The importance of ecological restoration
Ecological restoration projects are now coming to the forefront of sustainable development issues such that the United Nations (UN) has declared the current decade (2021-2030) as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. At the same time, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN Environment Programme(UNEP), in partnership with 10 African and Asian countries, have joined forces to create The Restoration Initiative (TRI), with the aim of “bridging the gap between restoration ambition and tangible progress on the ground.” The Society for Ecological Restoration has further defined 8 principles to guide the implementation of restoration projects. Each project must involve all of the chosen ecosystem’s stakeholders and therefore rely on various knowledge sources (i.e., practitioner knowledge, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Local Ecological Knowledge, and scientific discovery). The project must build on reference ecosystems while accounting for environmental changes and thus support the natural restoration processes of the ecosystem. In addition, the project must be evaluated against clear objectives using measurable indices, allowing the highest level of restoration to be targeted. Finally, the restoration action must gain cumulative value when applied on a large scale and thus be part of a continuum of restorative activities. If this last principle is followed in addition to the other ones, ecological restoration could then also be considered a Nature-based Solution as it contributes to protecting biodiversity and improving human wellbeing when implemented effectively and sustainably.