effect on longevity. The main reasons for failure in the long term are secondary caries, related to the individual caries risk, and fracture, related to the presence of a lining or the strength of the material used as well as patient factors such as bruxism. Repair is a viable alternative to replacement, and it can increase significantly the lifetime of restorations. As observed in the literature reviewed, a long survival rate for posterior composite restorations can be expected provided that patient, operator and materials factors are taken into account when the restorations are performed.
•Restoration should address underlying causes of degradation.•The Playbook addresses political-economic perspectives within specific contexts.•Ten principles address how to achieve resilient and ...equitable ecosystem restoration.•Local and landscape processes are intricately linked to national and global scales.•Restoration aims to achieve ecologically, socially and economically just landscapes.
The urgency of restoring ecosystems to improve human wellbeing and mitigate climate and biodiversity crises is attracting global attention. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a global call to action to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems. And yet, many forest restoration efforts, for instance, have failed to meet restoration goals; indeed, they worsened social precarities and ecological conditions. By merely focusing on symptoms of forest loss and degradation, these interventions have neglected the underlying issues of equity and justice driving forest decline. To address these root causes, thus creating socially just and sustainable solutions, we develop the Political Ecology Playbook for Ecosystem Restoration. We outline a set of ten principles for achieving long-lasting, resilient, and equitable ecosystem restoration. These principles are guided by political ecology, a framework that addresses environmental concerns from a broadly political economic perspective, attending to power, politics, and equity within specific geographic and historical contexts. Drawing on the chain of explanation, this multi-scale, cross-landscapes Playbook aims to produce healthy relationships between people and nature that are ecologically, socially, and economically just – and thus sustainable and resilient – while recognizing the political nature of such relationships. We argue that the Political Ecology Playbook should guide ecosystem restoration worldwide.
Restoration is fundamentally a hopeful intervention that can meaningfully improve the condition of human‐degraded and destroyed ecosystems. Both restoration science and practice have gained special ...attention given the recently declared UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration. Here, we present an overview of the historical development of forest restoration on the Brazilian Atlantic Forest with an emphasis in methodological and technical assumptions. We gathered information from primary and secondary studies to show how forest restoration concepts and strategies evolved over the years. Given the importance of reviews for informing management and policy as well as research, our study provides a summarized information on forest restoration approaches or practices that can help practitioners and non‐initiated to understand how this field evolved in Brazil and how lessons learned can be useful for forest restoration in other countries.
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