What is Ecological Restoration?

REGENERATION, REVEGETATION & RESTORATION

These are some common terms used in our field of work as ecological restoration practitioners, or bush regnerators.

Definitions below are taken from the SERA standards glossary

Regeneration

• Natural Regeneration or spontaneous regeneration) is recovery or recruitment of species from in-situ propagules or propagules that have colonised a site without human intervention. Natural regeneration from these propagules can occur spontaneously or after facilitation other than direct human reintroduction of propagules.

• Assisted natural regeneration is a specific method mainly focused on facilitating natural regeneration of plant species, particularly in cleared agricultural lands in tropical forest regions. Some enrichment planting can be included in the ANR method as distinct from a strictly 'facilitated regeneration' approach that does not include reintroductions.

• Assisted regeneration or facilitated regeneration is the practice of fostering natural regeneration (in situ) and recolonisation after actively removing ecological impediments (e.g. invasive species, fish barriers) and reinstating appropriate abiotic and biotic states (e.g. environmental flows, fire regimes). While generally this approach is typical of sites of low to intermediate degradation, even some very highly degraded sites have proven capable of natural recovery given appropriate treatment (including high levels of substrate engineering) and sufficient time frames.

Revegetation and Reconstruction

• Revegetation is establishment, by any means, of plants on sites (including terrestrial, freshwater and marine areas) that may or may not involve local or indigenous species.

• Reconstruction is a restoration approach where the appropriate biota need to be entirely or almost entirely reintroduced as they cannot regenerate or recolonise within feasible timeframes, even after expert facilitated regeneration interventions. Site earthworks may or may not be needed. An example of reconstruction is the mass revegetation of trees, shrubs and groundcovers on previously cropped agricultural lands (including mature successional phase species) or the complete rebuilding of a coral reef (including mature successional phase species).

Restoration

• The term 'restoration' is in common usage and can be used singly and in combination with other words to convey an intent to return something to a prior condition (e.g. restoring a species, a population or a particular ecosystem function such as carbon sequestration). Single species restoration can be considered complementary and an important component of ecological restoration.