Restoration Overview:
THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE
Ecological Restoration
TO
Wally Covington
School of Forestry
and
The Ecological Restoration Institute
Northern Arizona University
The Least You Need to Know
(apologies to Alpha Books series)
► Greater
Ecosystems of the West are “going
to hell in a hand basket”
► Ecological restoration offers a way to restore
ecologic, economic, and social health
► It matters what treatments we choose
► Collaborative approaches are essential
Ecological restoration
presents us with an
opportunity to convert
a liability into an asset
for present and future
generations.
What does the Ecological
Restoration Institute do?
we are a service organization
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Knowledge discovery and synthesis
 Not just research in the traditional sense
 Collaborative research in service of management
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Knowledge transfer
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Not just academic publications
Practical documents, both printed and electronic
Not just teaching academic course work
Continuing education, both directed and self-directed
Knowledge application
 Work with practitioners on a broad range of projects
 Work with local to national policymakers
 Work with community based groups, private land owners,
Why is ecosystem restoration
relevant to national forest
management?
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The catastrophic fire seasons of ’74, ’77, ’80, 88,
‘94, ‘96, ‘00, and ‘02 have long been predicted.
Unprecedented forest insect and disease were also
predicted.
Lengthened fire seasons, increasing drought,
increasing urban: wildland interface conflicts long
predicted are now a reality.
Predicted loss of critical human and wildlife habitat
is occurring at an accelerating rate.
The trend will clearly continue.
There is a strong consensus that restoring forest
health is the best way to prevent further
What is ecosystem restoration?
► Ecosystem
restoration is not a fixed set of
procedures
► It is not a recipe for land management
► It is a broad intellectual and scientific framework
for developing beneficial human: wildland
interactions
► It consists not only of restoring ecosystems, but
also of developing human uses of wildlands
compatible with ecological integrity and ecosystem
sustainability
► But, ecosystem restoration is not a panacea
Definitions (SER Primer 2002)
► Ecological
restoration assists recovery of the
(evolutionary/ecological) trajectory of degraded
ecosystems
► Reference ecosystem (landscape)
► Active and passive restoration
► Monitoring and evaluation
► Restoration planning
► Ecological restoration and restoration ecology
► Integration of ecological restoration into larger
programs
Restoration planning
► Rationale for why restoration is needed
► Ecological description of sites to be restored
► Statement of goals and objectives
► Description of reference system
► How restoration sites will integrate with greater
landscape
► Explicit plans, schedules, and budgets, including
mid-course corrections (adaptive management)
► Performance standards, monitoring, and
evaluation (include control plot where feasible)
► Strategies for long-term maintenance
Crownfires are the latest in a
long series of symptoms of
declining ecosystem health.
► Loss
of herbaceous cover
► Increased erosion
► Irruption of tree populations
► Decline in water balance
► Loss of plant and animal diversity
► Loss of esthetic values
► Unnatural insect and disease epidemics
► Shift to catastrophic crownfires
2000 Pumpkin, Pipe, and Power fires
The time for quibbling over size of trees to be
thinned, WUI buffer distance, and what to do is over.
We should heal the patient, not
just treat the symptoms
► Ecosystem
restoration not only treats crownfire
symptoms, but also attacks the underlying causes
of ecosystem health decline.
► Thinning or burning alone are short-term
treatments that only temporarily relieve the
symptoms.
► The long-term solution is restoration of ecosystem
health.
This is a big problem--but we
can solve it
► Restoration
based approaches are proven at
a small scale (100+ ac) in a variety of
ecosystem types
► They must be tested and refined as we
apply them at large scales (10-50 thousand
ac) in an adaptive management approach
► Greater ecosystem (1-3 million acre)
assessments are essential for assuring that
restoration investments are strategic
What exactly is a greater ecosystem?
Greater ecosystems are a regional complex
of ecosystems with common landscape-level
characteristics linked by wide ranging
wildlife, landscape scale disturbance
regimes, and, yes, human communities as
keystone citizens among the community of
organisms.
We must think and act at a scale and pace
appropriate to the forest health crisis.
Without objective scientific
knowledge, treatment decisions are
dominated by ill informed
speculation, subjective judgment,
bias, and ideology.
What is needed are treatments
based on thorough knowledge,
reasoned analysis, and factual
evidence.
Reference Restoration
Treatment
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Retain trees which predate settlement
Retain postsettlement trees needed to reestablish presettlement structure
Thin and remove excess trees
Rake heavy fuels from base of trees
Burn to emulate natural disturbance
regime
Seed with natives/control exotics
Change Basic Prescription for
Specific Resource Objectives
► Might
leave more trees to accommodate
specific resource management objectives,
e.g., screening cover for human or wildlife
habitat goals, future wood harvesting,
favoring specific uses
► Might leave fewer trees to accommodate
other objectives, e.g., to favor viewsheds,
wildlife goals, grazing, water balance
Alternative Restoration
Prescriptions Produce Very
Different Outcomes
Full Restoration
Minimal Thinning
Burn Only
Predicted Fire Characteristics
for Plot 23
June 97th-percentile weather, 30 mph
replacement 1:1
1.5:1 3:1
6:1
ratio
trees/ac
47
70
141
282
surface surface passive active
fire type
% crown
0
20
69
100
btu/ft2
herbage
streamflow
491
856
6.7
673
571
6.6
1790
134
6.1
2331
112
4.8
61
34
27
scenic value 85
Comprehensive ecosystem restoration
approaches not only reduce crownfire
threat, but also improve forest health
and resource use opportunities for
present and future generations.
There is broad scientific, social and
political support for working with
natural tendencies in restoring the dry
forests of the Southwest
Where do we go from here?
► We
must all become conversant in the principles
and terminology of ecosystem health restoration
► We must educate stakeholders, including those
within our organizations
► We must move forward systematically and
resolutely to restore ecosystems before they
unravel beyond repair
► We must do this in the context of the larger social
and political natural resource issues
The Least You Need to Know
► Greater
Ecosystems of the West are “going
to hell in a hand basket”
► Ecological restoration offers a way to restore
ecologic, economic, and social health
► It matters what treatments we choose
► Collaborative approaches are essential