Restoring Natural Ecosystems

摘要

One of the challenges with the implementation side of ecological restoration is trying to get arborists who like to climb to get down in the mud and thorns to cut underbrush It takes a lot of education, with clients, neighbors, and our crews as to theimportance of doing proper restoration. There is a lot that goes into a proper ecological restoration - before you start the chain saws and start cutting brush. First, we need to find a site that was originally a defined, recognizable ecosystem. We lookfor woodlands, savannas, wetlands, prairies and riparian (creek or a stream bed) ecosystems. Each of these will be restored in a different manner In the Midwest, many oak savannas have been degraded by a plant called buckthorn. We have a lot of challenges with it. It does not allow the oak savannas to regenerate because light isn't getting to the ground. There is no vegetation at the ground layer, so when it rains all the water is going to go across and silt down the tree. It doesn't percolate in as it would with a natural ecosystem.