What follows is an overview of ecological restoration by Mark Krivchenia.
Mark explains what it is, what is looks like in the MOV, and why it is important.
What is Restoration Ecology?
- Ecological restoration is a new land management tool informed by science and our evolving understanding of our role as human beings as a part of nature.
In practice it is pretty simple:
- Remove invasive species (as much as possible).
- Restore the natural ecological processes in an ecosystem (as much as possible).
- Collect and sow native seeds to restore the native plants communities.
- In a natural areas, minimize human disturbance.
- It is a recent science—an applied branch of a the much broader field of Ecology. It has been evolving as a scientific discipline since the mid-twentieth century. It grew out of the growing environmental and conservation movements of its time. Aldo Leopold, and his Land Ethic, is considered one of its founding voices.
Ecological restoration understands the natural landscape as a combination of its history (evolution) and its natural community of plants and animals (ecology). It argues that restoration of native ecosystems cannot be simply utilitarian—i.e. useful for human beings—but that restoration is an acknowledgement that nature, other species, are ends in themselves, and have a right to exist even if they don’t perform some useful function to humans.
- Restoration ecology realizes that we human beings are a part of nature—part of the landscape. And that in restoring nature, we are trying to restore and rebuild our deep human connection to nature—through understanding it (learning about it) and addressing some of the significant harm we have done to it.
So let me paint you a picture of our regions geography, watersheds and ecosystems.
Geology:
Here in Marietta OH, and much of SE Ohio, and the western part of WV, we are living in the geological region designated as the “unglaciated Western Appalachian Plateau”. What I thought of as the “foothills of the Appalachian mountains” are in fact not mountains at all, but a raised up sea bed that was form when the Appalachian mountains—about 50 miles east of here–arose millions of years ago. All of the geography and topography in this region is formed by erosion of a raised up sea floor. And unlike further north and further west, the glaciers did not sculpture our landscape—although their melting waters certainly did.
Geography:
Watersheds: What is a watershed? It is the land drained by stream or river. It is in some way are natural boundary in a landscape. It is a nested concept. The creek that drains Washington State College of Ohio is a small watershed. It flows into the Muskingum river which is not small—the Muskingum river drains 1/3rd of Ohio! The Muskingum flows into the Ohio River, so we also live in the Ohio River Watershed. The Ohio River and Muskingum River watershed are highly modified by the dams that have been built on these waterways. This is important because one of the key principles of restoration ecology is to restore the natural processes (in this case the hydrology) to an ecosystem. Although removal of dams in happening across the U.S., this is not going to happen on these two rivers anytime soon.
Ecoystems:
An ecosystem is all the organisms in a given area as well as the physical environment in which they live e.g. soil, topography, climate, etc. All ecosystems are defined by their plant communities. Why is this? Probably because plants stay put—birds, insects, mammals don’t. So our planet Earth we have deserts, grasslands/prairies, savannas, woodlands, forests, and wetlands. The ecosystem of where we live, the Eastern Mesic Hardwood Forests, evolved upon this landscape for hundreds of thousands of years, moving with the ebb and flow of the glaciers. They covered the land from the Atlantic coast to the midwestern prairies. Native peoples have lived on this landscape for probably over 20,000 years. While they modified the landscape, they did not destroy the ecosystems on which they lived. That required European settlement—the ax and the plow.
And then we have the human created landscapes of agriculture fields and pastures—and ponds, places where forests have been cut down many generations ago when people tried to make a living farming in this region. And of course, we have our yards.
To do ecological restoration in natural areas here is really not too complicated.
First—we need to restore the natural processes to the ecosystem (to the extent we can). Stop mowing the ag fields, remove drainage tiles, minimize erosion from past roads, and human activities. In prairies and out west, fire is a natural process in restoration work. In the Eastern Hardwoods forests, it is not.
Next, we need to remove (to the extent we can) the invasive plants and animals that have taken over many of our ecosystems. This is no small task. Invasive plants such as Japanese knotweed, Japanese stilt grass, autumn olive, oriental honeysuckle (to name only a few) dominate our most disturbed natural areas.
Finally, most restoration work includes the collection and sowing of native seeds. (If you have a budget you can buy native seeds, but that is very expensive.) Until a disturbed ecosystem heals, it needs human assistance to become self sustaining. Many of the native pollinators of native plants are gone. So restoration practitioners collet native seeds in the spring, summer and fall to sow on the areas that they have cleared of invasive plants. For awhile, we are sort of the Johnnie Appleseed, of native plants! The goal is not to garden these natural areas. In the early years of restoration work you need to maintain the work you have done. However, longterm, the hope (and experience is) that once you remove the large human disturbances to an ecosystem, the native plants do just fine.
Natural Areas Restoration vs Human Created Ecosystems
So far, I have been talking about natural areas—public or private lands of some acreage—that are being restored. What about doing restoration on land that—technically—is not being restored to its native ecosystem. All the old meadows and ag field here, really want nothing more than to be forests. That is their natural trajectory. In Illinois, a pollinator habitat is called a prairie, and it is a native ecosystem. In southeast Ohio, a pollinator habitat is a human created ecosystem as is a farm pond. So are all of the power and gas lines Those are never going to be restored to forests?
Human beings don’t want just forest. They like a view. They like their electricity and gas.
When doing restoration in cities or yards, you try to follow the same guidelines, but you main target is to focus on increasing native biodiversity of plants to support the native populations of animals.
Restoring Nature, Building Community.
We have learned over this past 80 years that restoring nature, restores human beings as well. Making nature whole, helps to make us whole. I believe (this is a belief, not science) that doing work to restore nature (or grow your garden, or conserve a piece of land or water) are spiritual practices in the broadest sense of the word. Christian might call this stewardship of the earth. Native people have a worldview that does not distinguish between living and non-living parts of the world. It is all holy for them. Many folks find church in nature. It gives us a sense of awe, and wonder, and humility. When I organize restoration workdays in our restoration communities, I consider many of the things we do as rituals—we all introduce ourselves, we stop for snacks, we light a fire (if we are cutting invasives). We stop and observe a plant or insect—either to admire it or understand it.
If you combine folks who garden, bird-watch, hunt, fish, camp—you pretty much get most of Americans. Most of us love nature, because, well that’s really a part of who we are. While we all are not on the same page on all matters with regards how to manage nature, there is a huge, nonpartisan consensus that nature is important and needs our care.
When you combine the work of restoring nature with the building of community—at the Broughton Nature Preserve, at the Ohio River Islands—through the joint efforts of private landowners (like the Broughton Foundation), public lands owners (like the Fish and Wildlife Refuge) and volunteer stewards and citizens, you create something that can perhaps help to rescue our planet from the damage we have inflicted.
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