Past, Present, Future

The Past

We live in a fractured world. Old biotic patterns and relationships have changed with the growth of human activities and their consequences. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has always accompanied the activities of our populations. Here, in North America, since the first people crossed over from Asia, plant and animal communities and ecosystem processes have been modified, sometimes dramatically, for thousands of years (Krech 1999). More recently, the past few hundred years have shown an escalating rate of change of our living environment (Whitney 1994). Signs of human modifications to ecological structure and function are everywhere around us, from the landscape fragmentation of once continuous habitats (Forman 1995), to the changes in the diversity of species that surround us (Sax et al. 2005), to the more subtle signs of past human uses in the woodlots and farms of our countryside and suburbs (Egan and Howell 2001, Wessels 2010).

These changes are accelerating with the rapid growth of the human population, urbanization of these populations throughout the world, and the continuing spread of suburbs around large cities. Other drivers of this change are our frantic travels, now faster, cheaper, and more frequent than in the past. As we move about the globe, we facilitate the movement of many species of plants, insects, and marine invertebrates that modify our habitats and tend to eliminate more species than are being introduced.

A fundamental goal of restoration ecology is to identify, as best we can, past patterns of ecological structure and to determine the appropriate and pragmatic target, even in the many cases when the old patterns are impossible to reiterate.

The Present

We are all surrounded by a new biota, different species and in different community relationships from those seen in the past. This is been called a “synthetic vegetation” (Bridgewater 1990), containing elements of the past but with new species that together function in ways that are just now being described (Hobbs et al. 2009). These strange new communities and the remnants of the old both support our civilization in many ways. Sustainable habitats can supply better air and water quality and the diversity that supports agricultural success and other commercial enterprises. It is unclear how “synthetic vegetation” performs, although all carbon sequestration is treasured in these days. These functions now have an appreciative audience for what are termed ecological services. This is now playing a major role in tying the science of ecology to economic concerns and public policy initiatives (Daily 1997). Nature is all around us, but in addition to its cultural values, it is needed, and is appreciated in new ways. For example, our urban planners increasingly seek ecological solutions to improve conditions in our city centers. Even the United States Forest Service, traditionally focused on our wild lands, has a strong urban forestry interest. Long-practiced restoration in rural areas increasingly has a city cousin.

In these ways the practice of restoration ecology is growing and being seen as more important to all landscapes. Our discipline is based in nature study, environmental management, and the traditional concerns of ecological science. But it is now overlapping with other disciplines and other professional groups. Initiatives in restoration ecology are happening at the large-scale, such as the Everglades and the Gulf Coast of the United States, and also at the small local scale such as in community gardens and in town woodlots.

The founder of this journal, Bill Jordan, had the vision to see that restoration ecology was not just another level of organization within biology, but something much grander (Jordan et al. 1987). His influence and perspective molded the mission of this journal and continues to make its contents much different from our partner journals in ecological science. Any issue of this journal as well as the proceedings of the annual meetings of the Society for Ecological Restoration International shows that the interests of practitioners, though often based in ecology, involve so many other concerns. These range from community organizing, to reordering local government concerns, to the preferred genetic structure of restored populations, and the management of newly created natural communities. This field is inclusive of disciplines...