gemfyre | That essay

Environmental Restoration – A Waste Of Time?

The practice of environmental restoration is becoming increasingly common. Many companies whose practices destroy ecology are now legally obliged to restore the ecosystem, some also carry out restoration for public image purposes. Many community groups and councils are also involved in small scale restoration activities local areas, to help return the area to its original state and so the public is able to visit natural ecosystems nearby.

Ecosystems require restoration because they have become degraded in some way due to human activity. These activities may include mining, clearing for crops or logging. All of these activities take something from the land that will not be replaced (it’s no good to extract bauxite from the ground if you are just going to replace it to restore the area), therefore, essentially restoration can never return an ecosystem to its original state. Some argue that due to this restoration is a worthless pursuit because it can never achieve a fully restored ecosystem.

This viewpoint however is somewhat ignorant. A good restoration project sets out reasonable goals early on and then achieves them. Although it is an ideal to bring a system back to what it was before it was degraded, in reality this is almost always impossible so the best that can be done is done.

This view is understandable from some perspectives. After many years the ecosystem will restore itself whether or not we assist. Our “quick fix” restoration reintroduces plants and animals and may repair some underlying processes, but essentially something has been removed from the system that is irreplaceable because it was removed for human use and is not intended to be replaced. Some of the time the product that has been removed is found to not be essential to an ecosystem anyway, such as bauxite mined in jarrah forests on the Darling Scarp. Research shows that this mining and subsequent restoration may have the useful effect of destroying the Phytophthora fungus that causes dieback (Alcoa, 2004). In this case restoration helps to improve the existing landscape (while producing products for human use as well) by getting rid of previous degrading processes.

How much a restored system is “improved” on its previous outlay is subject to value judgment. Currently there is much controversy over the logging of the Ludlow tuart forest to extract mineral sands from the underlying soil. This area houses the last stand of tall tuart trees – these trees grow tall and straight, unlike the majority of tuart trees which are shorter and more branched. The forest is currently degraded and Cable Sands, the company carrying out the mining claim that their restoration work after the mining will improve the landscape (Colliver, 2001). It will take hundreds of years for the tuarts to return to their former state as full grown trees and it is to be seen if the system is improved by restoration work. However, the research and technology that goes into the project can be used as information towards planning other restoration projects elsewhere.

Whether left to its own devices or restored by humans, the ecosystem that arises after the disturbance will probably not be exactly the same as it was beforehand. The landscape may even be improved by restoration work. But we have no way of knowing the environment would not have changed naturally anyway over the years it takes for a system to be restored.

Restoration like activities are not new. Hundreds if not thousands of years ago farmers rotated crops so the land could recover between plantings and to reduce weeds and incidence of disease (Core4, 2004). The goal of this simple activity was to increase yields. Nowadays we are aware of the inherent value of natural ecosystems and seek to restore them for their own sake, rather than so they can produce more material for human use.

Restoration is carried out by three main groups. Large mining or logging organizations are often legally obliged to carry out restoration work in Australia. This restoration work also results in good public relations for the company – thus increasing their customer base – people prefer to use the services of an organization that presents itself as being environmentally aware. Farmers carry out restoration on land that has become useless for growing crops or livestock, or to ensure that the land does not get to such a degraded state. Many farmers are now planting large areas of trees to assist in the reduction of salinity, which renders the land useless (Hobbs, 2000). Community groups interested in improving natural local bushland also participate in restoration work.

The restoration carried out by large companies under legal obligation is inevitably superior to that carried out by farmer or community groups who possess less money. These companies are required by law to restore the ecosystem after mining to an appropriate state and they subsequently budget a lot of money towards these goals. The large provision of money and resources allows underlying processes to be restored as well the covering plants and animals, therefore resulting in a higher quality restored system that is likely to maintain its condition in the long term. These sits are also closely monitored and assisted to ensure they recover effectively.

