Restoring Resilient Ecosystems (RestREco)

Lead Research Organisation: UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY
Department Name: Biodiversity (Wallingford)

Abstract

There is a global biodiversity crisis driven by mounting pressures including land degradation and climate change. Within the UK, responses include the Government's 25 Year Environment Plan, which sets out a vision to secure a more biodiverse, connected and resilient landscape. The Natural Capital Committee has argued for the need to secure Net Environmental Gains, and this is a provision of the upcoming Environment Bill. A recent report from the UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology highlights the needs to secure our natural capital, not just to support biodiversity, but also ensure the provision of wider ecosystem services. Questions remain, however, as to how we achieve net environmental gain; what should go where? What does success look like? How long may it take to reassemble resilient communities that can reliably deliver ecosystem services?

One widely adopted approach to securing net environmental gain is that of "ecological restoration". However, using specific natural and semi-natural ecosystems to define endpoints is increasingly contested, as target "pristine" states are hard to define, climate change is leading to a shifting baseline, and there is a need to restore ecosystems that are resilient to future pressures. We need a new paradigm for goal-seeking in ecological restoration which goes beyond reference systems, is agnostic as to prior assumptions of intactness, integrity and system "health", based on diagnostics of characteristics of functionally intact systems.

There is an aspiration across the devolved administrations to deliver net environmental gain in biodiversity across all land uses. However, the restoration of ecological communities has been led by practitioners, with relatively little evidence gathered as to how individual restoration projects link together spatially to enhance the resilience of communities. This consortium brings together leading academic ecologists with a public sector organisation and a charity at the forefront of practical restoration activities, to extract the evidence from past activities through a natural experiment, and test resilience through manipulations.

We intend to measure biodiversity, architecture and multifunctionality in ecosystems in different stages of transition from a degraded state, identify determinants and measures of complexity, and seek signals of emergent properties - especially resilience to perturbation. We have chosen grasslands and woodlands, being two major habitat types targeted for restoration programmes. Further to this we shall explore how approaches to accelerating re-integration of systems may affect emergent properties.

In summary, we propose to move restoration science forward, but considering complexity and resilience as fundamental aims for restoration projects, rather than attempting to re-create specific target ecosystems.
 
Description Big Chalk 
Organisation Cotswolds AONB
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Invited to be a partner in the Big Chalk partnership of the Chalk and Limestone based Protected Landscapes of southern England. Involved in steering group and in application to the NEIRF fund
Collaborator Contribution Advice on working, help with NEIRF propsal
Impact Ongoing collaboration for management & planning actions
Start Year 2023
 
Description Aberdeen & District Beekeepers Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Dingwall & District Beekeepers Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
 
Description Exploring the carbon sequestration potential of rewilding in the UK 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Policy practitioners, non-governmental organisations, and academics discussed current practices and future developments in monitoring landscape regeneration and whether the spectrum of benefits provided by rewilding is being captured and reported in a standardised manner so that policymakers have an accurate understanding of the benefits of rewilded landscapes including how much land is transitioning and where this is occurring
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/exploring-the-carbon-sequestration-potential-of-...
 
Description Future Challenges meeting Natural England 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Convening partners to consider the science to support transformative change for the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, led by NE
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/science-of-nature-recovery-future-challenges-tickets-681710242687
 
Description Inverness-shire Beekeepers Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description National Trust Advisory Groups Conference, Birmingham 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact PI Harris was asked to present a brief "provocation" to National Trust Staff, Volunteers and Supporters to challenge thinking about conservation activities within the Trust Regarding conservation and restoration in the face of climate change.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Nettlebed Farmers Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of farmers on the role of restoration in the context of supporting pollination services and approaches for integrating this into farming systems.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
 
Description Rewilding metrics advisory group - Rewilding Britain 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact To detail and agree a Rewilding Monitoring Framework to provide a standardised data collection model for rewilding that is pragmatic and accessible
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description South Chilterns BKA 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Talk at Natural England conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Invited presentation on nature recovery at the Natural England conference "The Science of Nature Recovery"
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://naturalengland.sym-online.com/registrationforms/nesc/closed.htm
 
Description Talk to Oxford University AGLE Initiative stakeholder goup 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Talk to AGILE Sprint on Nature based Solutions on how to assess biodiversity outcomes, to inform their monitoring framework
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Talk to Suffolk Naturalists Trust Rewilding meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Talk on reconciling restoration with rewilding to a broad audience of conservation practitioners
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Thematic session "Is complexity important for ecosystem restoration" within the British Ecological Society conference, 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Members of the RestREco team proposed the thematic session for the 2022 BES conference, and this was selected. Summary of the session: This thematic session will bring together practitioners, academics and policy for a suite of talks on landscape restoration, unified by the overarching vision of the decreasing importance of past baselines and the shift to a paradigm of ecological complexity as a future baseline.

Nb - a key audience for this event was academics, but this is not listed as an option above
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description West Sussex Beekeepers' Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description o Cambridge Beekeepers Association 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Education of citizen scientists on the role of restoration in the preservation of pollinator communities and its impacts on landscape scale resource provision and population persistence
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023