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THE LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVE IN MITIGATING THE IMPACTS OF WETLAND HABITAT LOSS
Citation:
Kentula, M E. THE LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVE IN MITIGATING THE IMPACTS OF WETLAND HABITAT LOSS. Presented at British Ornithologists' Union Annual Conference, Kingston-upon-Hull, UK, March 22-24, 2002.
Description:
Ecological restoration is viewed as a way to mitigate the effects of land uses and, potentially, global change. Research to date has primarily focused on the scale of the individual, restoration project, while restoration at the landscape scale is just beginning to be considered. Tools designed for use at landscape scales are needed to assure that restoration efforts improve the condition of the wetland resource in a watershed or region and maintain biodiversity. In particular, an approach that can be used by managers to regularly quantify the condition of the wetland resource, and methods for siting and prioritizing restoration projects and for targeting management actions are required. Information on wetland condition is necessary to determine the effectiveness of restoration efforts and of management actions, in general. It is also needed to inform the process of choosing sites for restoration. Ecological performance is constrained by project location. Constraints that must be dealt with include the key hydrogeologic factors that cause specific wetland types to form and support their function, as well as the obstacles of locating and obtaining sites in a landscape undergoing transitions. Choice of sites is further complicated by the need to address habitat loss and fragmentation associated with the decline of many species, while not exacerbating the spread of alien and other pest species. To insure that management actions are repairing and replacing ecological functions of wetlands and are improving the status of the resource in an area, we must integrate restoration ecology and the principles of landscape ecology and inform the process with quantitative data on ecological condition.