Context: Our natural ecosystems need restoration beyond conservation and significant steps have been made in both the science and practice of restoration over the last three decades.
About Ecosystem degradation

• It is one of the biggest environmental threatsas  almost all our ecosystems, terrestrial or otherwise, stand degraded to varying degrees due to a mix of factors such as developmental pressures, population growth, over-exploitation, etc.
• Other factors such as invasive alien species and climate change also impact many ecosystems.
• Degradation has serious implicationsfor human well-being and economic sustainability.  Degradation of natural ecosystems in the Western Ghats poses a direct threat to water security, and in turn, to livelihoods of millions of people in the plains.
• We are in a situation where conservation is not enough as Mangroves along our coastline are severely impaired and need intervention and many protected areas like national parks stand ecologically unprotected due to invasion by species such as Lantana camara.

About Ecological restoration

• Ecological restoration is defined as “the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged or destroyed”.
• Objective of restoration: Itis done through a scientific process of benchmarking with reference models from the same native ecosystem in order to achieve an ecosystem to recover to its pre-degradation trajectory.
• Ecosystem integrity: It forms the foundation of ecological restoration and covers both biotic and abiotic aspects.
• All elements of an ecosystem such as soil, hydrology, flora, fauna, etc are given importance in restoration. This makes restoration different from other rehabilitationapproaches such as afforestation and reforestation, which mainly focus on planting of saplings of a few tree species.

Growth of the restoration discipline

• Restoration methodologieshave been developed worldwide for different degradation scenarios including for extreme ones like landslides, mining, forest fires, etc.
• The publication of the standards for the practice of ecological restoration by the Society for Ecological Restoration, the leading global body for the discipline has been important for the discipline.
• Itincludes leading-edge monitoring methods to measure the ecological as well as social outcomes of restoration initiatives.
• These standards provide the core principles and framework for restoration.
• Ecological restoration has been placed at the forefront of the world’s biodiversity and climate change agendas by The Bonn Challenge declaration and the United Nations declaration of 2021-30 as the ‘Decade of Ecosystem Restoration’.
• Climate change programmes should embrace restoration principles so that biodiversity goals are achieved simultaneously.

Road Ahead

• The need for restoration is considerable and urgent in India where most initiatives are small and site-specific. It is still a developing discipline in the country.
• For example, most forests lying outside protected areas have been degraded due to high human pressure. Our protected areas, in turn, are affected by factors like invasive alien species.
• India has a target of restoring 26 million hectares of degraded lands by 2030.
• A large number of well-trained restoration practitioners would be required to achieve this goal and there is a need for separate mechanisms to train field-level personnel who will be handling implementation and monitoring of programmes.
• Projects should adhere to the core principles of restoration. The international standards can help in this regard, with suitable adaptation for Indian conditions.
• Sustained funding and focus is required as the restoration project lasts well over five-six years.