Transforming knowledge into action.

Restoration Ecology

26-Aug-2009 |

This weeks edition of Science (31 July 2009) has a large section on what it calls restoration ecology.

An interesting paper in the journal by Rey Benayas et al shows that while ecological restoration is unlikely to lead to the full recovery of the biodiversity and ecosystem services of undisturbed systems it nonetheless can, if well done, consistently enhances biodiversity and ecosystem services.

While this is a good selection of papers which takes seriously the relationship between “ecosystem complexity and economic reality” there is no real discussion of the way in which other values – such as social or cultural values – impact on the restoration of the environment. This is a real weakness that continues to be overlooked in work in this area – especially in the mining field. The problem seems to be that accounting for social and cultural values generally gets placed in the ‘too hard’ basket. It’s a real weakness of much environmental work at the moment which seems to account for human-environment interaction through the use of economic proxies – which while generally valid only account for a section of the ways in which human beings interact with the environment.