Goals for ecosystem management

At a national and international level, there is growing debate about what restoration means in a human-dominated age. How do we conceive of nature, how do we value it, and how do we restore it in a world of rapid change? I work with diverse collaborators to address these questions. I work with ecologists, ethicists, social scientists, practitioners and policy-makers to improve overarching frameworks for ecological management decisions. One aspect of global change is the rise of “novel” ecosystems – ecosystems that arise from human causes (e.g., climate change, species invasion) but are not under human control. An emerging principle is that management in novel ecosystems may be most successful by focusing on ecosystem services or species conservation rather than restoration per se. These collaborations are setting a groundwork to identify when traditional restoration, and when alternative strategies, are optimally applied.