Relationship of Restoration to Related Fields

Effective ecological restoration is one of a number of strategie initiatives that are urgently needed to counter and, if possible, reverse the accelerating deterioration of the biosphere and its wealth of natural resources on which all people, and all life on the planet, depend. There are many forms of actions—and associated professions—that have, at times, been conflated with ecological restoration. Insofar as they address environmental and ecological concerns, many of them are indeed related to restoration, but there is also a blurring and fuzziness at times. Cleaning up an oil spill, in and of itself, is not restoration; it is the elimination of toxic pollution. Planting turf grasses on a retired mine site or closed landfill may provide an attractive lawn or meadow, but it is not restoration. Proposed efforts to slow anthropogenic global warming through geoengineering of the atmosphere and oceans are also not ecological restoration but rather high-risk gambles we can all do without.