Understanding the state of ecological restoration research in Canada
The scale of worldwide ecosystem degradation is massive: more than 75% of terrestrial lands have been severely altered by human actions, and one million species are at risk of extinction. Ecological restoration has the potential to address this crisis, but its implementation could be more effective.
Canada has played a significant role in ecological restoration research. Canadians developed the first national principles and guidelines for ecological restoration and the first international guidance for the World Commission on Protected Areas, but little is known about the state and character of restoration research in Canada.
As the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration begins, understanding the state of research can provide direction for further work on restoration. Using a strategic literature search, we catalogued and mapped published peer-reviewed ecological restoration papers in Canada in order to better understand the current state of knowledge and reveal future directions for research.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
This systematic scoping review focused on six questions about the large body of ecological restoration research in Canada: Who is studying restoration? What ecosystem types are studied? Where is restoration studied? Which themes has restoration research focused on? Why is restoration happening? And how is restoration monitored and evaluated?
Our results found that restoration research is primarily written by academics. The main ecosystem types studied were forest, peatland, grassland and lake ecosystems.
Most restoration research took place in four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, and British Columbia.
Research into restoration has followed several themes over time. Initially (1961–2005), restoration research in Canada was largely concerned with reforestation. As restoration began to develop as a major scientific field, ecological restoration itself became the dominant theme (2006–2012). Climate change is the most common theme in the research from the most recent time period (2013–2020).
Read the paper — Ecological restoration research in Canada: who, what, where, when, why, and how? by Tim Alamenciak, Dorian Pomezanski, Nancy Shackelford, Stephen D. Murphy, Steven J. Cooke, Line Rochefort, Sonia Voicescu, and Eric Higgs.
