tailieunhanh - Perlman - Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers and Citizens - Chapter 9

9 Restoration and Management Recall for a moment the imaginary transcontinental flight that we took at the beginning of Chapter 6. Viewing North America from the air quickly reveals that humans have changed the land dramatically across most of the continent. | 1 9 Restoration and Management Recall for a moment the imaginary transcontinental flight that we took at the beginning of Chapter 6. Viewing North America from the air quickly reveals that humans have changed the land dramatically across most of the continent in fact some regions have few or no remaining large blocks of intact habitat. Furthermore the land is dotted if not blanketed with sites in various states of degradation from intensively used agricultural lands to mining sites to urban brownfields. Many conservationists who once wrote off such human-influenced landscapes as lost causes now recognize the importance of trying to create healthier ecosystems from those that have been overused or abused. The process of improving and maintaining the health of ecosystems is the subject of this chapter. Just as there is no simple dichotomy between pristine and damaged ecosystems there is no single process that turns a damaged area into one that is again ecologically intact. Conservationists have proposed various terms to describe the improvement of sites but we will use just two restoration and reclamation. Restoration means returning an ecosystem to its original condition or state while reclamation focuses on the remediation of heavily damaged sites so that they can serve some useful purpose even if they are not brought all the way back to their original condition see Figure 9-1 . To illustrate these concepts we present case studies of two sites that lie at very different points on the continuum the copper mines of Butte Montana and the grasslands of Prairie Crossing in Grayslake Illinois. 170 APPLICATIONS Figure 9-1. Ecosystems range in condition from pristine to heavily damaged. The processes of reclamation and restoration move ecosystems toward the pristine end of the continuum. Heavily Damaged Prlst ne Reclamation ------------ Restoration --------------- Reclaiming Land after Mining in Butte Montana In Butte Montana underground and open-pit copper mines have .