TY - JOUR

T1 - Step back from the forest and step up to the Bonn Challenge

T2 - How a broad ecological perspective can promote successful landscape restoration

AU - Temperton, Victoria Martine

AU - Buchmann, Nina

AU - Buisson, Elise

AU - Durigan, Giselda

AU - Kazmierczak, Lukasz

AU - Perring, Michael P.

AU - de Sá Dechoum, Michele

AU - Veldman, Joseph W.

AU - Overbeck, Gerhard E.

N1 - Funding Information: We thank Benjamin Delory for commenting on the manuscript and colleagues at Leuphana University for constructive discussions about the topic. Funding was provided by a number of different funding bodies: V.M.T.’s professorship is funded by the State of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen (VW) Foundation. Sessions at the Society for Ecological Restoration’s World Conference in Foz do Iguassu, Brazil, in 2017, provided the inspiration for this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: © 2019 The Authors. Restoration Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society for Ecological Restoration.

PY - 2019/7/1

Y1 - 2019/7/1

N2 - We currently face both an extinction and a biome crisis embedded in a changing climate. Many biodiverse ecosystems are being lost at far higher rates than they are being protected or ecologically restored. At the same time, natural climate solutions offer opportunities to restore biodiversity while mitigating climate change. The Bonn Challenge is a U.N. programme to restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change through restoration of the world's degraded landscapes. It provides an unprecedented chance for ecological restoration to become a linchpin tool for addressing many environmental issues. Unfortunately, the Forest and Landscape Restoration programme that underpins the Bonn Challenge, as its name suggests, remains focused on trees and forests, despite rising evidence that many non‐forest ecosystems also offer strong restoration potential for biodiversity and climate mitigation. We see a need for restoration to step back to be more inclusive of different ecosystem types and to step up to provide integrated scientific knowledge to inform large‐scale restoration. Stepping back and up will require assessments of where to restore what species, with recognition that in many landscapes multiple habitat types should be restored. In the process, trade‐offs in the delivery of different ecosystem services (e.g. carbon, biodiversity, water, albedo, livestock forage) should be clearly addressed. We recommend that biodiversity safeguards be included in policy and implemented in practice, to avoid undermining the biophysical relationships that provide ecosystem resilience to climate change. For ecological restoration to contribute to international policy goals will require integrated large‐scale science that works across biome boundaries.

AB - We currently face both an extinction and a biome crisis embedded in a changing climate. Many biodiverse ecosystems are being lost at far higher rates than they are being protected or ecologically restored. At the same time, natural climate solutions offer opportunities to restore biodiversity while mitigating climate change. The Bonn Challenge is a U.N. programme to restore biodiversity and mitigate climate change through restoration of the world's degraded landscapes. It provides an unprecedented chance for ecological restoration to become a linchpin tool for addressing many environmental issues. Unfortunately, the Forest and Landscape Restoration programme that underpins the Bonn Challenge, as its name suggests, remains focused on trees and forests, despite rising evidence that many non‐forest ecosystems also offer strong restoration potential for biodiversity and climate mitigation. We see a need for restoration to step back to be more inclusive of different ecosystem types and to step up to provide integrated scientific knowledge to inform large‐scale restoration. Stepping back and up will require assessments of where to restore what species, with recognition that in many landscapes multiple habitat types should be restored. In the process, trade‐offs in the delivery of different ecosystem services (e.g. carbon, biodiversity, water, albedo, livestock forage) should be clearly addressed. We recommend that biodiversity safeguards be included in policy and implemented in practice, to avoid undermining the biophysical relationships that provide ecosystem resilience to climate change. For ecological restoration to contribute to international policy goals will require integrated large‐scale science that works across biome boundaries.

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - Anthropozän

KW - Biodiversität

KW - Kohlenstoffspeicherung

KW - Ökosystemdienstleistungen

KW - Renaturierungsökologie

KW - Nachhaltigkeit

KW - Stakeholders

KW - Anthropocene

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Carbon storage

KW - Ecological restoration

KW - Ecosystem service

KW - Multifunctional landscapes

KW - Restoration ecology

KW - Sustainability

KW - Stakeholders

KW - Biology

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068765295&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/rec.12989

DO - 10.1111/rec.12989

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 27

SP - 705

EP - 719

JO - Restoration Ecology

JF - Restoration Ecology

SN - 1061-2971

IS - 4

ER -