New paper: principles to guide innovation in ecological restoration
ESS Associate Professor Virginia Matzek has co-authored a new paper intended to set an agenda for innovative and emergent approaches to ecological restoration. Published as the introductory essay in a special issue of the flagship journal in the discipline, Restoration Ecology, the paper reviews and synthesizes new research on restoration approaches. It lays out five imperatives:
- ground the approach in ecological theory;
- take advantage of the latest technology and models;
- reject dogma;
- subject the analysis to critique;
- factor in the time, budget, and expertise constraints faced by stakeholders and restoration practitioners.
Matzek and co-authors Elise Gornish (University of Arizona) and Kris Hulvey (Utah State University), who also guest-edited the special issue, posit that by obeying these principles, new approaches will be directed to areas of greatest priority and will ultimately prove to be more cost-effective.
The paper is titled Emerging approaches to successful ecological restoration: five imperatives to guide innovation and the abstract can be found here.