Farm restoration has previously been a rather half-hearted effort. Areas of woodland were fenced off to deter grazing and allowed to regrow naturally. However it has been found that underlying processes prevent the system from restoring itself effectively and more work must be done to improve the systems. Now many farmers plant large tracts of trees to assist in lowering the water table and rip the compacted soil to allow for native herbs and shrubs to grow. Weeding and removal of introduced grazers such as rabbits also needs to be done. It is found that the areas receiving this more intensive treatment grow back a lot healthier and naturally deter weeds because native species grow in spaces where weeds used to grow (Dilworth et. al, 2000).

Community groups that rely on government grants, fundraising and volunteers are unable to carry out such comprehensive restoration work. Grants are often given with stipulations on their usage and even time limits of when the money must be used by. Most community restoration involves removal of weeds and planting of native species. Underlying processes cannot be addressed due to lack of research, time and money. Despite its shortcomings, even small scale restoration such as this has value. Community involvement inevitably makes people care more about the environment around them, which in turn encourages the larger organization - which regular people patronize - to participate in restoration activities as well.

All restoration efforts result in new information becoming available for future projects. To restore effectively surveys of the area and similar close by areas must be conducted so appropriate goals can be set as to which processes need to be repaired and which species need to me reintroduced (along with information on what order and in which locations the species should be planted). Subsequent monitoring of restored sites also produced invaluable information for future projects. Some restoration may be less successful or merely a case of trial and error, but it all results in us learning about how to go about restoration in more and more successful ways.

Goals must be set so that they are effective and achievable within the resources of the group carrying out the restoration. As long as the goals meet these criteria, restoration does meet its goals (Hobbs, 2001). It is ignorant to expect that an ecosystem can become exactly the same as it once was, but restoring is certainly preferable to leaving behind a wasteland that may or may not naturally restore eventually.

Restoration has its place in areas which have already been destroyed. But it should never be used as an excuse to destroy existing ecosystems. Conservation efforts are still necessary because they are the only way to preserve biodiversity of the planet. Science has not yet been able to catalogue every organism in any given ecosystems, so we have no way of knowing precisely what needs to be returned to properly restore the system. It is supposed that possibly millions of organisms go extinct every year that we do not even know existed in the first place. Both conservation and restoration are essential for the environment to remain healthy and be able to heal itself.

Indeed, if restoration is expected to return an ecosystem to its previous then true restoration is impossible. However, the goal of restoration is to return to the land to as close to its original state as possible. It is certainly not a waste of time, money and effort as it is certainly preferable to leaving used land be, where it may eventually return to its original state (within hundreds of years) or become a desert where nothing survives due to environmental problems and lack of suitable conditions to sustain an ecosystem.

REFERENCES

Alcoa Inc., 2004. Pinjarra Refinery Efficiency Upgrade Project – Mining Overview, accessed 16 September 2004 URL - http://www.alcoa.com/australia/en/info_page/PUREEnviro_Mining.asp

Colliver, R (2001), Impacts of Proposed Cable Sands Mine, accessed 14 September 2004 URL - http://www.cablesands.com.au/docmgr/filebase/Ludlow%20Project/Reports/environmental.impacts.pdf

Core4, 2004. Crop Rotation, accessed 24 September 2004 URL - http://www.ctic.purdue.edu/Core4/CT/Choices/Choice6.html

Dilworth, R., Gowdie, T. & Rowley, T. (2000) Living Landscapes: the Future Landscapes of the Western Australian Wheatbelt? Ecological Management and Restoration, 1, 165-174

Hobbs, R.J. & Harris, J.A. (2001) Restoration Ecology: Repairing the Earth’s Ecosystems in the New Millennium. Restoration Ecology 9

Hobbs, R.J. (2000) Repair Vs. Despair: Hope and Reality in Ecological Management and Restoration, Ecological Management and Restoration, 1, 1-2

Information provided by unit (Bibra Lake field trip)

Now I scuttle off to play games and such.