With the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration well underway, one message is taking center stage - we need to restore biodiversity on our planet.
A new study, led by researchers in the Faculty of Environment, has uncovered details on Canada's ecological restoration practices. By synthesizing insights from 50 years of Canadian academic research, they identified which ecosystems are being studied, and where.
Canada is an established global leader in ecological restoration, having developed the first national principles and guidelines for ecological restoration and the first international guidance for the World Commission on Protected Areas. However, much restoration happens in silos and little is known about the collective ecological restoration practices across Canada.
As they analyzed the data, the research team found that the field is tightly tied with restoration solutions to degradation from resource extraction in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia while other parts of the country, like Northwest Territories, are overlooked by the literature. Additionally, forests and peatlands receive a lot of attention while marine, costal, river and tundra ecosystems are less studied.
The researchers believe that greater collaboration between academia and practitioners is necessary to unlock key insights into the geographic and ecosystem gaps they identified and will also help develop a holistic picture of restoration practices in the country.
"We believe reports and data by community groups, Indigenous peoples, nonprofits and governments represents the majority of restoration data whereas academic work represents a small piece of what's actually available," says Tim Alamenciak, PhD graduate in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability. "The issue is that community information is not easy to find."
