A team of American, French, Spanish and Swedish scientists have published a Paper revealing that "meta-analysis of 400 studies worldwide that document recovery from large-scale disturbances, such as oil spills, agriculture and logging, suggests that though ecosystems are progressing towards recovery following disturbances, they rarely recover completely".............Don't be fooled by the TV and Print commercials that polluting Firms put forward claiming that all is recovered after extraction and accident occurrences in and around their Operations...............Even well-intentioned and well funded restoration efforts of damaged sites fall short of a return to prior biodiversity levels............."Recovery rates slowed down with time since the disturbance ended, suggesting that the final stages of recovery are the most challenging to achieve"............The bottom line is large, core reserves of intact systems with connective bio-rich corridors to other large, core reserves of instact ecosystems are a must if we are to protect and optimize biodiversity both at home and around the world

https://phys.org/news/2018-02-ecosystems-nature.html

Study suggests active restoration of damaged ecosystems not always better than nature

February 28, 2018 by Bob Yirka, Phys.org

An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests human efforts to restore damaged ecosystems are not always better than simply letting nature take its course. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the group describes analyzing over 400 studies documenting ecosystem recovery efforts and reports their findings.

While we have to extract minerals to live a modern life,
Mining extraction sites are hard to fully reclaim

To balnce our impact on the land due to our need for minerals, 
timber and energy, large core reserves of natural areas interconnected
 by additional natural corridors are needed to optimize biodiversity

As humans have realized that natural areas on the planet are a limited resource, attempts have be made to repair the damage. Forests are replanted, for example, or dams are demolished—such efforts often include the reintroduction of plants and animals threatened by oil spills. But the researchers with this effort wanted to know, whether or not such efforts are better than simply allowing nature to take its course. To find out, they pored over papers and other documentation materials created by others who studied individual ecosystem recovery efforts.

The researchers conclude that ecosystem recovery efforts are a mixed bag—some do appear to restore areas to their natural states in a relatively short amount of time. But others seemed to do no better than nature—and some did not seem to succeed at all. Planting trees in areas where they have been cut down is clearly faster, they note, than letting seedlings find their way across vast stretches of barren land. But simply removing a dam may not be enough to return a river system to its prior state—in some cases, animals may have gone extinct, for example.


More examples of difficult to reclaim extraction sites as well
as a Rocky Mtn paradigm for optimizing biodiversity

The team also used data from the documentation to produce statistics on ecosystem recovery, such as the speed at which different types of systems recover. They found, for example, that on average, ecosystems recovery rates ran from 1 to 10 percent per year, and that marine systems and wetlands tended to recover faster than lakes and forests. They also noted multiple instances in which ecosystems never recovered completely.

The researchers conclude their analysis by suggesting that rather than dash in with a plan for ecosystem restoration, planners should take more time to study the unique areas they are dealing with and then decide if their efforts will reap the desired rewards.

More information: Holly P. Jones et al. Restoration and repair of Earth's damaged ecosystems, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2018). 

LINK: DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.2577

Restoration and repair of Earth's damaged ecosystems

Holly P. Jones, Peter C. Jones, Edward B. Barbier, Ryan C. Blackburn, Jose M. Rey Benayas, Karen D. Holl, Michelle McCrackin, Paula Meli, Daniel Montoya, David Moreno Mateos

Published 28 February 2018.

Abstract

Given that few ecosystems on the Earth have been unaffected by humans, restoring them holds great promise for stemming the biodiversity crisis and ensuring ecosystem services are provided to humanity. Nonetheless, few studies have documented the recovery of ecosystems globally or the rates at which ecosystems recover. Even fewer have addressed the added benefit of actively restoring ecosystems versus allowing them to recover without human intervention following the cessation of a disturbance. 

 Industrial sites are hard to reclaim,,,,,,,,,,,Florida map of open spaces
that if connected would lead to optimized biodiversity for this State

Our meta-analysis of 400 studies worldwide that document recovery from large-scale disturbances, such as oil spills, agriculture and logging, suggests that though ecosystems are progressing towards recovery following disturbances, they rarely recover completely. 

This result reinforces conservation of intact ecosystems as a key strategy for protecting biodiversity. Recovery rates slowed down with time since the disturbance ended, suggesting that the final stages of recovery are the most challenging to achieve.

 Active restoration did not result in faster or more complete recovery than simply ending the disturbances ecosystems face. Our results on the added benefit of restoration must be interpreted cautiously, because few studies directly compared different restoration actions in the same location after the same disturbance. The lack of consistent value added of active restoration following disturbance suggests that passive recovery should be considered as a first option; if recovery is slow, then active restoration actions should be better tailored to overcome specific obstacles to recovery and achieve restoration goals. We call for a more strategic investment of limited restoration resources into innovative collaborative efforts between scientists, local communities and practitioners to develop restoration techniques that are ecologically, economically and socially viable.