Conference 2003
Greening the City:
Bringing Biodiversity Back
into the Urban Environment
Abstract:
Restoration's
Holy Grail - Synthesising Theory and Practice in the Development
of a Holistic Framework for Urban Restoration
Sarah Burke (School of Geography and Environmental Science, University
of Auckland)
Urban ecological restoration
involves reinstating and maintaining the ecosystem health of a site
within an urban environment and is often undertaken by volunteers
and enthusiasts from the local community. With scarce resources,
many of these restoration efforts depend upon the support and goodwill
of the people involved and participating non-government organisations.
Urban restoration serves to educate and provide communities with
a point of interaction with the natural world, thereby enabling
individuals to develop their own sense of value for nature.
However, restoration
practice has not always delivered successful results. This may
be due to the fact that restoration ecology lacks an ecologically
sound theoretical foundation from which to develop management practice.
This lack of fundamental guidance may have led to the current use
of non-standardised restoration techniques, variable results, and
an inability to progress in the field. In the development of a
theoretical basis for restoration ecology, some have suggested that
restoration practice could be used as an 'acid test' of ecological
theory. To date, little research has been done in this area.
Part of the problem appears
to lie in the fact that ecology itself lacks unifying theories,
clarity in definition of terminologies, and is further complicated
by non-standardised techniques in data collection and analysis.
If the development of
a theoretically sound approach to restoration ecology is possible,
a secondary problem would be making practical sense of this information
- developing practical restoration guidelines or principles that
can be communicated to and undertaken by restoration practitioners.
This presentation discusses
these issues in the context of developing a framework for ecological
restoration that finds synthesis between theory and practice. This
will be illustrated through the case example of GreenFleet - a sustainable
transport program that involves tree planting to offset carbon emissions.
New Zealand's commitment
towards ratification of the Kyoto Protocol will promote further
restoration initiatives driven by carbon-crediting objectives.
Therefore, in order to meet the growing demand for progressive and
successful restoration, a standardised framework is required that
recognises the importance of knowledge, the necessity of people's
active participation, and synergistic exchange between the two.
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